Word: evens
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...President Kennedy. But there is nothing in the order limiting the ban to covert action or to attempts on heads of state. It simply forbids "assassination." What is assassination? If the word just means killing someone, anyone, for political reasons, then it effectively bans the use of -- or even conspiracy to use -- lethal force. That would make America the first pacifist superpower. The whole Pentagon should be arrested...
...less spacious definition. But attempts to limit the scope of the anathema make it meaningless. According to State Department legal adviser Abraham Sofaer, assassination is the "unlawful killing of particular individuals for political purposes." The key word is "unlawful." It's not unlawful to kill combatants in wartime, or even to kill noncombatant civilians in the course of a legitimate military operation. It is "self- defense" to kill a head of state who is masterminding terrorist operations that threaten the national security of the U.S., the argument goes. But if the assassination ban forbids nothing that is otherwise lawful...
What the assassination ban amounts to in practice is a rule against killing people whose names you know. Killing anonymous soldiers or even civilians is merely war. C'est la guerre. Killing someone with a name attached is assassination. Not done, old chap...
...denial of the obvious -- that we do in fact do that kind of thing, and sometimes must do it -- the assassination ban can be seen as an unhealthy expression of national naivete, or as a healthy expression of a national ideal that can't always be met in practice. Even from the latter point of view, though, its practical effect is unclear. Does this hypocritical ban on killing in the national interest make actual killing harder? Or easier, by allowing us to "do that kind of thing" while preening that we really don't? I'm not sure. Removing...
...Dhabi and other Middle East locales refused to admit the suspect sheep, and Jordan and Egypt would not even take them free. An Italian company finally offered to take them on consignment for resale in Europe, but Egypt balked at allowing the sheep through the Suez Canal and escorted the ship out of Egyptian waters. Last week the firm posted a $250,000 guarantee that no sheep or carcasses would be dumped in the canal, and the ship set sail for Italy. That seems like a happy ending, except possibly from the point of view of the sheep...