Assassinating terrorists OK?

I see I voted among the majority....as most people with common sense usually do.

 

I know somebody who had had that. First kill he was shaking and sweating cold, couldn't sleep, couldn't get the image of the victim keeling down, hands tied behind his back, naked, defiant.
Threw up all over the floor.
Second kill, wasn't too bad anymore.
Third kill, fourth, becoming a breeze.
Fifth, he actually enjoyed it.
That's when he stopped, and asked to be transferred to another unit.
He was scared of what he was turning into.

Easy to talk.
Killing an enemy in combat, even one on one, is far, far different from killing an enemy in cold blood.

 

What exactly would you, our leftist friends, propose that we do? Talk to them? Wait until the next attack? Arrest them all? Wait until after the next 9/11 and then attempt to arrest them?

I see everyone throwing stones at what is being done... but not proposing any reasonable substitute plan.

As for those who say "send your son off to war" or things like that... tell you what, let's see if we can ensure that your child is on the 40th floor of the next WTC like attack... Why don't you be sure to get your kid some water from some future bio/chem attack?

My point is that if you thought you or your loved ones would be caught in the next attack... you would probably be more amenable to preventive rather than reactive approaches to terrorists... but the cruel joke is that you might be.

 

Actually, I voted 'I have no problems with it'.
But it is really wishful thinking. I do not think it will prosper as a policy.
Too many hypocrites in the Senate, too many hypocrites in the streets as well who would march against it.
Also, wet jobs need special kinds of men and women, probably wired a little differently than the ordinary men and women.
I read somewhere that in shooting wars, soldiers tended to shoot too high on purpose.

 

</font>[/QUOTE]I would prefer that they be tried before a military tribunal before sentencing. For one thing, I'd like to hear the truth about what happened on 9/11. Killing these terrorists would give Bush a great opportunity to sweep a lot of dirt under the rug.

 

What is so hard to understand about why if you "hunt down and execute" someone without due process you're extremely likely to kill someone who isn't a terrorist?

 

I strongly favor it, I think it would be justice.

 

that is a possibility in the sense that it is extremely easy to build up a dossier on someone and portray him/her as terrorist pushing him/her up in the Order of Battle until he/she is on the top 10 targets, either because he/she is an annoying personality, or for money's sake (the rewards for capture, dead or alive).
in the 'killing fields' of my country back in the early 70's are the bones of such victims.

but I don't think the US will stoop so low as to do the above.

 

Yes, arrest them, try them and punish appropriately.

Why is it less bad to devastate a country, incidently kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians, which posed no threat to us, which did not attack us, than to launch a few random attacks against a country which did not attack them? Morally, targeting civilians is unsupportable, but is starting an unprovoked war which will inevitably kill thousands of innocents that much better?

Frankly, I thought the police action and working in concert with other legitimate heads of states was the way to go. Now that we are in the mire, we need to extract ourselves with as much honor as we have left. Assassination is not honorable.

Attacking a country that had nothing to do with that seems an extremely inappropriate response.

Attacking a country which posed no real threat to us and slaughtering its citizens - collateral damage - prevents future terrorism how, exactly? Many people believe that is likely to increase the chances of future attacks by the bereft and newly politicized. It was one thing to exact vengence on Afghanistan, but to be responsible for all those deaths in Iraq? How is that moral?

 

Oh come on Daisy surely you can do better than that. Your response was non-responsive. You didn't address the issue.

In a world where the first strike can easily be the last strike due to the efficiency of modern weapons: What do you do about nations that have a history of developing and using WMD's, have expressed intent if not actions toward developing more, and have expressed a desire to see more acts of terrorism carried out against your country? That is where Bush sat when he made the decision. The intelligence organizations of all the allies, including those who didn't support the war, affirmed these facts.

So do you wait and hope they're nicer than you think?

Added to that in this case is the first Gulf War that left maniacal Saddam with just a little bit of a grudge.

Imagine that you have a spat with a neighbor. Later you see him dragging a sledge hammer across the street screaming that he is going to tear your house down and beat you with the hammer. You are in danger... but you also have time to prepare and even call the police.

