Is it an amoral quagmire or a moral quagmire to assassinate charismatic madmen who happen to lead a nation threatening the security and well-being of other nations?
Few would argue now that assassinating Hitler and Mussolini before they brought a second World War upon the earth would have been a bad thing.
Nipping that kind of terror in the bud before it blossoms to engulf the
world in madness can have great and wanted consequences beyond the
immediate immorality of a state-sponsored assassination of another
nation’s leaders.
History
is clear of mind and clean of conscience — but what about the now?
What about tomorrow?
Is it appropriate with our modern-day morality for
one government to prosecute the assassination of another?
Hugo Chavez pondered that question aloud recently on a trip to the United States:
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez accused his American
counterpart George W. Bush overnight of ordering his assassination for
calling the US leader the devil during his speech at the United Nations
this week.
“The devil appears very sulphurous, and a few people say that he has
given the order to kill me,” Chavez said during a speech before
scientists in western Venezuela.
Fidel Castro has been a target for assassination:
In October 1997, US coastguards intercepted a boat off
Puerto Rico, carrying weapons, ammunition and military supplies.
One of the men on board is alleged to have said they were on their way
to the island off the Venezuelan coast to assassinate the Cuban leader.
In 2001, Israel told the BBC of their open assassination policy:
The Israeli Government of Ariel Sharon is, like its
predecessors, committed to the policy of assassinating individuals who
it believes pose a threat to its citizens.
Palestinian officials say that about 60 individuals have been
assassinated since the start of the current Palestinian uprising, or
intifada, in September last year – several belonging to Yasser Arafat’s
political faction Fatah.
Israeli officials have at times boldly admitted that the policy exists
and is being pursued vigorously….Recently officials have indicated that the Israeli army is being given
a freer hand to carry out targeted killings of Palestinian activists.
The policy has come in for criticism domestically and internationally.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International has called the
assassinations extra judicial killings. The policy has even been
challenged in the Israeli high court….Israel has a long history of assassination operations targeting
individuals.
Most famously, in 1987 in Tunisia, Israel assassinated Abu Jihad, the
PLO’s military leader and second in command.
Some believe Yasser Arafat was the victim of a state-sponsored assassination via blood poisoning:
But how is he dead? The circumstances, the timing, the
method, the exiled ‘wife’ whisking him off to Paris; all
extraordinarily suspicious when the pieces are all put together. Just
an old man who caught the flu and quickly deteriorated despite teams of
doctors and the best medical care?Or like Caesar of old — done in by
his long-time enemies and some insiders he thought to be his friends?
We’re not dealing here with casual and easily discredited ‘conspiracy
theories’. Rather we’re dealing with a great deal of historical and
circumstantial evidence few remember as well as some crucial factual
clues unknown beyond Palestinian circles.
Is turnabout fair play?
NEW YORK (CNN) — Associates of Osama bin Laden might have
plotted to assassinate President Clinton when he visited the
Philippines in 1994, a U.S. official told CNN.
The United States was aware of the planned attempt before the president
left for the Philippines and as a result, security around the president
was intensified, the official said Tuesday.
Is it possible one nation’s leader can simultaneously be another
nation’s “charismatic madman” and, if so, what is to be done to
reconcile the admiration of one nation’s people against the threat to
the security of another nation’s prosperity?
Is the only true method of protection and reconciliation from madness a
state-sponsored assassination?