World Cop
The U.S. has announced that it is trying to kill an American cleric in Yemen. Anwar al-Awlaki is a radical Muslim who has been planning attacks on our country, allegedly.
My problem is not with the notion of killing bad guys, especially those who are outstandingly evil and/or insane, and this man would fit that bill. It is the making of such an announcement. For goodness sakes, our government denies outright or "No comments" or obfuscates about so much that doesn’t matter one has to ask why they would trumpet their plans to assassinate someone. Even someone who seems richly deserving of being shuffled off this mortal coil.
The CIA, our extraordinarily over-funded and dangerously incompetent spy organization, has a list of people our presidents have ordered murdered. Well, captured or killed. Perhaps most amazing is that they have failed to kill all of these people. After all, terrorists managed to wipe out eight of their top people in a single bombing in Afghanistan this winter.
But more problematic is that revealing this operational order provides full justification for any country to decide to kill anyone in our country. Imagine all the people out there unhappy that we elected Barack Obama. Or consider that the Vatican could order the "removal" of Maureen Dowd for her denunciation of the church’s decades of de facto sanctioning of pedophelia. They’ve probably thought about it, although they’d likely settle for excommunication.
I don’t believe in capital punishment, but there are plenty of people out there who sure don’t have a right to be running around loose, including the heads of government, Mexican drug cartels, the Russian Mafia, Hamas, certain corporations, et cetera. I’m not sure that shooting them down in the street, while perhaps causing some disruption to the criminality they manage, is an appropriate or final solution.
The situation cries for an effective world policeman, with no single country or countries assuming such duties.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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