Is assasination ever acceptable?

Absolutely. I fail to see how shooting an enemy soldier is acceptable, but shooting the guy who's ordering him to fight is somehow off limits. Anyone aiding the war effort (including civilians who are creating munitions, engines of war, etc...) are legitimate targets.

Ending the war sooner means less death over all. So if that means taking a few less than moral or ethical actions, so be it. War is an ugly thing, probably the worst of things.

Originally posted by Fry2

None are applicable or of valid use for any Modern society.

What is "modern" society? Just curious.

Supposedly ours, but we're the New Romans, without the style of the originals.
We were never in "War" with Iraq during Clinton's time, and when the threats warranted, the assassination squad was formered in the best manner of the day.

During war? Of course it is acceptable. The leader is the military's chief comander. Any military target is a righteous target, except hospitals.

I agree with that but the problem with the current war in Iraq is that for the most part there are no clearly defined commanding targets anymore. It seems that anybody with charisma and a few weapons is now going to be a leader. How do you assassinate a person who you cannot identify? If some young Iraqi male whips a band of others into an anti-American fervor and they act upon it then he is now a leader. This trend i see means that if assassination is a tool to be utilized then a lot of bullets are going to spent trying to shoot the head from a large monster that will immediately grow another.

Unconventional war tactics at their best i guess.

Sometimes it is acceptable but the person can be made into a martyr. A good example of a martyr within the past 50 years is Emmit Till.

Jesus was assassinated and also became a martyr.

Only if their whacked out like Hitler and Stalin, IMO. I think if theyre killing a ton of innocent people, they deserve to be shot.

Originally posted by penguin1008

Jesus was assassinated and also became a martyr.

As far as I know, Jesus was executed.

Originally posted by JustAnIllusion
Only if their whacked out like Hitler and Stalin, IMO. I think if theyre killing a ton of innocent people, they deserve to be shot.

The problem with assasination is that the guy you consider to be whacked out, could also be considered as God by some other person. So, who gets to decide who gets to be assasinated?

[Edited on 4/11/2004 by surfup]

I DO!!!!! ........I mean......errr........
j/k

JustAnIllusion....will you marry me?

Its good to see a woman with good common sense.

If a group of people, like islamic extremists or if some white or hispanic or chinese, or any other radical groups, shows that they can work/meet in peace and solve things without war and killing to make an statement, i am all for it.
But with people that keep showing over and over that they are radicals and only anwser to violence and war, killing innocent people whenever they want to make statements, those people need to be taken out.

Hey any of these groups stopped waging "terrorism" tomorrow, making no more attempts to attack innocents and would actually be willing to sit down and talk. Lets do it. But what has Bin Laden and other terrorists been saying all along?

April 1995 a french journalist interviewed bin laden and this is what he had to say.

"To counter these atheist Russians, the Saudis chose me as their representative in Afghanistan... I did not fight against the communist threat while forgetting the peril from the West."
"For us, the idea was not to get involved more than necessary in the fight against the Russians, which was the business of the Americans, but rather to show our solidarity with our Islamist brothers. I discovered that it was not enough to fight in Afghanistan, but that we had to fight on all fronts against communist or Western oppression. The urgent thing was communism, but the next target was America... This is an open war up to the end, until victory."

Excerpt taken from.
www.pbs.org...

Wow, wait a second....so he is saying that they were actually thinking on stabbing our backs "all along" after the Russians were defeated? humm...does the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" come to mind?

He also said this in March 1997.

"We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation."

Excerpt taken form the same link above.

Now, lets see, he is an "islamic extremist" and according to the Quran wars should be fought against all infidels no matter what... so who is lying, hideous and criminal if not the islamic extremists?

Once again, I am not saying this about all Muslims, those who are not "radical/extremists," and would not even think on decieving or killing for whatever cause are good people.

I would say, they do not want to talk, so lets take the "extremists/radicals" out before they can do something more.



[Edited on 11-4-2004 by Muaddib]