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Assassin-Nation: Do the two go together?



Democracies that assassinate can get addicted to the tactic. Judicial process would be a good antidote.

I’m of the view Barack Obama is a “hard liberal” – in other words a Democrat who doesn’t shirk from military force. They may be reluctant, or seek to appease their party’s pacifist wing, but they take security seriously. Other Democrats in this fold: Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy.

This has been further confirmed by Obama’s decision to authorize the assassination of Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who helped put together the Detroit Christmas bombing attempt. It seems Al Awlaki is more than rabble-rousing, he’s actively hatching plots.

What is remarkable is that the assassination order has been okayed by Obama despite Al Awlaki being an American citizen. The legal argument: he’s Al Qaeda, he’s a legit military target and not a case of political assassination.

Off hand, I would have thought he needed to be at least indicted for treason, be sentenced to death in absentia, or something beforehand. In effect, a US president is passing a death sentence on one of his own citizens, no matter how wayward, without any clear judicial procedure.

I have had the odd stirring of doubt regarding the use of assassination by a liberal government. On the face of it, this makes little sense. Assassination is just another instrument of warfare. If anything, it is less messy and less likely to result in innocents being killed than the full-scale military action, even airstrikes or naval shelling. If nations can wage war, they can assassinate.

But that’s just the point. Democracies declare war through a carefully laid out constitutional or legal procedure. Assassination seems to short circuit that entire procedure by allowing a death warrant to be issued through non-transparent executive fiat. The US issues assassination orders against an American only after “special review” but clearly one that is not quite independent judicial oversight.

Israel is the world’s most extensive user of targeted assassination and has a particularly lethal success rate. The recent killing of the Hamas military commander, Mahmoud al Mabhouh, in Dubai may have resulted in lots of Mossad mugshots being splashed about, but it should not be forgotten the mission was successful. In Israel the degree of political control has receded even further. Mossad selects its targets and plots out the killing – and then goes to the political boss for authorization. Mind you, this is for non-Israelis. I don’t know if they’ve ever assassinated an Israeli.

Israel took up assassination after the Munich Olympic massacre. Some Israeli commentators have argued their country has become addicted to the use of targeted killing, whether by gun or airborne missile. However, it has not served any larger strategic goal merely a sense of primitive justice.

I wonder if the US is heading down the same path. Assassination by drone is now virtually the norm along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This is partly about terrain and partly about the historic US squirmishness regarding its own casualties. However, in the case of both countries the use of assassination partly reflects a belief that regular warfare is either militarily or politically impossible in the target area. But it also results in the use of a state’s military capability being almost solely left to the discretion of a small section of the executive, almost bereft of judicial process.

Will India ever walk down that path? Assassination would be attractive. Because of the protection provided by Pakistan, India has almost no serious military options against the terrorists who attack it from overseas. The real obstruction lies elsewhere.

I once asked an Israeli official conversant in such matters what was ingredient that was most important to the establishment of an assassination policy. He responded, “Political will. If you ask a group of men to dedicate themselves to hunting down someone, they must know that an election or a shift in public opinion will not mean a loss of state backing.”

Each succeeding prime minister or new government must treat the death warrants issued by its predecessor as holy writ.

Somehow, I don’t see that being the case in India for some time to come.

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Posted by Pramit Pal Chaudhuri on Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 11:22 pm 
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  • AB

    Agreed

    [Reply]

  • HB

    Couldn’t say it better. Being liberal or conservative doesn’t matter in US. If somebody harms citizens then expect a response. This is from former Indian citizen and now US citizen. In India – we won’t commit to complete the punishment handed down by judiciary – how do you expect political will to commit to targeted killings. The ruling class doesn’t care for the death of common citizen and if they do catch a killer and happens to be a minority or Maoist then you have the self styled “civil society” and “intellectuals” and NGOs including Human Rights Orgs (who are basically share the same ideologue as the killers ) who will find reasons to justify the attack and point the finger back to us.

    [Reply]

  • Nikhil

    That’s right, the Americans and the Israelis have got it wrong. Indians are wiser. In India, mass murders committed by assassins are seen as normal and democratic but official death warrants being issued to bump off high profile terrorists are seen as immoral and non-democratic.

    I agree that there is no honor in chasing and eliminating terrorists who threaten any country. India has shown how to live up to its democratic principles. India has acquired high moral ground in its fight agaisnt 21st century terrorism by printing dossiers, negotiating with terrorists or hoping that someday there will be change of hearts among the evil doers.

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    Roy Reply:
    April 9th, 2010 at 4:28 am

    I agree, however India has gotten it’s citizens killed to terrorist bombings. All our policy says to do is to raise objections to the terrorist camps being operted in the neighboring countries. THAT IS NO POLICY…..or I may say a spineless policy

    [Reply]

    Vinodgupt Reply:
    April 9th, 2010 at 8:10 am

    You are right. india may not last long but no one will say they used wrong methods. Morals above life.

