The Clipboard: We should shun assassinations

From an article¹:

The problem is that they are described as "suspected" al-Qaida. To execute suspects is to use the method of the death squad. It appeals to our childish sense of adventure, to our desire for quick and simple justice, but, unfortunately, it erodes the moral values of the United States.

When you give up the law and proper procedures, you give up everything. No doubt most of the suspected criminals in the United States who were lynched were guilty of the crimes they were "suspected" of having committed. That did not make lynching the right thing to do. Not only is there the constant possibility that an innocent person could be killed, but it destroys respect for the law, and respect for the law was what the American Revolution was all about.

All you have to do is read the Bill of Rights. What the Founding Fathers were determined to do was to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of government power. A death squad, an assassination and a lynching are arbitrary exercises of brute force - exactly what men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson so vehemently opposed. (link)

An excellent editorial by Charley Reese.

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Complete text of the article, We should shun assassinations, by Charley Reese

As you probably know, the CIA engineered the murder of a man and five companions in Yemen. A missile fired from one of our drones killed them.

If indeed they were al-Qaida operatives, I have no sympathy for them. They have chosen to wage a campaign against us, and they are now casualties of that war. At the same time, I don't approve of the method used.

The problem is that they are described as "suspected" al-Qaida. To execute suspects is to use the method of the death squad. It appeals to our childish sense of adventure, to our desire for quick and simple justice, but, unfortunately, it erodes the moral values of the United States.

When you give up the law and proper procedures, you give up everything. No doubt most of the suspected criminals in the United States who were lynched were guilty of the crimes they were "suspected" of having committed. That did not make lynching the right thing to do. Not only is there the constant possibility that an innocent person could be killed, but it destroys respect for the law, and respect for the law was what the American Revolution was all about.

All you have to do is read the Bill of Rights. What the Founding Fathers were determined to do was to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of government power. A death squad, an assassination and a lynching are arbitrary exercises of brute force — exactly what men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson so vehemently opposed.

If these "suspected" al-Qaida people were in fact members of the terrorist organization, they could have been taken into custody, tried and then dealt with. That way, any doubts about their guilt are resolved, as far as it is possible for humans to resolve such doubts.

What Americans must realize is that if the government is allowed to murder suspects in Yemen, there is nothing to stop it from deciding to murder suspects in the United States — maybe even you or me. It is always a mistake to cheer on a lynch mob by deluding yourself that it will never come for you. George Washington warned us that government power is like fire — "a useful servant but a fearful master." The whole essence of the American experience has been the continuing struggle to limit the power of the government.

Sure, dictatorships are more "efficient." Republican government can be messy and inefficient. The rule of law can be inefficient. But where would you rather live — in America, with all its inefficiencies, or in Iraq, with its very efficient secret police? The streets of Baghdad are safer than the streets of Washington. That's true of every city in a totalitarian state. But the price of that security is loss of freedom and the constant fear of something far more dangerous than individual criminals — a criminal government.

We should not make the mistake of believing that we can have the protection of the rule of law for ourselves in this country but abandon it in dealing with foreigners in foreign countries. The behavior in foreign countries will corrupt our own officials at home. No drug is more powerful and addictive than power, especially the power to decide who lives and who dies.

We can win the war against terrorism by following our own rules. It is not necessary to adopt the methods of murderers to combat murder. By resorting to assassination, we will make people fear us, and what people fear they eventually grow to hate. You cannot win a war against terrorism by making the world hate us.

reference=http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20021111/index.php