Pat Robertson's has apologized for his unsolicited counsel to President Bush that he assassinate Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, so just about everyone is in agreement, including apparently Robertson, that his televised remarks were stupid. But were they stupid simply because Chavez is a world leader supposedly immune from such indignities, or were they stupid because Chavez neither poses a direct threat to the U.S. nor oppresses his people in the manner of a Saddam Hussein or a Kim Jong Il? These last two dictators, Roberton also advocated killing, along with Osama bin Laden. Several years ago, Robertson asked: "Isn't it better to...take out Saddam Hussein, rather than to spend billions of dollars on a war that harms innocent civilians and destroys the infrastructure of a country?" Well, isn't it? Claus von Stauffenberg is a hero, not a terrorist. Right?

If one concedes that Hitler's would-be assassins' actions were heroic, then one can't logically dismiss out-of-hand the general idea that assassination is on very rare occassions a moral and beneficial act.

War and assassination, though, aren't the only two options available to U.S. presidents. The U.S. could stay out of the affairs of foreign nations that don't threaten its just interests. But if war--and the death, destruction, and financial waste that always accompanies it--is the primary option on the table, then isn't, we'll call it "the Robertson option," a more humane choice? In other words, why kill tens of thousands of hostile soldiers and innocent civilians, risk the lives of your fellow countrymen, destroy a nation's infrastructure, and waste billions of dollars when you could alleviate the problem with the cost of one bullet at the price of one tyrant's life? If killing dictators who murder their fellow countrymen and threaten their neighbors is wrong, why is killing foreign soldiers and civilians to depose such dictators right? Those who view the lives of reigning murderers as sacrosanct and the lives of innocents as expendable have things bassackwards.

Or, is assassination like torture--a practice that once used in understandable circumstances sanctions its use in all sorts of circumstances? Its use in U.S. interests condones its use against U.S. interests. In this view, assassination can be moral but not utilitarian. And while assassinating Hitler would have saved countless lives, in most instances assassinating a despot just leads to his replacement by another despot. Perhaps assassination is too simple a solution for a complex world.

Pat Robertson's specific advice to kill Hugo Chavez deserved the quick dismissal it received from the public, the media, and the politicians. The more generalized discussion regarding assassination evokes serious ethical questions, deserving of more serious debate than they are receiving.

No one I saw reporting this call for an assassination by Robertson seemed capable of getting the point he was making, which you illustrate here. It is a serious point.

I suppose that one problem with assassination, when carried out by foreign powers, is that is is an act of war of some kind and so may only lead to more conflict rather than resolve it. This was the case with probably the most famous assassination, that of Archduke Ferdinand which was a catalyst for WWI.

I don't see how assassination is any less moral, it's simply very imprudent and stupid. But then again, so are most wars.

Harry Browne, when he ran for president in 2000, had some idiotic "assassination" view of foreign policy whereby if someone truly was a threat, he would put a 1 billion dollar bounty on their head. I really didn't understand what the point of this free market warmongering was.

The problems with assassination is that we assume that the people will be thrilled that we killed their leader, that no bloodshed will occur when choosing a new leader, and the new leader will be some global democrat.

Had we assassinated Hitler, what would have occurred? Perhaps a positive outcome, but he was very popular until the end of the war, so it's completely plausible that one of his cronies would come into power and be just as meglomanical as Hitler and use the assassination to be even more totalitarian just as Hitler used the Reischtag Fire.

Had we assassinated Hitler, what would have occurred? Perhaps a positive outcome, but he was very popular until the end of the war, so it's completely plausible that one of his cronies would come into power and be just as meglomanical as Hitler and use the assassination to be even more totalitarian just as Hitler used the Reischtag Fire.

Excellent point!

I really don't think Pat Robertson's comments were that "idiotic." If the United States deems a world leader a threat to its interests or national security then there is a very good case to be made for assassination. After all, isn't it better we eliminate world leaders who are almost without exception corrupt than waste resources in a fruitless nation-building effort?

Let's be honest. The real problem with Mr. Robertson's comments was its bluntness. When the Neocons grace their case for war with "liberation," "freedom," "democracy," etc. it just sounds better. It creates the illusion that our real purpose is to bring properity, peace, and democracy to a nation and not just assassinate people. A utilitarian case can be made against assassinating world leaders, but those who support the war in Iraq while condemning Mr Robertson's comments as outrageous or unacceptable are hypocrites of a high order.

I disagree. The probem with Mr. Robertson's comment is manifold:

1. Assassination without a declaration of war is immoral, just as any other act of war outside of a war is immoral.
2. He is a "man of God", supposedly some type of "minister" or cleric, in the Chrsitian religion, and so it is not his place to be calling for the heads of world leaders. There would, justly, not be this just uproar if Ann Coulter said this.
3. Chavez isn't a real threat to us, so it's not worth a war, or an act of war (assassination).

