Y'know, I think danielbmarkham is wrong to call for the use of lethal force against wikileaks, but I think that his point deserves a counterargument, not just s

Y'know, I think danielbmarkham is wrong to call for the use of lethal force against wikileaks, but I think that his point deserves a counterargument, not just some outraged huffing and puffing. So Daniel, here's why I think you're wrong. Firstly, you're justifying this on the basis that what Wikileaks is doing is analogous to war against the US. But it's really only analogous to it, it's not an actual war. Nobody has been killed in this "war" yet, and I really don't see a reason to start. Secondly, it would set a bad precedent. By all means we can assassinate Osama bin Laden, but if you scale that back to Julian Assange then who else can we justify assassinating? There's all sorts of individuals making weakly-analogous and ineffectual "war" upon the US Government from various extremal points on the political spectrum. Thirdly, it's unnecessary. Even in an actual war, we prefer to capture rather than to kill unarmed men where possible. If Assange has broken US law then there's a perfectly reasonable set of procedures we can go through in order to put him on trial. Fourthly, it would just be a public relations disaster for the US, in ways that I don't feel the need to explain. In conclusion, Daniel, I know you were being hyperbolic with the kill-Assange thing, but I think you'll agree that under careful consideration of the options that it's probably not the best option.