And that head might not have the same ideas as the previous one. Plus, you’re going to leave your enemy with someone who isn’t quite as good as the original one. For example, if you were planning on going to war against an enemy who’s commander who is noted for his/her ability, or the trust they engender among their troops, taking them out would be a crippling blow.
Likewise, assassination of the leader of a country will get you a new leader. Say, for example, you don’t like Bush. He’s killed, well, you’ve got Cheney. Maybe you prefer his politics, or you believe they’d be better for your own country. Assassination would thus be a wise plan, rather than a full scale war.
I’m not saying it would be good to use assassination all the time, just that it should be considered along with all other military options.
Also, don’t forget that assassination is an act of war if it can be traced back to your country. Do you think the US would stand idly by if Norway assassinated one of our leaders?
Let’s say the instead of invading Iraq, Bush sent a hit squad to assassinate Hussein. They pull it off, and the US is spared the whole war ordeal. But that’s too easy and Bush may decide it’s Venezuela next, maybe North Korea next. If it was acceptable to take leaders out by assassination, the temptation to use such power would be irresistable and leaders around the world would be dropping like flies and you’d have chaos. It’s better to follow a rule that if you want to take out a leader, you need to conquer the country. That way you really need to convince a lot of people that it’s a good idea and you need to be able to stand up to world condemnation. If you’re not willing to do that, perhaps your interest in the leadership of that country isn’t that compelling.
Actually, I advocate its use in place of invasion (although I would prefer to see it used more in the sense of resisting arrest after an International Criminal Court ruling, say: “Saddam Hussein, you and your sons have 3 months to give yourselves up or you will be apprehended dead or alive”.)
And of course, turnabout is fair play. If Bush wishes death on others in this way, others successfully wishing death on him would be appropriate payback.
msmith is correct. We don’t assassinate as an alternative to war because it’s very hard to control the next leader or the situation in that country afterwards.
In Iraq, that would mean Uday and Qusay. Who were worse than Saddam, by all accounts. This would not have furthered US interests at all. We wouldn’t have had any influence over future Iraqi policy, whereas now, obviously, we do.
I think people are also underestimating how difficult it is to successfully kill a world leader. Yeah, occassionally a lone nut like Oswald would get a lucky shot, but in contrast all the resources of the US have so far proven insufficient to knock off Osama or Castro, and we’re not even trying to hide the fact that we’re after Osama, and Castro wasn’t exactly in hiding. If you’ve got the military, a full invasion may come with a higher probability of success
Good point. You don’t know for certain which leaders you’d get, they could indeed be worse.
And like I said earlier, i’m not advocating assassination as a political tool; i’m suggesting it should be used as a normal part of a war-like military operation. If you’re planning on invading anyway, assassination can cause, at the very least, momentary confusion for the enemy while they sort out another leader, or rebuild the chain of command.
This sounds reasonable to me. But only if…
Bush (or the leader involved) accepts that it’s quite likely assassinating other leaders will get you killed, too. And I think that’s a sacrifice that a good leader should be willing to make.
It’s worse than that. Unless the state in question is vulenrable to decapitation attacks, you’re likely to get them to become very hardline, “never give up, never surrender!” And so on.
This is not to say I am wholly against assassination. There are times and places where I believe it to be the lesser of two evils. I would have, for example, no qualms about shooting Bin Laden, as he’s both violated nearly every standard or warfare consistently and constantly. And of course, he isn’t even recognized as a legitimate leader by any country in the world.
Military chain of command is certainly a legitimate target. But you would be better off targeting the actual field commanders than the political leaders. Obviously it depends on the circumstances, but generally you want your enimies political structure intact so that you have someone who can negotiate a peace settlement.
There is also the matter of creating a martyr out of a mediocre leader.