Now let's change the circumstances: Let's say your neighbor has a history of making bombs and using them on people who argue with him. You have a spat with him then overhear him secretly telling someone that he plans to sneak over to your house undetected and blow you and your house up or else get someone else that doesn't like you to do it.

Now imagine that he violates a court order and attempts to get explosives. He's caught but you know he can get them black market and later see him carrying boxes into his basement. You sneak over to look through the window into his basement where you know he has a lab but can only see that he is doing something... not exactly what. You report it to the police but he restricts their search and they don't find everything that you have seen go in. He demands they leave.

Your family is at home. He always strikes when people are sleeping. Doing nothing will give him 8 hours to prepare and attack. Now, tell me, do you wait until he blows your family up before stopping him?

 

Well, Daisy, you would not have liked my approach -- I call it the Carthage Solution. The Romans, when attacked once, were relatively tolerant: they'd defeat the aggressor, and attempt to realign the defeated with Roman objectives. If the same power attacked again, they were wiped out. Hence, Carthage no longer existed after the Third Punic War, and was no longer a threat to Rome after that.

I said at the time of our buildup in Kuwait that Iraq, after routinely violating the terms of the ceasefire that they agreed to , had forefeited Sadaam's right to rule. I would have gone in, destroyed their military and government infrastructure, and then withdrew, to let them (and the EU?) recover the pieces. A quick raid-in-force, measured in a month or so, with the devastation left as an example to other nations.

Quick, effective, with minimal loss of American lives. Instead, Bush chose to invade and stay, a sure-fire strategy to incur continual attritive losses, because we sacrificed maneuver warfare for occupational hazards. But Bush is CinC, not me, so we must make the best of things.

The Carthaginian Strategy works, as the Romans demonstrated repeatedly.

 

Oh come on yerself, ScottJ - I did respond to the issue which is assassination of terrorists. Iraq did not attack us; we attacked them. Face reality, Scott; Iraq has NEVER attacked the US, but we have attacked them on more than one occasion.

Yeah, that was Bush's rationale, but it was ridiculously feeble. Iraq had NO ability to strike the US first. We are half a world away and Iraq had nothing even near that strike capability.

You monitor them and make sure that they do not acquire WMDs. As we discovered after the invasion, the UN inspections were SUCCESSFUL. Saddam was UNABLE to acquire yellowcake because of international monitoring of the substance. He had NO WMD programmes in place. Now they have tens of thousands of dead civilians.

Yeah, that's why they "sexed up" the intelligence. That's why Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz salivated after 9/11 and starting coming up with plausible scenarios to sell the American public on the invasion of Iraq.

What facts? That Saddam would like to rule the world? That he gassed the Kurds during that war fifteen years ago (which didn't stop us from supporting him - enemy of my enemy). Big deal - he was a toothless tiger.

Oh brilliant Scott! That's exactly what "police action" and "working with other governments" means. Yeah, "arrest, try and punish" is precisely the same as waiting and hoping . I could just as easily mischaracterize what you say if I had no scruples (shame on you).

Oh, yeah, a little bit of a grudge, but NO MEANS of revenge. If we devastate every country whose leader which might have a "little bit of a grudge" against us, we might as well nuke the earth now.

Your analogy has extremely little correlation to reality.

Saddam was NOT threatening us!!! He made NO THREATS against us, Scott. We were threatening him (which is why he let the inspectors back in).

What he did do was look into buying some uranium, but he was UNABLE to purchase any. He had refused to let in the inspectors for a couple of years (actually accused us - us! - of using phoney inspectors to spy even though we are such a superior nation that we would never do anything that sneaky), but he DID let them in months before the invasion thwarting Bush's excuse. Well, sort of. Bush made the inspectors leave before they were finished, not Saddam - Bush. Bush decided that the inspectors were too slow because Bush KNEW the weapons were there, that there was a nuclear programme in place and the precise location of the mobile chemical weapons labs (remember them?) - except, oops! None of that was true. So much for intelligence obtained through torture.

Well, Saddam would have had those things if he had been able to, so that's good enough. What a crock!

