Something I’ve been wondering a lot lately, is why we have a problem with assassinations. It seems like that would solve a lot of our problems. If we sent in Delta Force to clip Saddam and Udai Hussein, wouldn’t that be preferrable to sending in Armor and Rangers? Why is it more acceptable to send in a force 200,000 strong than it is to just kill the leader of that nation? We talk about destabilization. Could it really be worse than Saddam? I think it’s a lot more civilized to kill the heads of state than it is to go to war. I know Yitzahk Rabin is a good example of an argument against this, but for every Rabin that gets taken out, wouldn’t there be more likely to be three Saddams? Wouldn’t that be worth it?
So why in your estimation is it preferrable to send hundreds of thousands into hostile territory for a protracted conflict rather then a couple dozen highly trained soldiers to infiltrate a palace and knock out a couple of megalomaniac psychos.
The rules of war exist because nobody wants to be on the receiving end of them. It may be easy to assassinate “megalomaniac psychos”, just as it may be easy to torture “gooks”, “commies” and other enemies. Would we, however, want American soldiers to be tortured, if captured? No. Would we want it to be acceptable for any enemy to simply send in massive waves of undercover snipers and nail high-profile politicians (the President and cabinet, the Congress, governors, mayors of large cities) rather than a straightforward war? No.
The assumption is that a sovereign nation has a right to choose its own leadership. (Whether or not Iraq has really chosen Saddam Hussein is, of course, arguable.) I do not think we, as a nation, would find it particularly civilized if armed men stormed civilian areas and shot lots of civilians in order to hit politicians (who are, also, also civilians). Do you think the response to headlines like “President, 50 Others Killed in White House Attack” would cause Americans everywhere to sit back and say “Hmmm, how civilized”?
If you really like this concept you might enjoy the books from the battletech series that revolve around the “the clans” millitary units would sometimes resove battles by a 1 on 1 duel between the commanders.
It isn’t that easy to assassinate the leader of a foreign country. In order to do so you need to:
a) Know where he will be and when he will be there
b) Penetrate his conventional military defenses and counter intelligence forces
c) Get someone or something close enough to kill him
A lot easier than it sounds. Read about the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. And that was his own inner circle.
Won’t necessarilly resolve the political issue. You could kill Sharon and Arafat tomorrow and Palestinians and Israelis would keep on fighting. As I mentioned on an identical thread, if we had killed Sadaam during the gulf war, instead of an Iraqi Army, Kuwait would be occupied by roving bandits armed with circa 1970 armored vehicles who would still have to be removed by troops on the ground.
It creates a power vacuum that must be filled. The person most likely to fill it is the next psycho in line.
Its not as simple as it sounds. You just don’t drop a Delta Force sniper into Baghdad with a Barett .50 cal rifle and expect a dead leader. When we ousted Manuel Noreiga from Panama, it still required the support of of Airborne, conventional infantry and special operations troops, light armored vehicles, airfcraft and artillery.
Alright, there are some good sound arguments against this.
I want to address the specific argument about the power vaccuum. In the case of Saddam and Udai, do you think it’s possible that the person who will fill the void would be worse? Isn’t there a point where the benefits outweigh the risks?
Yitzahk Rabin is the perfect example of why assassinations are bad. Are there any examples where assassination brought about positive change?
Another idea that I was thinking of. It’s a little bit of a hijack of my own thread, but if Mutually Assured Destruction worked on Stalin, why wouldn’t it work against Iraq? The USSR was afraid to do anything to China because of american ICBMs. Rather than invade Iraq, what about possibly lifting sanctions telling Saddam that we’re going to leave him alone, he can have all the weapons of mass destruction he wants, but that if he ever fires them, we will nuke Baghdad and every military target in Iraq. Wouldn’t that be a sufficient deterrant?
That particular given situation would work. Why? Because Saddam is a survivalist. He might be crazy, but he ain’t no dummy. Should he lob a nuke at Israel or the U.S. for that matter, he might as well bend crawl under his desk, curl up, and kiss his ass, along with is country, good bye. But, there is one problem.
I don’t think Dubya’s worried about Saddam firing those missiles. Dubya ain’t no dummy either (as much as i hate to say that). He knows that Saddam won’t fire those nukes on a first strike. But some al-Qaeda member might. IMHO Washington is more worried about Saddam selling those WMD than using them. So, your proposed scenario might “work”, but, the root problem still remains unfixed.
P.S- Remember that this is a “War on Terror” and Iraq supports terrorism, or so I’ve heard. BTW, I’m still not too crazy about marching into Baghdad, but that’s the reason that I think Bush is really using. IMHO.
So what if Iran fills the void? Or what if in order to prevent Iran from filling the void, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey decide to see how much of a piece of Iraq each can grab?
Probably better to just take him out instead of another 50 years of Cold War.
Personnally, I would find this much more aceptable that the ennemy would kill high profile politicians (who choose to become high profile politicians, and are likely to have some actual responsability in whatever the ennemy is pissed off at) rather than 20 y.o. soldiers who, depending on the place and time choose or not to be military and anyway have close to zero responsability in the events causing the war.
I would have preffered, by far, that S. Hussein had been killed , instead of thousands of young guys being burned alive in their tanks. And it would be the same for an Israeli prime minister and an Israeli soldier. Rabin is largely responsible for Israeli policies. The 18 yo kid at the check point isn’t, or at least not to the same extent.
Of course, as noted in previous post assassinating a leader isn’t necessarily a good idea. It could result in a worst situation. But a war to can result in a worst situation. Anyway, if taking out a leader is considered to be a viable solution in a given situation, I think this solution is better than a straightforward war from pretty much any point of view, including morally.
Hmmmmm… Forget the assasination idea. Lets say if talks break down World leaders must enter the Thunderdome. Two men (or women) enter one man (or woman) leaves.
Case is resolved by the winner. Use the money for the Pay per view event to go towards a world charity.
If that were the case how many times would you have the speaech “Unfortunately they have left us no choice but to use force,”?
clairobscur kind of summed up my views on the subject pretty well.
msmith basically voiced the one thing I thought of after posting that question about MAD. The idea that they could sell the weapons to terrorists.
As for this demonization of Iran. The impression I’m getting of Iran is pretty favorable. They seem to be moving progressively toward secularism from what I read in the news.
The trouble with assassination as a policy is that democratic societies are much much much more vulnerable to it than totalitarian countries. Saddam Hussein doesn’t make public appearances. He doesn’t follow a schedule. He doesn’t sleep in the same place from one night to the next. He has his meals prepared in a dozen places every time, then picks a location at random. He has doubles that are moved around at random. He has thousands of informers. He can arrest, torture and kill anyone at any time.
It would not be easy to assassinate Saddam. Explain exactly how this is going to work. Now look at how easy it would be to assassinate western politicians. All you have to do is get a gun, ring their doorbell, and shoot them when they answer, then drive away. So how exactly does assassination benefit our side?