> Mr. Soze: > This is not a people's war. If anything its a war against > democracy and an attempt to discipline elected officials into > obeying their sworn oaths. You know, the ones they rarely obey > and are almost never called to account.
It would be a people's war, and it would have the opposite effect of what you envision, and endear leaders to the populace. The reprisal is the same. If you can't bring the actors to account, you will punish those that harbor or aid. If not that, hostages. The same theme plays out today in new ways. Russia just passed legislation holding 'knowing' family members responsible. > Paine wrote on this extensively. > > > >Paine? > > Thomas Paine You are the one that seeks to solve a political issue at the point of the sword. That's war, not a Lincoln-Douglas debate. I believe my Gen. Paine is more qualified to speak to the issue. Assassination: the choice of an incompetent generation. AP is not without historic precedent. A big one. It was a waste of bucks, bodies and bullets. Assassination has the effect of empowering that which you oppose, solidifying their position, hardening your target, undermining your moral position, identifying "something," and rendering "something" vulnerable to spirals of reprisal that you cannot withstand. Only in rare circumstances would you want to kill the "leader" of anything. The leader you know is better than one you don't. New enemies mean new plans. You should never let anybody kill your enemies, after you work so hard to make people hate them. The people will follow somebody they love, and you don't kill the enemy leader until that's you. Your choice of tactics mirrors your capability. Assassination is somebody flashing before they flesh. If you were an insurgent, in some far-off country, petitioning for my support against a mutual evil -- and I had to support somebody -- you just got crossed off my list of contenders. That's ESPECIALLY if my objective was destabilization and general havoc. Aside from being sick....assassination is stupid on the tactical merits alone. Works in a narrow set of circumstances, and you don't have it. But it is dumb for the most ancient of reasons: "Deny your enemy power in the afterlife." There are a thousand ways to beat a live enemy, but zero ways to beat a dead one. In our human past, Tribe A would go kill a member of Tribe B. Tribe B when then attack and fight for a dead man, sometimes calling his name for generations. To our ancestors, that was puzzling. IMO, they concluded there was a enemy afterlife. From then on, many mutilated the bodies of their enemies. The most powerful enemies -- DEAD MEN. Men will fight in their names for centuries. They usually died in battle. For some cultures, immortality remains associated with death in battle, and we still want to "die whole" in body and soul. Our ancestors were buried with weapons. IMO, it wasn't a sentimental gesture. A warrior fought for his tribe -- even in death. There are still "ancestor insults" in many cultures. War was a contest between living wills, but also dead ones. In our exchange, you "called on the spirit" of Thomas Paine. I had to go get another dead guy to meet your dead guy. Somebody even pointed out that my General Paine dead guy was "spiritually polluted," and inferred that your dead guy was better than my dead guy. Things really haven't changed much. Part of the reason assassination is frowned upon, has it's roots here. You must meet the enemy in battle and beat him there. To kill him is not enough. You fight more than an enemy body, you fight the demon that is the soul of the man. (We let Stalin die whole. We will fight him again. He's not dead.) Old soldiers never die. Some men fight forever. Men that died "whole," perhaps even killed, but not beaten. Your ancestors knew this, so do you. In our current conflict, we should forget what we've learned, and do what we know. If I got to pick warriors, I would go to battle and throw men at a line. The ones that want to run away -- the ones that hang towards the back -- my guys. America is a dueling culture in a savage land. ~Aimee
