Assassination

[Grand Moff Muffin]

How do you think it ranks on the moral scale?

Traditionally in the West, leaders of countries have disowned the practice, preferring to fight wars with armies made up of men who haven't really got anything against each other and let them kill or be killed on their behalf. Even in the Middle Ages, the king was usually the safest man on the battlefield, worth infinitely more captured alive for ransom than dead. Nowadays, our soldiers don't want members of the Royal family serving with them because it makes things more difficult and dangerous for them by creating targets for their enemies.

Some people say it is worse to aim to murder a specific person than aim to kill unspecified enemy soldiers in general. Now the West is getting outraged about Israel allegedly stealing British passports in order to assassinate an enemy leader. But as an alternative to massive bombing raids on Gaza, isn't assassination far preferable given the way it avoids any collatoral damage? Or does it make the whole situation worse?

What do you think?

Martin

[blueshift]

Feb 20, 2010 9:12:03 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

How do you think it ranks on the moral scale?

Traditionally in the West, leaders of countries have disowned the practice, preferring to fight wars with armies made up of men who haven't really got anything against each other and let them kill or be killed on their behalf. Even in the Middle Ages, the king was usually the safest man on the battlefield, worth infinitely more captured alive for ransom than dead. Nowadays, our soldiers don't want members of the Royal family serving with them because it makes things more difficult and dangerous for them by creating targets for their enemies.

I'm all up for assassination in times of war, that is only fair. And of course, the same leaders who were morally opposed to it in World War 2 also bombed the hell out of civilians. In a time of war, everyone is at equal risk, the only reason assassination isn't pushed as a tactic is that the ones making the decisions to do so are the ones that would get killed in return in a tit-for-tat attack. But then again, hey, war, people are getting killed all the time.

Of course, there is the whole thing about creating martyrs, etc. But can you really tell me that a decapitation strike on Nazi Germany would have been less effective than say, bombing the hell out of Dresdin?

Personally, I think the traditional 'war' is fast becoming an outmoded concept as it is, so it is a pretty moot point. I think we even did something similar to assassination in Iraq, though somehow killing generals and leaders with ballistic missiles is seen as far more honourable than killing them with precision strike teams.

[Andy Turnbull]

Assassinations tend to lead to martyrs. So while the immediate collateral damage isn't as high, over a longer period of time you could attribute a lot of deaths back to the assassination.

Personally I'd go for discrediting the person, then killing them and making it look like suicide or making the assassination look like the work of someone on their side.

Andy

[Deleted]

Assassinations only lead to martyrs when the assassinated person is of a certain religion - usually religions that reign with an iron fist in the Middle East. I don't think the American public considered John F Kennedy a martyr when he was assassinated.

[Andy Turnbull]

Hence why I said tend!

Andy