I swear i wish sometimes the U.S. would just reimpose assasinating world leaders and i think we should start with Iran's President! What do you guys think...Good idea or Just outright stupid?

Originally posted by Skeptik1st
I swear i wish sometimes the U.S. would just reimpose assasinating world leaders and i think we should start with Iran's President! What do you guys think...Good idea or Just outright stupid?

Stupid. We tried that in Venezuela and failed. Horribly. Luckily our media hides our government from this embarrassment but we just aren't as good at it anymore. To kill the Iranian president will only bring someone worse into power, study the ME and you will see puppet governments that conform to our demands are never long lasting and always lead to being worse then before they where installed. In short, stupid idea.

thanks for the reply...i tend to agree with you to some degree...Lets here it ppl To ASSASINATE OR NOT TOO!?

America sucks at assassinating people. Look at Castro for example who lives only 90 miles away from the U.S. mainland. We are just too soft. Mostly its the military that can do what our intelligence agencies can't do in conflicts or tensions, especially the CIA.

Not.

The idea of doing this might appeal to some people until it is their leader that is the one that is assassinated (or attempted assassination). All it would do is open the floodgates to those leaders that would like to take a potshot at any other leader that they consider standing in their way.

JDub

so far we have 3 not such a good idea....i know there are some ppl out there who think this should be imposed...were looking for some constructive debate here...lets keep em coming! nice replies by the way i tend to agree with you guys

Not a good idea. No administration would survive, due to the political sensitivity of such an action. If Chavez died of a heart attack tomorrow, its going to be hard enough to convince much of the world that the US had no hand in it. And like what has been mentioned before, govts propped up by the US don't last. Besides, behind the figurehead, there is an institution. If you must assasinate, go after the competent people, not the leaders.

Originally posted by hogtie
If you must assasinate, go after the competent people, not the leaders.

This is exactly where i stand on the issue...dont go after leaders but important figures within there infastructre. Good post Hogtie

Assasinating the Iranian president would be like putting your penis in a hornets nest imho.

Leaders these days are rarely all that is to a movement that controlls a goverment.

Assasination of leaders only works in dictatorships like North Korea and Cuba.

In nations like Iran or the US or any other democratic, party ruled communist or sharia law run country, killing the president or leading figures of the nation will only fuel the fire and have them replaced before you got the time to get out of the country.

If you want to bring trough a thorough change in country's run by many people, you either have to kill all these people(which the US pritty much did in Iraq) and the ones that elected them, or do whatever you can to change the mindset that brought them to hate you.

Originally posted by thematrix
Assasinating the Iranian president would be like putting your penis in a hornets nest imho.

Thats about the funniest analogy ive seen on ATS in awhile lol thanks for the laugh!

wow pysopswatcher....good find a very interesting read...maybe hogtie is on to something here!

That's a pretty slippery slope. When world security is at stake, or human dignity (for example in the case of leaders who clearly commit crimes against humanity), and when there is no other option, it's kind of understandable, although even then it's best to coordinate with allies.

But when it's just because U.S. interests are at stake and/or the U.S. administration is not willing to pursue other options... that's dangerous. If, for example, Hugo Chavez (who was democratically elected) were assassinated, the message would be that any other government on the face of the earth - democratic or not - could be toppled or have its leader assassinated if its policies ran counter to U.S. interests.

Originally posted by psyopswatcher

Make a list of ways to totally disable a nation and some genius will add braindrain. Then if fear (#1 on the list) alone doesn't work to get them to scatter...

[edit on 1-8-2006 by psyopswatcher]

Its worked for Cambodia and China. Its not just the political opposition that is a threat. It is the people smart enough to figure out that the current situation is totally screwed, and they have the brains and fortitude to do something about it.

Education is a big threat to theocracies, which is why Iran will punish apostasy with death. "You iz azking tooo many kvestshuns!" *boot heel click*.

