This is exactly what I was going to say. The word “assassination” doesn’t really apply to the context of a legitimate war, however you want to define “legitimate.”
I don’t fully agree. For one thing a major factor of war isn’t just conquering another army, but occupying the territory after the fighting is done (either short term or long term).
The military hardware will still be there, and even if you kill political leaders and generals there will still be endless thousands of soldiers with artillery and tanks. And you have to deal with that when you occupy the new nation. Assassination may weaken the ability of the other military to fight back, but it can still fight back.
Assassination could work if you have someone lined up to take over the power vacuum who would not resist your agenda. But how often does that happen in the real world?
Also, assassination is only one tool of co-opting neighboring leaders. Bribery, blackmail, destroying communication infrastructure, offering amnesty, etc. can all cause political and military leaders to defect w/o killing them.
I think weapons that can destroy military hardware and infrastructure w/o destroying lives are the most moral form of war.
Suddenly it is all clearer… I didn’t realize your original comment was really just another ride on this hobby horse that has been run into the ground so many times before.
You just don’t fight. How hard is that to understand?
If your question is “how do you not fight,* and stay unconquered*?” the answer is “you don’t.”
It’s not a platitude when I have the scars to show for it.
By bolding above: So how is that an option?
Gandhi: “I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancour. … You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.”
Whether pacifism makes any sense or not is surely the topic for another thread …
Sure, but they hardly had the Nazis marching through their country. Also it seems insane to take it at face value. To me it would be evil and foolish to stand by passively and peacefully as your people are being slaughtered.
As far as Gandhi goes, it does show another downside for assassination - how do you avoid your target from being turned into a martyr and giving his troops another cause to rally behind?
I agree with Sage Rat. The only moral way would be to kidnap them, which would also be an even greater psychological blow to the enemy than assassination of the leadership.
Gandhi also advised the British to surrender to the Nazis and advised the Jews in Nazi-occupied territory to jump off cliffs rather than resist.
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Gandhi also advised the British to surrender to the Nazis and advised the Jews in Nazi-occupied territory to jump off cliffs rather than resist.
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I don’t want to turn this into a hijack about Gandhi, but he was not as callous as your statement suggests. His point was that rather than be exterminated in the concentration camps, if the Jews had taken their own lives in defiance of Hitler, as a form of resistance, it would have roused public sentiment even greater than when the atrocities of the Holocaust were revealed.
To my knowledge, I don’t think he ever saw the camps firsthand. If he had, he may have advocated a different position. But he was also the penultimate pacifist. An example to be followed, but not blindly.
I’m not sure it has anything to do with callousness. It was in response to What Exit’s statement that Gandhi wasn’t speaking with the Nazis in mind. He did, in fact, consider the Nazis, and the Nazis did not break his strict nonviolence.
In Gandhi’s view, there is no exception to the rule of nonviolence, not even self-defense. And I bring that up only because of What Exit’s query “how is that an option?” There is an option in case of assault by another party. I’m not saying that I would take Gandhi’s advice (I myself am not a big fan of Gandhi), but my point is that you do have a choice in that situation: whether to defend yourself or not – as Gandhi shows, it is an option – and you have a further choice of what means you will use to defend yourself.
I think Gandhi took himself more seriously than you’re giving him credit for. He was not one to be swayed by consequences.
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you positive you mean to say “penultimate”?
And I don’t know (1) how this follows from your statement that Gandhi is the “penultimate” pacifist? (2) what it means anyway. Is he an example or isn’t he? How does following him blindly enter into it?
Gandhi also had half a billion Indians; he could afford to lose a few million of them to prove a point. Us Jews never had the numbers for that kind of luxury.
Well, if you really are a pacifist, does this enter the equation?
I don’t know if you’re being tongue in cheek with that remark or what, but it’s true. The Indian landmass is a gigantic chunk of the planet. People who occupy such a gigantic nation will never, ever understand what the Jews faced being a tiny, nationless people, forever at the whims of “host” countries.
If Gandhi believes that an individual should be willing to be exterminated rather than use violence in self-defense, why would he think any differently about a “people,” whatever that means? If you are dead, you are dead. What does it matter to you if all your “people” are dead too?
Well, his goal was to liberate India. He didn’t have weapons, he didn’t have resources - all he had was a huge mass of people he could throw at his enemy with the hope that quantity would have a quality of its own. Pacifism was the best strategy available; the fact that he also believed in it was a bonus.
Make no mistake: Gandhi was as much an Indian patriot/nationalist as he was a pacifist. Probably more so.
Yes, Gandhi certainly never had the experience of being a minority in a foreign country. Very good point.
Nope. I hate that word, it is one of my grammar monkeys. Gandhi was the next to the ultimate pacifist. The ultimate pacifist being a resident of Utopia.
His demonstration of pacifism, or rather non-violence, in how he lived his life is a role model for humanity. It does not mean he was a god and that everything he did and said is holy writ. But he did not advocate for the Jews to just jump off cliffs and let the Nazis do as they please. His view was that if death is inevitable, then it is better to take one’s own life than become a victim of another. Thus that death will have greater significance. And that it would be better to become a martyr than take another’s life, even in self-defense.
It is an extreme position. I would not recommend it in all circumstances, while Gandhi did, to my knowledge.
Yet considering the effect that Mohamed Bouazizi’s suicide has caused, there may be some validity to his point of view.
One point against assassinating the leaders (which is in part why it was frowned upon in medieval times even on the battlefield, on top of ideas of self-preservation) is that unled armies tend to quickly turn into bandits, looters and mercenaries. Those tend to commit worse atrocities than professional conquerors.
Whether that is still true of today’s grunts, I cannot say. But note that Iraq was a pretty shitty place to be just after Saddam and his government (for lack of a better word) went into hiding, and I don’t mean just because the US army was blowing stuff up left and right. Chaos is not pretty.