More fantasy on your part, Scott. Remember the Kuwaiti invasion? He consulted us BEFORE he invaded. He was told by Ambassador Gillespie, "Arguments between brothers are of no interest to us". Then we smacked him down.

So, Scott, what has the Iraqi invasion have to do with assassinating terrorists? We didn't assassinate Saddam, we opened his borders to al Qaida and other terrorists.

Why don't you respond to the actual topic? Or do you think that waging war on an entire country is the same thing as assassinating its leader? That leader is alive and under our protection as he is being tried. Tried and not assassinated? Hey, isn't that what I was advocating, Scott?

 

As we discovered after the invasion, the UN inspections were SUCCESSFUL.

They may have appeared to be successful. Time will show that the weapons are in Syria.

[ February 01, 2006, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: elijah_lives ]

 

Carthage surrendered and was wiped out.

His agreement was with the UN. Since when do we enforce UN sanctions (which, btw, said nothing about invading and overthrowing the government)?

2,447 and counting. What about Iraqi lives? And for what reason? He was no real threat to us. Why were we in such a hurry to go to war that we could not allow the inspectors to finish inspecting? Why did we not continue diplomacy which would have cost many thousands fewer lives and a savings of billions if not trillions of dollars?

Yes, we must make the best of things. What, in your opinion, would be best now?

Perhaps you should note the sentiments of the Roman general as he watched Carthage burn:

And on my asking him boldly (for I had been his tutor) what he meant by these words, he did not name Rome distinctly, but was evidently fearing for her, from this sight of the mutability of human affairs. . . . Another still more remarkable saying of his I may record. . . [When he had given the order for firing the town] he immediately turned round and grasped me by the hand and said: "O Polybius, it is a grand thing, but, I know not how, I feel a terror and dread, lest some one should one day give the same order about my own native city." . . . Any observation more practical or sensible it is not easy to make. For in the midst of supreme success for one's self and of disaster for the enemy, to take thought of one's own position and of the possible reverse which may come, and in a word to keep well in mind in the midst of prosperity the mutability of Fortune, is the characteristic of a great man, a man free from weaknesses and worthy to be remembered.

Source: The Histories of Polybius, 2 Vols., trans. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (Forham University) (linkie)</font>[/QUOTE]Rome did fall. Do you think we will not?

 

Naw, we're already falling from within.

As a member state of the UN, we are charged with enforcing Security Council resolutions, as are all member states. The fact that others failed to do so is a dereliction of duty.

We would not have anywhere near the "2,447 and counting" casualties, if we'd used the Carthage Solution.

Sentiments of a Roman general aside, Carthage was permanently removed as a threat.

 

Not when the SC refuses to endorse the overreaction.

The resolutions did not call for war. We were in the extreme minority - despite threats and bribes - to hold that view.

How do you reconcile wiping out a surrendered population with being a Christian, you know, mercy and love your enemy? Is that entirely compatible for you?

This is not a criticism, but a real question - I won't argue with your view on that - I'd like to know what you think.

 

I think that if nations would see the example of a destroyed nation-state, it would save more lives in the end. We were attacked, Daisy. These people don't care about our institutions , values, and ways of life; they want to destroy us. We can either play nice, by the rules (and lose), or we fight back for our survival. In this day and age of cheap WMD's, waiting for a first strike is suicidal. Saddam showed that he had the intent (by invading Kuwait), the means (as demonstrated on the Kurds), and his deceit and refusal to show where the WMD's had gone (we know he had them) only fueled suspicions that could not be ignored. Nobody to this day has accounted for those weapons. (As I have argued, they were moved to Syria).

If he had complied with the UNSC resolutions, he would still be in power today. I think he made one of the hugest blunders ever, by calling Bush's bluff.

As far as mercy goes, if al-Qaida (why are there so many different spellings?) wants to surrender, then we should grant them mercy. Furthermore, we are talking about the actions of a government, not individuals. The NT has different roles and standards for governments, than for individuals. I am not permitted to murder, as an individual, but a nation is, to enforce justice, law and order, etc. This explains the apparent contradiction.

Rome was never seriously threatened again by a large power like Carthage. Of course, they went on to failure through moral decay -- which we are witnessing in front of our very eyes.