7.23.2003
Sign of the times?
The Congressional 9/11 Probe is to be released.
This statement in an article on Yahoo new makes me really uncomfortable. (The first paragraph is solely for some context)
The ban on assassinations, spelled out in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 and reinforced by Presidents Carter and Reagan, made no distinction between wartime and peacetime. There are no loop holes; no matter how awful the leader, he could not be a U.S. target either directly or by a hired hand.
The advantages of using assassination as a political tool seemed less obvious a generation ago than they are today.
The offending statement italicized by me.
WTF? It was just as obvious that murder, "extra-judicial killing" as folks in the Israeli military say, is both expedient and WRONG back then; it is just that people lived in a culture less open to murder in general, much less governments that murdered. Watergate, Viet Nam - people were used to keeping an eye on the government.
The ban on assassinations, spelled out in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 and reinforced by Presidents Carter and Reagan, made no distinction between wartime and peacetime. There are no loop holes; no matter how awful the leader, he could not be a U.S. target either directly or by a hired hand.
Ford, Carter, Reagan never heard of Julius Caesar, Hamlet? Lincoln?
Lincoln! There's your extrajudicial killing for you. Sad to say, there are folks like Mr Ashcroft friends at Southern Partisan who may look at President Lincolns killing differently than you and I. They have morals. Wound too tight I think...
Folks appointed without the will of the people are unhampered by such bonds of decency. Like telemarketers or used car salesmen. Or an administration bent on war. Ask Mr Bush and/or Mr Cheney. Tony Blair...
That bit of the article quoted has me saying "What kind of world do we live in?" Asking myself "Are folks just reading that and positing that "murder by any other name kills just as expediently"?
I'm betting the house that the majority of us still hold that murder is murder, no matter what spiffy governmental term is offered us.
What happened?
7/23/2003
|
|
|
