The prohibition against assassination makes sense only from a pragmatic point of view. We should not be too eager to use assassination, as it is often not a viable solution. However, it is hardly less moral to kill the man responsible for a nation's foreign policy than to kill the soldiers who work for him and have little say in whether that nation threatens us.
Actually it makes no sense from a pragmatic point of view. If X is causing you trouble, then the logical solution is to get rid of X. Israel has used targeted assasinations for the last few years and it has worked great. Terrorism is down and collateral damage has been limited.
It does make sense from a political POV, somehow making us look moral. But I dont think the rest of the world is giving us kudos.
Fair enough. I don't claim to know how well it works in various situations, I'm just baffled by this moral disapproval so many seem to exhibit. As if assassinating an international bad actor is somehow no different than assassinating MLK. Maybe we should just use words like kill or decapitate, to avoid the negative connotation.
My remark about pragmatism comes from my suspicion that assassination is too often not a real solution, and just results in another dictator filling the vacuum.
Actually, I admit I agree with that point in general.
IMO, assassinating the leader is morally preferable to killing large numbers of soldiers who may only be fighting because they are conscripted / defending their homeland / etc.
The issue I have with the proposed assassination of Chavez is not that its an assassination rather than some other act of war. But that Venezuala/ Chavez has not done anything that would morally justify any such acts.
My point is that nations do not have rights.
Again, I agree. Nations and states do not have rights. The people that make them up do. And just as I do not have a right to kill people who are acting like tossers and refusing to sell me stuff, the people who comprise my government and security services do not have a right to kill people who are acting like tossers and refusing to sell them stuff.
But what moral right do you have to declare war on another nation, when it has not made, threatened or is intending to make war on yours?
You've got to be a Libertarian with those views.
Gee, that hurts
The moral right is that the U.S.'s primary responsibility is the welfare of its own citizens. That welfare will suffer with the continued existence of someone who is obviously intent on doing us harm. The U.S. has effected change throughout this hemisphere since the Monroe Doctrine, and getting rid of Chavez will be one more example.
I have the moral right to look out for my own welfare. Including by using force against those who are attacking me, or clearly about to. That doesn't give me the right to use force against someone who is doing neither, even if I could get some benefit from doing so.
Similarly, the US (and every other nation) has the moral right to look after the welfare of its citizens, including by using force against other nations/groups/individuals etc that attack them (or are about to). But until someone, makes such an act of aggression, then I do not consider such premptive attacks morally justified.
And I'm sure it's not just libertarians who think that.
