Beg to differ with Macdonald's comment here. As a longstanding member of the spec ops
community, I can assure you that these legal bans have a real effect. Any such
operation involves very numerous people, and the fear that someone, like me for
example, will someday leave the reservation and drop dimes is always there. This is
much more than symbolic and theatrical. This is a substantial change with very
substantial effect, and dangerous as hell.
Stan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> My comment: Any change they make to the assassination ban is purely for the
theatrical "fuck you" effect that it would have on Amerikas enemies. The ruling
class here long ago figured out that you don't pass laws about Black-ops and the
like. You "Just do it".
Macdonald
--
AP. 22 September 2001. Assassination Ban Gets New Look.
WASHINGTON -- In an earlier time, when the Cold War was hot, the U.S.
government tried everything from mob hits to lethal pills to get Fidel
Castro. The Cuban leader once bragged of surviving dozens of plots, even
one involving "a mask that produces a fungus."
In those fearful times, the government also shipped poison to the Congo
intended for independence leader Patrice Lumumba and supplied pistols
and carbines to dissidents who shot Dominican Republic dictator Rafael
Trujillo, congressional investigators concluded.
The legacy of those and other abuses is a government ban on
assassinations, first issued by President Ford a quarter-century ago and
now being re-examined in light of the terrorist attacks that the
government believes were engineered by Osama bin Laden.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, asked this week whether the order
inhibits the government from targeting terrorists, said, "There is no
question that ban does have effects. It restricts certain things that
government can and cannot do."
At issue is one sentence of Executive Order 12333 of 1981, an update of
Ford's 1976 order that was issued by President Reagan. It states: "No
person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government
shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination."
That sentence, seemingly straightforward, is subject to varying
interpretations.
In the past 20 years, America has bombed Saddam Hussein's palaces in
Iraq, struck at Moammar Gadhafi's tents in Libya and fired cruise
missiles into a high-level meeting of Osama bin Laden's organization in
Afghanistan that may have included him.
In each case, government officials said the assassination ban had not
been violated.
In the case of bin Laden, former President Clinton told reporters after
a news conference with New York officials that he had authorized the
arrest and killing of bin Laden while in office.
"...We actually made contact with a group in Afghanistan to do it,"
Clinton said. "They were unsuccessful."
He said the U.S. did not have the intelligence at the time to make its
own attempt under contraints that existed.
Clinton said support from countries bordering Afghanistan, such as
Pakistan, as well as key members of the United Nations, gives the U.S.
more tactical options this time around to carry out such a mission.
Clinton told NBC this week the assassination ban doesn't apply to
terrorists, only to heads of state.
Duane Clarridge, who worked in Reagan's CIA, recalled that when the
Libyan bombing targets were drawn up in 1986, "there was certainly no
discussion -- or anyone making any smart or ad-lib remarks about hitting
Gadhafi's command center -- that we might get him."
But Clarridge added: "Did we think that was a possibility? I'm sure that
we all did."
Instead, Gadhafi's infant daughter was killed.
There is ongoing debate about whether the assassination ban would
preclude a government-sponsored hit on bin Laden.
"I don't see that it crosses the threshold with respect to
assassination," former CIA Director Robert Gates said in an interview.
"I make a distinction between military operations and the CIA going out
and targeting someone for assassination. In military operations people
usually get killed."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters this week the
assassination ban "does not limit America's ability to act in its
self-defense." Defeating terrorists, he said, could require "acts which
involved the lives of others."
Others are quick to add that the assassination ban is government policy,
not law, and could be summarily revoked by President Bush, publicly or
in secret.
-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
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