But I think what Skeptik1st has in mind, and correct me if I'm wrong, is what can be succesfully employed to further US interests. At least, that is the spirit that I got from the thread. Here's an example of what I'm thinking: In Mexico, should relations ever deteriorate for whatever reason, the US should not go after the politicians, but the drug lords. Break the financial back. I'm not picking on Mexico, just trying to point out an example.

Originally posted by Otts
That's a pretty slippery slope. When world security is at stake, or human dignity (for example in the case of leaders who clearly commit crimes against humanity), and when there is no other option, it's kind of understandable, although even then it's best to coordinate with allies.

But when it's just because U.S. interests are at stake and/or the U.S. administration is not willing to pursue other options... that's dangerous. If, for example, Hugo Chavez (who was democratically elected) were assassinated, the message would be that any other government on the face of the earth - democratic or not - could be toppled or have its leader assassinated if its policies ran counter to U.S. interests.

Ah, but where there are US interests... can our allies's be far behind? What we're seeing in Lebanon is Israel doing the dirty work this time. For their own security, of course. But that, to me, is the ruse to get popular opinion on their side.

Assasination creates 'opinions' of another nature, hardly popular.


"...even then it's best to coordinate with allies.", and even though it's very risky, it's not improbable. Especially when they want to create confusion to pass the blame around.

How many lawyers have died in Saddam's trial so far?

Actually, in using the term "allies" I really had the WWII context with Adolf Hitler in mind.

Originally posted by Otts
Actually, in using the term "allies" I really had the WWII context with Adolf Hitler in mind.

good thought actualy. you kinda brought up a point i was going to make. how many people here think that hittler should have been assasinated i wonder?

in all honesty killing him off could have been one of the worst things the allies could have done. sure we would have been short one evil meglo maniac but what might have resulted from it? lets see first off hittler would have become a mayrter to the cause of the third reich. an icon for others to take up his cause. who would have taken over for him, there was a pretty nasty line of sucession if he died. lets see off the top of my head we have heidrich himmler, head of the ss. he could have done a much better job of running the war.

in fact i have been in discussions about it and the conclusion was that we were better off with hittler in charge then most of his underlings and possible sucessores. true he was nuts by the end of the war, but that was in our favour. it was due to HITTLER's incompitance and surrity that he was right that enabled the allies to come to ultimate victory. just think at what would have happened if hittler had actualy listened to his advisors and staff and kept up the pressure on england? remember that britton was extreemly close to looseing the air war when hittler's gaze wandered over to another objective. operation sea lion very likely would have suceeded if not for hittler's stupidity. if he had only finished off britton BEFORE attacking russia he likely would have ultimatly won the war.

there would have been NO us involvement that mattered at that point. do you think that the states and other allies would have gone to russia's aid? stalian was ONLY helped out due to the fact that that second front helped everyone. it is farly well known that rosivelt and churchill could barly stand the man muchless the communist regime that was in place.

so hopefuly you can see that hittler's assasination would have been a HUGE mistake, it very well could have cost the allies the war. thats the problem with assasination, it is a very short sighted solution that has a bad habbit of backfireing.

then there is the question of who gets to make the decision on who to assainate? what is to stop a personal agenda from getting invoved? oh canada said no again so lets assasinate the prime minister and hopefully get someone who agrees with me in charge. germany wants to get rid of american bases, again lets assasinate the leader to get someone who agrees with us in charge. it is indeed a slipery slope.

i will admit that sometimes assasination can be a usefull tool. but normaly it would be in the case of takeing out compitant battlefield leaders to cause confusion as well as possibly getting "that incompitant" commanderin charge who can be defeated easyer. but on the whole assasination is a bad thing ESPECIALY when takeing out pollitical leadership.

The other thing to remember is that Hitler was a pretty lousy military leader.
Hitler's own bad decisions helped shorten the war considerably.

Had we asassinated Hitler, someone more competent might have ended up in charge, and the war could have gone on quite a bit longer.

Yeah, and whats even more frightening is that his right hand and alot of the other high ranking Nazi's were elbow deep into occult and other research and beliefs.