Friday, August 7, 2009

A Successful Assassination

According to various reports, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed yesterday by a CIA drone missile strike. Remember the recent outrage over the Bush-era planned CIA assassination program that was never implemented? Some of the same people who were shocked and horrified by a program that didn't get beyond the planning stage, seem to have no problem with actual assassinations. The Obama administration shut down the CIA program as soon as CIA director Panetta discovered it. But that same administration is vigorously pursuing an actual assassination program that targets people in a neutral country, and has been since it took office. If Mehsud's death is confirmed, his assassination would be a high-profile success. For some reason assassinating people with missile firing drones is fine, but using assassin teams is bad. Of course killing people with drones causes collateral damage -- we killed Mehsud's wife and bodyguards too. I wonder if they were guilty of anything?

As far as I know Baitullah Mehsud was never convicted of any crimes in U.S. court, let alone his wife. But the Obama administration had no problem ordering their deaths. For some reason the left-wing bleating about the "rule of law," "rights" of foreign terrorists, and all the assorted nonsense we heard about mere torture of terrorists, just doesn't apply to these sorts of assassinations. We can't torture them for information needed to protect the country, but we can mark them for death, fly a drone into another country, launch a missile, and kill them and anyone who happens to be nearby, including women and children. It's something to keep in mind the next time some Obama supporter starts sniveling about"war crimes" and "torture."

3 comments:

  1. I found it amusing that Mehsud's death announcement was in the same prime space atop the NYTimes front page as the 'CIA planned to assassinate terrorists' story a month back. The paper literally was knee deep in hypocrosiy. It's the CIA's job to find and elminate foreigners who seek to harm Americans and their interests, how they do this is no real concern of mine. Just get the job done. By the way, I know a thing or two about Mehsud, and his elimination is a very good thing for Paksitan, Afghanistan, and the US. The people (CIA, military) or planned and executed this attack will never get any public praise, let alone a parade, but they deserve our thanks for a job well done.

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  2. As long as Obama is doing it using drones, it isn't a problem for the NY Times. I've never understood the rationale that says killing with indiscriminate aerial weapons is ok, but killing in person where you have better chance of minimizing collateral damage is illegal and unacceptable.

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