"
Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?" - Shakespeare, Richard II, Act V, scenes iv-vi
That quote and its implications, interpreting the question of an influential person as a suggestion to commit violence on his behalf, comes to mind reading conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg's October 30th column,
"Why is Assange still alive?" Once past the provocative title, Goldberg doesn't actually call for Assange's assassination as much as ponder "
why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago", for his Wikileaks revelations detailing the incompetence, lies, brutality, and possible criminality of America's wars of choice in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and possibly soon Iran. For Goldberg, its OK that we've created millions of casualties and refugees in senseless wars, but God forbid someone actually try to reveal the extent of our depravity in the Middle East.
The rest of the column offers nothing of substance but we do learn Goldberg charaterizes Assange as a
hipster Australian web guru and that assassinating him might not be wise because making him a "
greasy stain on the Autobahn" would not work "
given the nature of the Web" and that it would cause "
massive controversy" because Assange is not a "
Muslim terrorist".
For a man who never met a criminal war of choice he didn't love, and helped grease US public opinion and embolden the Bush administration to launce their endless and bankrupting criminal wars, it's no wonder Goldberg is frustrated that Assange hasn't yet been whacked.
If they ever create a second Mount Rushmore for criminal war whistle-blowers, Assange and Pentagon Papers hero Daniel Ellsberg will be the first two blasted...not from life, but onto the mountain honoring them. And Goldberg? He'll join fellow criminal war lover pundits Tom Friedman and Bill Kristol in the Criminal War Cheerleader Hall of Shame.
