Julia Schwartz

September 20, 2003

            This letter to the editor of the Boston Globe (September 17, 2003) from Michael Glenn of Cambridge made me annoyed. While I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with what he’s saying up front, the way that he writes in this article makes it seem like the United States – in particular, President Bush – is weighing the option of killing Yasser Arafat, not Israel, as the case really is. Because of this, I see this article as almost a form of reverse propaganda, promoting an idea that isn’t true, though it goes against the US government instead of toward it.

            As for the real issue the topic raises, which is whether or not state-sponsored assassination is legal and even moral, I don’t necessarily agree with the proposition. Despite anything, assassination is murder, a crime which is punishable under all laws of any civilized state. The typical substantiation for state-sponsored assassination is that the victim was such an appalling character that he (or she) is a burden and danger to humankind and putting the person to death is the only way to effectively rid society of this demon. However, such state-sponsored assassinations are often very biased in their judgments: a person whom one government might see as a threat might, in actuality, be a perfectly competent ruler for his own country. The United States itself does indeed have a rather sordid past of assassinations – from the many attempts on Castro to the successes in murdering Diem in Vietnam to Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. While the argument could be made for Castro’s dangerous nature, Diem and Lumumba were simply just not heeding the wishes of the United States – posing a threat to our unilateral success, the cynic might say.

            Well, then, what about Osama? Our own law and international law would say we need to capture him, and bring him to trial – everyone has the right to a trial by jury, it’s in the Constitution! But who would argue that if the United States – or even any one of our more aggressive allies – were to get Osama in their sights, they’d capture him instead of just shooting him? I mean, think of Osama bin Laden being tried in Washington in the Supreme Court or something. You’d have the two police officers escorting him into the courtroom, perhaps he’d have handcuffs. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” Honestly! It’s farcical because it would never, ever happen. Yet what does this say about democracy? That the most dangerous man in the world is too dangerous for law to be applied to him? Isn’t that just the opposite of saying the President isn’t above the law (Bill Clinton), or the king isn’t above the law (the Magna Carta)? If someone can’t be too good for the law, he can’t be too bad for the law either. By that line of reasoning, Osama deserves a fair trial! Of course, what fair jury could you find, anyway? What a breach of democracy…

            Back to Arafat. In my opinion, Israel shouldn’t technically have the right under any law to assassinate him outright. In the moral view, Israel could be “sued” to whatever extent you sue a nation for that. But beyond morals? Precedents of society say “who cares?”