Where Dan is absolutely right is that war is worse than assassination, so let's stop the BS claims that it is wrong in itself when we don't care how many Iraqi civilians or soldiers died in our war.

Not surprisingly, 81% of War Net Daily readers support Robertson's comments, but this justification, which 8 percent chose is just sickening.
http://w115.wnd.com/polls/index.asp?VIEW_RESULTS=Y

"Yes, God himself assassinated people with the Flood, and told Israelites to kill pagan women and children"

And those that ignore the media's *choice* to only report deaths, then insist that the Iraqi constitution is the worst thing ever invented, but ignore the fact that its current version could have been photocopied from Afghanistan, are also hypocrites. http://alendalux.blogspot.com/2005/08/iraqs-constitution.html

Unless no one has noticed, the Taliban are 'still' around in Afghanistan, but their violence is pretty damn useless, since the people don't want them back. Mean while in Iraq, Sadr tried to move back into his old haunts and instead got an agry mob of citizens driving him off and burning down his offices. The press insists that because death levels haven't dropped and 'more' IED are being made, the insurgents are getting better. Yet, the militaries version indicates that in general, IED are killing less people per attack than before. Yeah, people are still dying, but now it takes a dozen IED attempts to kill an american soldier, with most being found and disarmed by them, instead of just one. And so on.

The perspective, both from the press and from those that equate 'anything' in Iraq with hatred of the idiot that started it in the first place, distorts the reality of what is really going on. There are what, 200 or so on the assembly? Three, that's ***3*** idiots who are from Sadr's party have dropped out because they don't like the idea that the Kurds and other parts of Iraq won't be ruled totally by a central government or forced to submit to Sadr's version of Shiria law. Oooooh!! What a disaster! If the same thing happened in Afghanistan, the same idiots calling this another sign of civil war in Iraq would simply shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, what do they expect? No one can have everything their way in a democracy."

The right can't imagine failure, the left can't imagine success and both sides delusions are equally likely to cause what still looks like it may be a success into a total disaster, either through refusal to support other people's right to freedom for the left or the rights incompetence at telling people what they **need** to know, not what they think we want to hear. I for one am getting seriously tired of the stupidity shown by both camps. Religious wars and revolutions are not popularity contests. They are always bloody and resisted by madmen that want the entire universe to revolve around their personal reality, and for anyone that disagrees with it to die. The right thinks they can 'make' it popular by not only hiding their mistakes, but their successes. The left think the whole problem will just go away if we buy lunitics and extremists lunch and chat about our differences. Both are fools imho.

About Stauffenberg, I think assassination is frowed upon a lot less when it is from within the ranks. One country taking out another country's leader is grand scale foreign meddling.

Excuse me, that's VON Stauffenberg, thank you.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnwell/barnwell50.html

"If you’re going to pretend it’s "worth it" (in the immortal words of Madelyn Albright) to see a great deal of needless death and human suffering in Iraq, then think again before going off on Robertson. If you support the President of the United States ignoring every piece of evidence suggesting his foreign policy is faulty, then don’t scream about what a private citizen thinks who has no influence about such weighty matters of war and peace"

I tend to agree, except I don't think Robertson's views are unimportant. I still have yet to figure out why most of the Christian Right has become more fanatically pro war and Zionist than your average neoconservative, though I'm sure Robertson and friends don't help, and I'm sure without the dispensationalists behind them, the neoconservatives couldn't have drummed up enough support for the war.

Scully,

Your reasons why Mr Robertson's comments are unacceptable could equally be said about the war in Iraq. However, there was not much outrage in the United States over going to war in Iraq, so why was there so much uproar over Mr Robertson's comments? It's Robertson's bluntness, not his position that the generated the outrage.

Marcus,

I don't think more Christian "conservative" "Zionists" are more pro-war than the Neocons. They'll follow the Neocon lead, but members of the Christian Right didn't originate the doctrine of "global hegemony," or the importance of nation-building. Although they tend to be more fanatically pro-Israel than most Likud party members.

This is a great question. I think it was the bigheads of state rule to be safe from war. But as the saying goes, alls fair in love and war. Case in point, the Israelis started to take out the big mouths in the Hamas, and i dont hear of suicide bombing as often.

I think Robertson's words were stupid but only 'ha-ha stupid' and nothing more significant.

Although it'd better not to tip off Hugo Chavez to what may be coming his way; to make things more difficult for genuine legitimate Venezuelan assassins; to give Jesse Jackson an excuse to cavort with brutal malevolent dictators.

Although someone convince me, please, that Robertson's academic degree makes him a man of God. What's his theology?

and frankly, if Hitler was assassinated, I cannot think of another individual in that time place with the comparative charisma to take control in the case of the Chancellor's death.

Pretty shrewd of Chavez to offer oil, water, and medical attention to Americans hurt by Katrina.

If getting rid of Saddam Hussein were the only goal in Iraq, assassination would be perfectly acceptable.

But it was one of two objectives. The second has to do with what we leave behind.