I'd like to ask a simple question: Why isn't Julian Assange dead?

In case you didn't know, Assange is the Australian computer programmer behind WikiLeaks, a massive — and massively successful — effort to disclose secret or classified information. In a series of recent dumps, he unveiled thousands upon thousands of classified documents from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military and other government officials insist that WikiLeaks is doing serious damage to American national security and is going to get people killed, including brave Iraqis and Afghans who've risked their lives and the lives of their families to help us.

Even Assange agrees. He told the New Yorker earlier this year that he fully understands innocent people might die as a result of the "collateral damage" of his work and that WikiLeaks may have "blood on our hands." WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and well-publicized breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb.

So again, I ask: Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?

It's a serious question.

In almost every corner of the popular culture, there are people who assume incredible competence on the part of our intelligence agencies. We take it as a given that spooks can, in the immortal words of Elvis, take care of business in a flash. In the Jason Bourne movies, say the wrong word into your cell phone, and assassins will find you at the train station in minutes. In "Rubicon," if you pay too close attention to crossword puzzles, your train will be "accidentally" derailed. In "Three Days of the Condor," if you ask your bosses the wrong question, a postman with an ice-bullet-shooting machine gun will pay you a visit.

Of course, that's just Hollywood. But if you read left-wing accounts of the intelligence community, two versions dominate. The CIA and similar outfits are either evil and incompetent, or evil and supercompetent. Sometimes the folks at The Nation will mock the CIA for trying to blow up Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar. Other times some Oliver Stone type will insist that the military, or the CIA, or the National Security Agency or rogue elements from those quarters, managed to assassinate John F. Kennedy and pin it on a Marxist dupe named Lee Harvey Oswald.

Under either scenario, you'd think Assange, super-whistle-blower of the international left, would be a greasy stain on the Autobahn already.

It's not just nation-states that are threatened by WikiLeaks. These guys spend much of their time going after big corporations that, we're often told — at least by Hollywood and the people who e-mail me in ALL CAPS — routinely rub out gadflies and whistle-blowers who try to let the world know the electric car was perfected in 1920, or that milk companies are making millions by poisoning their customers (that was the actual plot of "I Love Trouble," by the way).

I know there are many solid answers to my question. For starters, the world isn't nearly so dramatic as novelists, bloggers, self-important journalists and nostalgic former spies (the latter would be me) often claim it is. The main reason the U.S. government didn't bring down the World Trade Center on 9/11 is that no one has the ability to pull off a conspiracy like that. And the people who come closest — i.e., those very same spies — are too decent and patriotic even to imagine trying.

Indeed, most of the documents from WikiLeaks debunk the vast majority of conspiracy theories that fueled so much idiocy on the left for the last decade. No sinister plots involving Halliburton or Israel have been exposed — because they only existed in the fevered fantasies of some coffee-shop dissidents.

Second, Assange is essentially hiding behind his celebrity and the fact that it wouldn't do any good to kill him, given the nature of the Web. Even if the CIA wanted to take him out, they couldn't without massive controversy. That's because assassinating a hipster Australian Web guru as opposed to a Muslim terrorist is the kind of controversy no official dares invite.

That's fine. And it's the law. I don't expect the U.S. government to kill Assange, but I do expect them to try to stop him. As of now, the plan seems to be to do nothing at all.

Tribune Media Services

Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

jonahscolumn@aol.com

Speaking as a nostalgic former spy intelligence officer and reader of fiction and non-fiction pertaining to my former profession, I AM a little disappointed that Assange has not been "terminated" or had an unusual demise yet.

I'm also very angry that he is being allowed to continue releasing classified information, which is damaging in itself, but also gives away or leads to identification of our "sources".

There is a sacred bond between an intelligence officer and his human sources. Many of our intelligence documents used to carry an inscription below the security classification which further cautioned "Warning: Sensitive Sources and Methods Involved." Which meant that if the other side got access to that document, they would be able to figure out who our source had been and burn him or her.

In the field, sources usually don't know each other, even when they're working for the same controller. That way, if one is grabbed, he can't be forced to identify the others.

False identities, communications methods, surveillance evasion, fake-outs, "maskirova", camouflage, deception, shadows... collecting information without compromising the source is one of the most difficult parts of the intelligence cycle.

And Assange is waving it all in the breeze to get his 15 minutes of fame. Some nostalgic former spy may terminate him just to preserve the honor of the profession.