    [Reply]

  • Haridas Ramakrishnan

    Indian liberals are typically very politically correct. For them the intent is more important than the effects. But keep in mind that without real teeth a criminal justice system doesn’t fulfill its role of deterrence. We see this time and again. For example, if perpetrators of anti-Sikh rioters were punished properly and timely, Mumbai riots after Ayodhya incident wouldn’t probably have happened. If the perpetrators for the Mumbai riots were punished properly Gujarat riots wouldn’t probably have happened.

    But what are we doing? Even after 25 years after the Delhi riots our system is still trying to file cases against a few as if it all happened last week. And that too, for killing several thousands of people? Talk about our sense of justice. Same thing about Mumbai riots and now about Gujarat riots too. Don’t mistake this for liberalism or checks or balances. This is how ineffective and politically correct we are. But this creates more suffering.

    The author of this article has a point in the issue of American president deciding to kill an American citizen without a judicial process. (But then again, Obama may have got such a judicial reference.) There is a chance for misusing that power. However when citizens of a country are attacked by citizens of another country and the attackers live safely in the second country, the first country has a moral obligation of providing some sort of justice to the victims and their loved ones. Also, as long as these attackers think they can operate safely, their behavior will only worsen. Worse, more people will follow them. It is here that we need some deterrence. If there is clear proof that a particular person from another country is involved in killing one’s citizens, the victim’s country can take it with the other country to punish the person. If there is no hope for this, it has to take things into its own hands. It is a matter of developing a system of checks and balances and developing a machinery to execute such plans. For example, a secret court may be setup and security agencies present the case against a person from another country and if the judge approves the targeted assassination, it should do it. It may require a special law, if it doesn’t exist already. But what India really needs is political will and also get over with this political correctness which only makes some people feel good and achieves not much else.

    Unless we become less politically correct and build more effective systems, our liberal democracy is at stake both from Islamic jihadis and from the right wing groups on the Hindutwa side.

    Providing proper justice has always been a big part of the government’s responsibility throughout known times. Kings used to provide almost instant justice. People always used to like just kings even if or especially if the kings were very hard on crimes. But with the American form of democracy that we implemented in India some people seem to think that being slow is part and parcel of the justice process. This is nonsense. There has to be enough checks and balances within the system. This will invariably slow down the process to some extent. For example, implementing death penalty within a few weeks or even months after the crime has been committed may not provide enough time for the due process. But it if takes 10 or 20 or 30 years for justice, that should be called a perversion of justice. Indian judiciary should be ashamed of this.

    Another issue with our judicial system is that it patronizes ordinary people. Vast majority of Indians may want harsh punishments for certain crimes. They may certainly want fast justice. In democratic traditions the wishes of the people should be reflected on the actions of the judiciary. It is true that founding members of the republic wanted (and it makes a lot of sense) to separate judiciary from other government branches and also from undue influences of popular sentiments of the people at that time. But over the long term, judicial process has to be in sync with the wishes of the people. Obviously constitution has to be supreme all the times.

    But Indian judiciary fails on this front. For example, the state of Texas in US provides death penalty to a lot of people every year. We all can disagree with that. But that is what the popular sentiment in Texas. This is not a temporary phenomenon. So, Texas judiciary is only fulfilling the wishes of its people. In India, people have some view about justice. Courts have another view.

    Thanks,

    [Reply]

  • Jack

    @ Nikhil. Too true. Of course, India’s ‘leaders’ sit behind security walls and travel in VIP craft so they don’t really lose any sleep over the rest of us grunts.

    Way to go India: Aman Ki Asha and all that

    [Reply]

  • ram

    INDIAN GOVERMENT IS TOO SELFISH AND CORRUPT TO EVEN CONSIDER THIS POSSIBILITY. MOST MEMBERS OF UNION CABINET ARE CONNECTED TO THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD SO ARE ALL POLITICAL PARTIES. KAMAL NATH, HKL BHAGAT , JAGDISH TYTLER FOR EXAMPLE ABETTORS IN 1984 ANTI SIKH RIOTS……………………..TO NAME A FEW !!!!!! INDIA’S DEMOCRACY HAS DUBIOUS RECORD OF MOST CRIMINAL CASES AGAINST MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT WHOSE WEALTH MULTIPLIES BY LEAP AND BOUNDS————AND STILL DO NOT PAY TAXES!

    [Reply]

  • http://%/q2131q2121 Kylie Batt

    Он безусловно не прав…

    I’m of the view Barack Obama is a “hard liberal” – in other words a Democrat who doesn’t shirk from military force…..