AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

COULD TARGETED ASSASSINATIONS LEGITIMISE TIT-FOR-TAT KILLINGS OF THE LEADERS OF THE BELLIGERENTS?

I’ve spent much of the day reading a dozen or so newspaper articles, opinion pieces and commentaries on the pros and cons of the killing of American citizen and Jihadist, Anwar al Awlaki, who died in Yemen yesterday after being targeted by a Hellfire missile fired from an American operated drone aircraft.

The left and the civil and human rights folk together with folk from the libertarian right have condemned the killing as illegal and unconstitutional, while the right-wing, led noisily by the neoconservatives, have praised the killing as a victory and argued that in time of war such killings are quite justified.

What’s missing from all of these arguments from both sides is the fact that such extra-judicial killings can work two ways. No matter what the rights and wrongs of these kinds of killings are, it means that if it’s okay for the US and its allies to kill their enemies in this way, then its okay for the enemy to do likewise and kill American leaders and leaders of American allies; and since the President of the United States also happens to be the Commander in Chief of American forces, he now becomes a quite legitimate target by exactly the same virtues and logic that the President viewed al Awlaki to be a legitimate target.

Targeted assassinations, of course, are nothing new; the Israelis have quite famously and openly attempted to legitimise the extra-judicial killing of its non-combatant enemies for years. It could even be argued from an historical point of view that Israel’s long history of not very seriously challenged policy of targeted assassinations has paved the way for the Americans to do likewise. Whilst the practise has caused outrage in the past, that outrage hadn’t stopped the killings – killings which continue almost daily in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere against Islamic militants, both combatant and non-combatant. Today, people have become so war-weary they have become immune to more news about such killings. In the case of the latest killing, the uproar is because al Awlaki was an American citizen but this too will soon become just another killing that will usher in a new era of Americans killing Americans justified solely on the basis that they are a threat to security.

One wonders how long it will be before a militant will be targeted and killed in America itself simply because he represents ‘a threat to security’.

And one wonders how long it will be before American and Israeli leaders are themselves targeted by their enemies.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Consider "threat to security." Whose, or what? Muslims and/or Arabs may only be a threat because a) they own some resource (for US, oil, for Zion, soil) - and b) are generally reluctant to part with the resource under 'theft-like' conditions - so c) they resent the entry of the US/Z burglars = murdering thieves, and d) resist. In addition, there's the 'caliphate' furphy, largely instigated, inflamed &/ covertly supported by the CIA as 'clash of civilisations' cover for US/Z aggression. You know all this but it's needed as background for the following: What you're neglecting is called 'framing;' if you use an enemy's terminology you 'legitimise' that terminology (= playing into their hands = actively assisting them), just as if you use the worst enemy's language = Yiddish (i.e. chutzpah, say).

The US/Zs, plus quisling NATO collaborators are now beyond (good) morality and (just) law, mainly rooted in 9/11 (the straw that broke the camel's back = defused 'Western' anti-war resistance) - with 9/11 definitely an inside, black-flag/psyop job, as I recall you were once prepared to argue. The US/Z rogue-regimes set out to defeat the Enlightenment, Marx, Keynes if not everything decent; they set out to supersede the 3rd Reich and are winning - whilst we, the people are losing and losing badly, partly because some = far too many argue *within* the enemies' frames.

Repeat: Argue in their frame/language guarantees you lose. Even the word 'enemy' requires careful deployment; whereas the US/Z rogue-regimes are definitely we, the people's enemies, your careless use of US/Z "leaders ... targeted by their enemies" sounds as if those who might threaten the US/Zs are some sort of 'baddies' - whereas the shoe is on the other foot: The US/Z rogue-regimes are the real criminals, and resisting criminals' attention is the legitimate business of the victims of US/Z aggression.

Damian Lataan said...

America and Israels enemies are not my enemies.

Anonymous said...

enemy n. (pl. -ies) person actively hostile to another. [POD]

It's the *direction*; consider:

The Palestinians are enemies of Z-rael.

The Iranian regime is the enemy of the US regime.

Oh, no they're not.

Neither Palestinians nor Iranians are aggressing = actively hostile, whereas the US/Zs most definitely are and therefore are enemies per definition; the Palestinians and Iranians as Afghanis & Libyans et al. are largely innocent victims = defending = *re-actively* hostile. Try to appreciate the difference? I'm not saying that you are sympathetic to criminals, merely that you allow them unwarranted terminological-latitude. One hopes that your 'alternate' history ('as it Really Is') should improve in accuracy over the pushed-propaganda model.

Anonymous said...

Haha, Damo eats humble pie on Shalit.

* Hey Damo, this is just for you, not for your audience.

Do you see how silly you look, making wildish conpiratorial claims such as Gilad Shalit not existing?

http://lataan.blogspot.com/2006/07/did-palestinians-really-dig-tunnel.html

Can you see how it comes back to bite you?

People don't forget, fool.

Mental illness or not, you ought to be responsible for the tripe you publish.

That's what happens when you reach so far out to the politcal extremes as to make up such garbage.

You get exposed on blogs and the internet, especially highly read blogs with links to high rated newspapers.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=10787144&postID=1392921005836593575&isPopup=true

See "Occupty This"
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/

Next up, posting this on Tim Blair's blog for thousands of Daily Telegraph readers to see.

Damian Lataan said...

Wow!! 'Exposed' at Tim Blair's blog!!!

Thanks for the free ride.