[jolepp]

Can state-sponsored assassination work as a strategy? And can it ever be justified? Governments don't admit to it, but Iranian nuclear scientists know it happens - and it's not easy to distinguish assassination from the US policy of "targeted killing".

Seventy years ago, a team of British-trained assassins were preparing to strike. Their target was Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most feared men in the Third Reich, then ruling Czechoslovakia.
...

BBC News - Licence to Kill: When governments choose to assassinate

[reeftool]

Isn't this exactly what the US did with the Anwar al Awlaki last fall?

[Tom S.]

Isn't this exactly what the US did with the Anwar al Awlaki last fall?

I don't believe the article was written from a perspective of a government killing one of their own citizens, but rather citizens of another country, like what the US did to Osama bin Laden. In both cases however, I'm not losing any sleep over them.

[Wheatfield]

I don't believe the article was written from a perspective of a government killing one of their own citizens, but rather citizens of another country, like what the US did to Osama bin Laden. In both cases however, I'm not losing any sleep over them.

I suspect you would if some foreign power started offing your senior politicians and scientists.

[Tom S.]

I suspect you would if some foreign power started offing your senior politicians and scientists.

Actually, if you limited it to politicians I might not. And why senior, some of the not so senior are just as bad. BTW: what senior politicians or scientists in my post are you referencing? I was talking about terrorists.

[eddie1960]

Actually, if you limited it to politicians I might not. And why senior, some of the not so senior are just as bad. BTW: what senior politicians or scientists in my post are you referencing? I was talking about terrorists.

one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter it's a matter of POV. from the British POV the American Founding Fathers would have been terrorists (if the word had existed)

[normhead]

one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter

I did a course with a former Canadian Special forces Captain who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan. In his opinion, the people in the Afghanistan for the most part consider US and Canadian forces terrorists. They actually prefer the tribal system of elders and warlords they currently have as a form of government and have no desire for the kind of political system where so much local autonomy is given up to outside powers. Like many on the American right, they don't want a centralized authority running the country and will have to be subdued with force to submit to any authority.

IN such a situation, how do you decide who the terrorists are? The people who come in with huge military force and try and change a population to a way of governement that would make it easier for people from those invading nations to exploit them, or those defending their traditional way of life. Who are the terrorists here?

[eddie1960]

I did a course with a former Canadian Special forces Captain who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan. In his opinion, the people in the Afghanistan for the most part consider US and Canadian forces terrorists. They actually prefer the tribal system of elders and warlords they currently have as a form of government and have no desire for the kind of political system where so much local autonomy is given up to outside powers. Like many on the American right, they don't want a centralized authority running the country and will have to be subdued with force to submit to any authority.

IN such a situation, how do you decide who the terrorists are? The people who come in with huge military force and try and change a population to a way of government that would make it easier for people from those invading nations to exploit them, or those defending their traditional way of life. Who are the terrorists here?

Exactly. I Imagine the Iraqis in many cases feel the same. It amounts to cultural imperialism (or more accurately in Iraq Economic Imperialism)

Much of what has happened and been assigned to terrorism has it's roots in rebelling to economic and cultural imperialism by the west. I certainly don't support or agree with the actions but I completely get the root cause of the action.

[séamuis]

Exactly. I Imagine the Iraqis in many cases feel the same. It amounts to cultural imperialism (or more accurately in Iraq Economic Imperialism)

Much of what has happened and been assigned to terrorism has it's roots in rebelling to economic and cultural imperialism by the west. I certainly don't support or agree with the actions but I completely get the root cause of the action.

this is why the argument that we need to stay the course and 'help' these people is a complete fallacy. we are the enemy, we have been from the get go. why so many people here can't seems to accept that other countries as a whole may not want the way we do things is just so hard for me to understand. there is suffering and foul things in every nation under every form of government, even ours. so to say we need to help these people is just absurd. what we are doing in Afghanistan just as we did in Iraq, just as we did in Viet Nam was imperialism for one reason or another, and no amount of goodwill or desire to 'help' others 'struggling for freedom' will ever change the fact that a western power trying assert its domination, way of thinking and cultural ideology onto another nation will always end in disaster. this is imperialism through and through. and hiding behind the guise of 'terrorism' is absurd and beyond reprehension. as the well known quote above clearly states. we are in their eyes the real terrorists. when will the american people wake up and realize this? I bet if the tables were turned and afghanistan or Iraq were over here doing in this country what we are doing there, we'd understand right quick.