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Date Posted: 11:53:41 03/21/03 Fri
Author: Arkady
Author Host/IP: NoHost / 148.183.241.15
Subject: Re: Assasinations
In reply to: Okie 's message, "Assasinations" on 11:08:12 03/21/03 Fri

In theory, I suppose, since it's just an "executive order", the President could overturn it... I'm not sure if it would be kosher to overturn it secretly, or if he'd have to repudiate it publicly before acting. One way or the other, it's one of those things that has been ignored over the years. In the first Gulf War, we targetted Hussein. In Afghanistan we definitely targetted Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden (remember "Wanted: Dead or Alive"?) Years earlier, Clinton was clearly targetting bin Laden. In Libya, Reagan targetted Khadaffi (as I recall, we managed to kill his daughter). Throughout the 70s, the rumor is that the CIA was regularly involved in assassination attempts, and supposedly the same is true of trying to get Castro in the 80s (the CIA operatives weren't the triggermen -- they just provided training and intelligence info to local opponents, so the story goes -- but that's a pretty silly distinction to hang your hat on).

If the executive order has any meaning, it seems to be that you can't assassinate a foreign leader except if the US is involved in open hostilities with that country that involve killing people beside the leader, too (unless we use a proxy to carry out the assassination). That's a pretty meaningless rule, if you ask me. It's almost like the rule is just propaganda -- domestically, it distances the government, in the people's mind, from actions that look more like murder and less like warfare (like there's a real distinction between the two); and, internationally, maybe we hope it takes some suspicion off the US if some thug we don't like turns up dead. Plus, maybe it lets Presidents breath a little easier -- if they pretend they aren't personally targeting foreign leaders, maybe those foreign leaders will focus on taking their aggressions out on our boys on the battlefield, rather than going after the guy who is giving the orders.

Personally, that last reason strikes me as immoral. Already one American soldier, at least, has been killed by an Iraqi in this conflict -- if Bush knew the first bullet was going his way, we'd only enter the war if he thought it was so critical it was worth his own blood, not just the blood of some peon kid in the Marines.

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