Why no assasinations?

What's with this taboo on assasination that the US government seems to have?  Why is it such a bad idea to send a covert unit to kill the leader of your enemies instead of carpet bombing the whole damn country, causing the deaths of hundreads of troops and civillians and costing billions of dollars? 

Assasination is a fuck good idea!  Why discount it in whole?

Uhh Saddam wasn't the problem? Isn't that painfully clear considering we're at war with THE COUNTRY WE'RE SAVING. He had absolutely nothing to do with the solution.

As for Venezuela: HE IS EVIL BECAUSE HE WONT LET US ASSFUCK HIS OIL SUPPLY.

Anyway, we've had a hand in many assassinations since the 50s. Believe it or not, buddy, we go to wars with countries, not governments. This isn't the middleages, we don't have Kingly scuffles and grudges, we simply commit genocide. The war has been with the people ever since democracy started up.

I can't stand this dilution of the word genocide.

"The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group."

What the Americans are doing is by no means systematic, nor is it deliberate. Furthermore, I'm afraid to inform you that there are no big, nasty sounding words for massive collateral damage, which is all that it simply is: the inevitable side-effect of fighting an urban war against a non-uniformed insurgency, which no-one in a democratically elected position of power anywhere wants.

When you call it genocide, you senselessly and incorrectly slander true genocides and attempted genocides, like the ones the Kurds, Bosnians, and Rwandan Tutsis were subject to.

sry for disrespecting the true genocidal nations of the world

bow

massive collateral damage

I hate the toning down of language to make something seem more acceptable. "Collateral damage"? Fuck you, it's "dead civilians". Same shit applied for "casualties", "kill boxes", "radiation enhancement devices", and whatever other stupid euphemisms the military come up with to protect your precious sensibilities.

Have a problem with reality? Deal.

"inevitable side-effect of fighting an urban war against a non-uniformed insurgency"

lol

ITT we speak english

>> 5 and 6

Learn to speak fucking English. I'm sorry you're afraid of polysyllabic terms, which has led you to misuse them and criticise those who do not, but just because you slept through school doesn't mean I ought to have done so too.

Collateral damage is not equivalent to dead civilians. Collateral damage includes dead civilians and more. There is a reason why there are so many similar words and phrases in this language, and it is because it allows one to render a message with nuance, which ultimately will be lost on quasi-literate children like you.

>>2
You're stupid.  Stop acting like we have any actual beef with the Iraqis, when all we really want is their oil.

>>5
You're basically advocating propaganda speak.  That is, language designed to send people into an emotional frenzy without really understanding why.  If you want to hate the US government, hate them for the fact that they actually have killed civillians over their own interests.  I can actually understand charges like that.  Don't make up some false charge of genocide, which should only be used in situations like >>3 described.

Asassination hasn't really been addressed so far.  Would someone care to respond who doesn't believe in evil?

Assassination is evil cuz we will bitch and moan when someone assassinates one of ours. It's based on the idea of leading by example which I know is hard concept for people these days. Results: the questioning of something so obviously wrong is made possible. Next we'll be asking why no abortions?

For a supposedly Christian leader to suggest such actions is sad , appauling, and totally relieves him of any credibility. Are people so brainwashed now that they won't notice?

God, this shit again?  It's a MORAL issue?  A GOVERNMENT talking about something in terms of MORALITY!? Since when has a government been anywhere close to any concept of morality at all! 

Besides, you think there's morality in sending hundreads of thousands into danger, and causing the death of even more civillians?  Moral relativists would have a field day (of which I am one, and I am having a field day.)

You're probably one of those "America is a christian nation," folk.  You probably also believe there is some sort of honor in combat for combat's sake (E.G., independant of the cause you're fighting for).  These are the shit ideas brough on by moral absolutism.

>>7
Oh, no, did I touch a nerve?

Why do you call it "collateral damage"? Do you really believe it was created as a more accurate representation of a concept, or because it hides the grim reality or war?

If the former, I recommend you get an education. I think a history of propaganda in the 20th century would do nicely. You might be particularly enlightened by reading some of the literature the British used to target the US intelligencia when attempting to drag the US into WWII.

I'm quite literate, and can read your mental refuse with ease, but your long words still disgust me. Why? Because if you can't put it in simple terms it only means either a) you don't really understand the issue, or b) you're full of shit and using verbiage and generalities to defend a weak position.

Your post sounds like the verbal flambee commerce students come up with, and is just as inane. Nuanced my ass.

>>8
I don't care about the word "genocide", because what's going on right now doesn't strike me as genocide. What I have a problem with is the drivel >>7 spews forth. If genocide is one end of the verbal spectrum, he's the other. I happen to hate both extremes.

You're the one who interpreted it as an attack on the US. Did I mention the US anywhere? Grow up.

<Inst>
The issue of assassination is "opening a gate of hell". If you start assassinating enemy leaders, what will stop them from assassinating you? Maybe, you'll get a few guys, then everyone will be hiding in their "Dick Cheney Mk 6" Command Bunker, afraid to go out.

It's sad that this topic turned to this only over my use of the word "genocide." I used the word genocide to describe the modern wars because they usually amount to that after a country has been carpet-bombed for a year and then bought by corporations soon after. A common intent of genocide is not to extinct the peoples (Hitler) but their culture or their common belief. (soviet purges)

What the US is doing in Iraq is genocide against those who oppose the idea of their country being occupied and manipulated by a foreign nation. The people who believe that are terrorists, and according to the US terrorists are basically meat which must be imprisoned unconditionally until broken or blown up by a missile. If that isn't genocide of the true Iraqi citizen defending their country, what is?

>>13
And as for this, God I hope so. Maybe in the future, just maybe, the politicians will be responsible for their actions and not civilian bystanders.

