Assassination - Editorial, The Week in Review

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

01.01.2020

Assassination

We have arrived at this, foreign policy by political murder.

I will not pretend that the United States hasn’t always employed this tool to carry out its agenda, we have been in the assassination game for quite some time, from the beginning in fact. This is not anything to be proud of even though it is something we must acknowledge.

This ass assassination is different. It is in the open, it is public.

It hearkens back to when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney attempted to normalize torture. We had to acknowledge that the United States tortures people, we always have, and it is no good.

Torture is a criminal act, so is assassination, even in a time of war these things are criminal, they must remain criminal, when they are discovered those responsible must be held accountable.

If we turn the corner and move toward accepting these things as a normal way of conducting our international affairs, we are doomed.

Donald Trump and his ilk are lazy and feckless, they want what they want and they want it now. They are no interested in developing constituencies, in building consensus, in forging alliances or long term cooperative effort.

They just want to hurry to the end, cheat and lie, violate our standards, breach the norms, and throw ethics out the window.

Their vision of the social order is not just, there is no compact, there is only might makes right.

The reason why we do not assassinate the leadership of those we face on the battlefield, is so that we have someone to make peace with when the battle is over. If we eliminate the leadership of our adversaries we cannot engage in meaningful negotiations, agreements cannot be arrived at, or if they are arrived at they cannot be enforced.

Donald Trump has brought us to another low, he has made our relationship with the Iranians much more dangerous. American’s will be killed because of what he has done, it he cannot say that his actions have protected anyone.

Assassination is a shameful thing, those who are justifying it are behaving shamefully, the shame does not belong to Donald Trump alone. It belongs to all of us.