"Alex Tabarrok <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" wrote: > Are there any good reasons for an anti-assassination policy? Let us consider two situations: * Not quite war (Cuba, Serbia until last week, Cold War USSR, etc.): Killing a leader will only make him a martyr, esp. if he has a strong popular mandate. This would only help galvanize an anti-American movement, leading to terrorism. At best, some successor would simply fill the vacuum. * War: Like above, such an action might serve only to intensify any fighting. Also, it would be a waste of resources. Unlike chess, the idea is not to eliminate the "king," but to capture your objective, which is not necessarily the same thing. No matter how charismatic your enemy leader is, the successor would probably be competent enough to continue to wage war. There are some special situations for which assassination might be exactly what the doctor ordered: * If the enemy cultural mobilization is founded primarily on a cult of personality. * If the enemy is highly disorganized in the ranks and the leader is a control freak. Then it would be like chess. So, for recent US enemies: * Hussein: Great candidate. The only thing the Iraqis hate more than Hussein is the US. If Hussein is eliminated, that would allow trade sanctions to be lifted. I doubt Hussein would be considered a martyr since Iraq has been condemned by most of the Muslim world, and because he ruled with a military iron fist w/o the pretense of being a religious leader. * Milosevic: Poor candidate. Until recently, what gave Milosevic his power was strong popular support among ethnic Serbs. Even if Milosevic were eliminated, the motivations for the Balkan wars would have still resided in the populace. In the current situation, if for some reason Milosevic were able retain support from the military, then he would be a ripe assassination candidate. I think it's important to note that if you're as libertarian as Harry Browne, you would probably not support US involvement in either the Persian Gulf or the Balkans. If that is the case, then I cannot imagine a possible conflict in which assassination would be worth the funding it would take and risks it would entail, apart from discombobulating the occasional violent cult. Regards, Sourav Mandal ------------------------------------------------------------ Sourav K. Mandal [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/ "In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse." -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Poetic Principle"