I read a good overview of what has historically happened regarding the US trackrecord on assassination. Its relatively well written except for the editorial point of view.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Focus/GH26Dh01.html

>>14
Exactly. The US is randomly blowing up Iraqis, and the heroic freedom fighters are fighting for their right to self-determination. If they have to brutally behead a few contractors and Red Cross workers, oh well. After all, George Washington was a terrorist too. We just can't understand their culture; they obviously want to live under a terror-supporting theocracy. Who are we to judge that they want democracy and freedom?

</sarcasm>

>>14
God...  Shut up.  Maybe their culture is backwards and needs to be subject to "genocide"?

>>13
So they're doing it for themselves then... big surprise.  Question answered.  I declare this thread dead.

>>14
I think you're using the emotional impact of the word to stir up artificial feelings of outrage over something you disagree with.

It's propaganda.

>>18
The exact opposite could be called propaganda too. ie. mincing your words so that people are not bared the truth of what you are really doing.

>>18
The masses are uneducated and not used to big words. They will not bother look up some word and understand the underlying impact of what the news is saying.

When I think of 'collateral damage', I only think of rubble. Never do I think of dead civilians. It just never enters my minds. The news should communicate ideas properly in a civil manner.

Yes, since you have an opinion, you are correct.  Good job.

>> 20

The uneducated masses also watch wrestling and probably approve of "genocide" against the towelheads. It's all besides the point... afaik, there is no on-going literal genocide in the world at this moment... and if you degrade the word to mean the accidental mass-slaughter of peoples of a similar ethnicity or religion or nationality or linguistic heritage, you open up the term to be applied to any and every war in human history. Haven't all invasions killed lots of civilians? I think so... have all wars been wars of genocide? I think not.

There are no genocides at this moment. Not even Niger or Sudan.

>>22
>There are no genocides at this moment. Not even Niger or Sudan.

Not to derail or anything, but Arab government-backed militias raping, killing, and displacing blacks is pretty much the definition of "genocide."

>> 23

No, the definition of genocide as above is:

"The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group."

What is happening in Niger and Sudan is ethnic cleansing. There is no attempt being made to kill them in entirety, which is what is meant by extermination. Many refuges have even reported being  warned to move days before the militias come. Not to excuse their heinous actions, but the Arab government-backed militias are *not* trying to exterminate the blacks (if they were, there would be no warning, no encouragement to flee), they're simply *moving* them through threat and use of force.

Ethnic cleansing is perhaps the 2nd worst thing humans do to each other. But it is not equal to nor the same as genocide.

>>24
Okay, I see your point, although it's kind of semantical. I got the impression that you meant that what was going on in those places wasn't anything particularly bad, which is my fault for making assumptions

>>24
>the Arab government-backed militias are *not* trying to exterminate the blacks

ps theyre all black, its the muslim blacks killing the others systematically with machetes women children etc

that may not fit the formal definition of genocide because the entire non muslim population is not entirely exterminated, then again all the jews on earth werent exterminated and that is still classified as an ATTEMPT at genocide. if the muslims in sudan had the chance they would kill them all, a total genocide would be fine with them

the semantic difference here is the scope of the 'deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group'... even if its limited to the borders of a nation-state instead of a global scale it is still a genocidal act

It's ok for black people to die though.  Even the US doesn't mind.

>> 26

theyre all black

I was using the distinctions made by the previous poster, the actual "race" of the combatants didn't matter to me because I don't believe in "race" anyway. People are different colors. So the fuck what? I'm darker than my mother. Am I therefore, a different race from her? Race is a completely arbitrary and scientifically meaningless concept.

if the muslims in sudan had the chance they would kill them
all, a total genocide would be fine with them.

They do have the chance and the opportunity to kill them all, it'd be easy as tearing the legs off a spider. And they don't. Maybe they wish they were and are under the mistaken impression that they can't, but I consider it more likely that rather than being motivated by a non-rational hatred (like the one that inspired Hitler to attempt to commit genocide against the Jews), they are instead motivated by a rational economic desire to obtain more land/resources at any cost (like the one that inspired Hitler to invade the "Sudentenland").

maybe there are assasinations (people die every day, you know!) but you just don't hear about them on the news.

>> 29

Uh... maybe... like in the sense that perhaps when my grandmother died a couple months ago it's possible she was assassinated? Because I would agree to that proposition. But one of the usual assumptions about assassination is that the person being assassinated mattered, in a socio-political or economic ssense, which to be truthful, my grandmother did not.

For the most part, people who ought to be assassinated live long lives and die of diseases of over-consumption, like lung cancer, heart attacks and liver failure, recapitulating in micro-scale what they're doing to the planet on macro-scale.

He might be correct, you know? Some people who are important to foreign policy never reach the news, and those who might could suffer accidents.

For all we know the US might be assassinating people on a regular basis. Whichever department deals with that won't be parading around, and anything they do would be low-key unless they're desperate.

I'm quite doubtful that any state, particularly a superpower, would dismiss a useful tool outright.

>> 31

To be important to policy, you must be well-known. If you're not in the news, you're not important to policy. With one possible exception; let's say you're the head of the government's death squad... in that case, you're definitely important to policy, yet it's not necessary that you be a celebrity to be effective in your work. Though many heads of death squads were very well known. Like Heinrich Himmler of the Waffen SS, Nikita Krushchev of the NKVD... I don't know his name but the head of the Fedayeen Saddam, the Iraqi death squad organization was quite well-known within his country, and so was the head of the Chilean government counter-revolutionary organization, and the guy who threw people out of C-130s for the el presidente of Nicaragua.

To be honest, I think the Spartans might have had it wrong; it isn't the murder in the night you don't see and barely hear that terrifies you, it's the one that they applaud in the daily news the next day.