(no subject)

[andrewducker]

So far 4 different people have said something along the lines of Can anyone tell me what's wrong with assasination?

The answer being that outside of fictional ninjas and The Bourne Identity, assassination's not as easy as you might think. Especially of paranoid stateleaders with their own army and esecurity personnell, when the local language isn't English and they don't look anything like you. It's a lovely idea (if you want to start a bad precedent), but it's just not something that's terribly feasible.

Today, the CIA thought they had a good idea where Saddam was for short while. So they hit it with eight Cruise missiles. They still probably didn't get him. Because real life isn't like the movies.

Comments

[shannon_a]

It's also illegal for the executive department of the United States to use the tactic, according to a prior presidential decree (though Bush has already violated that decree in his CIA-sponsored hits on alledged terrorists).

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It's a lovely idea (if you want to start a bad precedent), but it's just not something that's terribly feasible.

I agree that it generally doesn't work. There was a truly lovely assassination of a deeply horrible (moreso than most) South African president in the 1950s, but sadly most of the really vile people live to a ripe old age).

However, I don't see assassination as a bad precedent at all, it seems an excellent alternative to warfare. If you are the leader of a nation, then it doesn't not seem unreasonable that your life should be more at risk than the lives of lots of armed young people - I only wish it worked often enough to be a viable alternative. It's also a great way to keep international relations at a reasonable and non-aggressive level, since now war usually means soldiers die and the leaders are fine. If international aggression meant that leaders died, there would be a whole lot less international aggression.

Also on a purely personal level, I have great trouble seeing being a soldier as an honorable, interesting, or in any way positive profession, but I happen to find the idea of political assassins quite cool - I don't approve of killing, but if you are going to do it, you should do it both with style and in a way that actually makes a difference. Killing clueless 19 year olds with guns either neither stylish nor does it make any difference unless done en mass. If nothing else, a couple of bullets in the late 1930s could have prevented a lot of the horrors of WWII.

[broin.livejournal.com]

But real life is like computer games. I've played Deus Ex. Crowbar to the back of the head would kill him, then you'd just have to carry the body to the nearest cliff/fence, and dump it.

Easy.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Suicide bomb attacks seem to have a reasonable success rate?