A correspondent writes to a mailing list that I am on
Help me out here, because I'm having a hard time believing this. Did the president of the United States of America just publicly sign an executive order authorising operations to topple by violent methods, including kidnapping or assasination the head of a foriegn state?
Actually, he didn't authorize outright assassination, although anyone with enough brains to get into Iraq should be able to exploit the loopholes in that order.
Some of the replies, of course, just showed what idiots the people making them are.
I'm as shocked as you are, <name omitted>. I guess this is where the whole world pays for George the Younger to restore the reputation of George the Elder. Yet more proof that Americans are an undeserving bunch on a fast-track to hell.
:-PPPPPPPPP
Not all of us voted for him.
Using assassination as a tool of revenge means that the President is publicly declaring that he is lowering himself and the rest of the US to the same level as the terrorists themselves
Others made comments slightly more palatable
On the season finale of The West Wing, President Bartlett orders an assassination. Not of a head of state, but of a defense secretary of a supposed US ally. This Defense Secretary has a rather clear cut set of evidence marking him as the responsible party in several terrorist attacks against the US cited in the TV show.
The very prohibition against assassination by the US that we're now debating (like it or not) is debated in the show. The show essentially lets the characters comes to the conclusion that this guy is funding terrorists, supporting them with fake IDs, training them, and providing them with equipment and intel. The show is, remarkable one-sided about it.
Now if they really wanted to tell a good story, they should let the President find out that the intel was wrong, and it was someone else in the supposed US ally country. Talk about your cool Presidential scandals...
An even cooler scandal, IMNSHO, would be for Bartlett to ignore the evidence, let another attack occur, and then get on TV (overriding programming on all 4-6 networks (do UPN and WB count?)), and say, "Americans, you were so vocally disgusted at the thought of assassination that I forbade it. Now we see the results. You can demand another policy -- you can even blame for that one -- but remember that I did it as the servant of a democratic people, not as the ruler of a servile one. Discuss among yourselves what happen now, and tell me -- but do not place the decision on my shoulders, assigning me all the blame if things go wrong, and taking all the credits for yourselves if things go right." Of course, that would require that The West Wing be produced in a different universe from the one that we reside in.
A few made comments wholly in line with reality
I certainly fucking hope so.
The decades long executive order preventing such things is an incredibly stupid piece of work.
The most often offered defense of that policy is that if we declare open season on heads of state, other organizations will then decide it's ok to take shots at us.
Since I'm pretty sure those organizations will take shots at us, regardless of our policy, it's just retarded.
"But Saddam, we can't attack Bush. They're not allowed to attack you, after all". Gimme a break. You think that happens?
Sure, I'd like the CIA to be clever, and maybe make it look like some in-country Kurds knocked him off. But I'm not gonna lose any sleep over him eating a bullet, regardless of the source.
And some offered some genuine tactical criticism -- not entirely correct, in my view, but showing that they're thinking about the matter
They haven't targeted government officials. There the US and indeed any western government have a structural weakness. Our governments are composed of too many important people.
How many congressman, federal judges and family members are there ? Protecting a leader a few officials and their families in a country where asking for the adress of a government official will get you shot is vastly easier.
In the long run an assasination match is a lost cause for any western country. Especially the US which doesn't even have a national identity card and database. A country where leaders regularly expose themselves to large crowds.
So I must conclude that Mr. Bush has just taken the conflict into an area where he is weak. He should have invaded.
I've got Gregor Ferguson's Coup d'Etat: A Practical Manual (not really very practical, IMHO, but sitting next to Jim Dunnigan's Ho to Make War on my bookshelves, it's enough to give people serious doubts about my sanity). Ferguson notes that the size and complexity of the American government (not just Federal, but state and local) give the flexibility necessary to survive coups and assassinations.
The above correspondent goes on to suggest that the large number of officials means, since all of them, let alone their families, cannot be protected, that several will become collaborators in a war of assassins to protect themselves and their loved ones. Such an objection is not without merit, although the history of mob wars in this country suggests that this is by no means an inevitable consequence.