Thoughts on WikiLeaks

Once again, WikiLeaks is back in the news. You know, the organization that specializes in leaking stolen classified documents to a eagerly complicit press, endangering the lives of thousands of Americans and American allies.

On the Washington Post website, Marc Thiessen blasts the Obama Justice Department for taking no action to shut down WikiLeaks and prosecute its founder Julian Assange. I guess they're too busy suing Arizona for enforcing federal immigration law to bother with threats to our national security.

Over at National Review, Andrew McCarthy notes the irresponsibility of The New York Times and other media sources and also addresses the constitutional questions of free speech and the "right to know."

Also at National Review, Rich Lowry notes the raw anti-Americanism of WikiLeaks and discusses how Obama's election has done nothing to appease these America-haters, contrary to fashionable liberal opinion.

Peter Wehner from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog notes that the confidential, private conversations of Arab leaders leaked in these documents demonstrates that most of them recognize the grave threat that Iran poses to the world -- a threat that cannot be defeated through appeasement. It's a sad day when the Arab world is more hawkish against Iran than much of the American left (and the current administration).

And then of course there are the liberals, who simply can't seem to get too upset over these leaks, no matter how many lives are endangered or no matter how much our international relations are damaged, as long as our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are hindered and Bush is made to look bad. Enter Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, who manages to allow that he doesn't "much like" what WikiLeaks has done before spending the rest of the column exulting in how the leaks supposedly embarrass Bush and make the war in Iraq look bad. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that liberals like Cohen are happy to see America embarrassed and defeated for the sake of their ideology.

Assange and the Army private responsible for leaking many of these documents, Bradley Manning, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I don't even think the death penalty is too extreme, given the fact that these treasonous leaks have (and will) doubtless cost American lives. Also, the Justice Department should determine how these leaks were able to happen in the first place. Whoever was responsible for the lax security of such important confidential documents should lose their job, and new measures should be put in place to prevent this from happening in the future. Our government must send a clear message that such leaks will not be tolerated, if we expect other countries to trust us and continue to cooperate with us in the future.