Trib Assange editorial ignores the big picture

Without context, the Trib's editorial 'An eviction notice for Wikileaks Julian Assange, and a date with justice' does a great dis-service to Trib readership. While factual, the editorial ignores the implications and motivations behind both Chelsea Manning's theft of classified military documents and Assange's publication (and possible assistance to the theft) which revealed US war crimes in Iraq. To ignore those implications and motivations is to bury the Assange story as a simple one of a renegade foreign national who assisted a treasonous US soldier. Not a word of the sordid facts of US mendacity in the Middle East, courtesy of Manning and Assange, is presented to give readers a frame upon which to judge the morality of their actions, regardless of technical law violations. Yet, the Trib sees fit to participate in long standing US government degradation of Assange as a disgusting human being. We're told of his alleged "discourteous and aggressive' behavior" including quoting Ecuadorian embassy officials "that he needed to do a better job cleaning up after his cat". That doesn't add value to a thoughtful, reasoned discussion of Assange's motivation and contribution to understanding US war crimes in the Middle East. If in WWII, news came of a German intelligence analyst passing sensitive documents of Nazi war crimes to a Julian Assange of that era, the Trib would most certainly hail both as heroes. Manning served seven years in prison, the first two under conditions described as torture, for NOT following orders to keep US war crimes secret. Assange has been imprisoned just as long in Ecuador's London embassy, before Ecuador caved to US and British pressure to toss him out to face likely imprisonment in the US for aiding Manning's noble, patriotic conduct. The Trib should ignore Assange's alleged cat messes...and keep an eye on their own.