Why Use $100 million Worth of Cruise Missiles …
… when a batch of bad hummus will do?
As long as everyone has their shorts in a twist over Glenn Reynold’s very sensible advocacy of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and Hugh Hewitt’s observation that punishing the wicked can have positive effects, let me weigh in. Great idea! A few targeted killings now could spare a tremendous amount of death and destruction later. It’s not like we haven’t been at war with Iran for 28 years, and I believe they are up several hundred dead Americans and a seized emabssy on us, at a minimum.
Stratfor thinks the strategic removal of at least one leading Iranian nuclear scientists may have already happened, thanks to our Zionist brothers! With all that aid we give them, we should be able to get something useful out of them.
Don’t forget Moqtada al-Sadr while you’re at it!
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad … let him live. He is even embarrassing mullahs now, and I am a big fan of the way he lays it all out there.
States of short-twistitude:
Kevin Drum, shorts mildly twisted.
Glenn Greenwald, shorts all wadded up.
Carpetbagger, examining other people’s shorts, likes Drum’s and Greenwald’s.
Meanwhile, Dan, usually a strict Riehlist, gets metaphysical as he contemplates whether it is possible for others to untwist shorts once twisted.
Don Surber forgoes shorts.
Welcome, Insta-twisters. If you’re new here or if you know your way around, make yourself at home. We’ve got a laugh-riot suicide bomber. We’ve got more America than you can probably handle. We’ve got yer “Death to Valentines Day” protests. We’ve got a Bushgram for Mr. Ahmadinejad. Fridge is that way.
Topics: Iran
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:04 pm on Wednesday, February 14, 2007
15 Responses to “Why Use $100 million Worth of Cruise Missiles …”
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February 14th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
The usual suspects bitched like crazy when the Israelis took out a couple of Hamas leaders, but it calmed Hamas down for long enough to allow the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza so that the Palestinians could attain an even higher level of holiness by killing each other.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
“Glenn Greenwald, shorts all wadded up.”
And this is different from his usual state, how, exactly? :)
February 14th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Yes, the usual suspects would much rather see the death of hundreds, thousands, millions. Those numbers are beyond their ken, and so do not disturb their sleep.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
I love the smell of mullahs and atomic scientists cowering in the morning.
February 15th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Targeted assassination is a viable tactic; we just have to have the spine to use it.
February 15th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Jules, I have a better target list than Iranian nuclear scientists and mullahs.
The Qods Force is headquartered in the Tehran compound that formerly housed the US embassy. The IRGC joint command center is located right next door. The munitions factory where EFPs are manufactured is also in Tehran.
Forget low profile, quiet assassinations with all the attendant moral considerations involved. Let us concern ourselves fully with force protection. The moralists cannot begrudge us that, at least.
Besides, Rick Francona and Robert Baer consider it a viable option. Baer says go after Qods Force facilities and Francona suggests hitting IRGC command centers.
More over at my place.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Why Use $100 million Worth of Cruise Missiles …
Why Use $100 million Worth of Cruise Missiles … Jules Crittenden … when a batch of bad hummus will do? As long as everyone has their shorts in a twist over Glenn Reynold’s very sensible advocacy of the assassination of
February 15th, 2007 at 4:35 am
Bill’s Nibbles — 2007.02.15
Some Bill’s Bites posts, some things I excerpted and linked but I’m sending you to the original post. I may rearrange the order of the items within this post as I add new things that I think belong above the
February 15th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Nit-picker, picking nits. But is this really a nit?
Iranians are not Arabs. (Recite after me: Iranians are not Arabs.) They do not speak Arabic. They speak Persian (Farsi) — an Indo-European language.
And they do NOT eat hummus!
February 15th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Thank you, Jaafarabutarab. I’m not an Arab, and I eat hummus. Just had some on my bagel for breakfast. Where’s that cake Ollie North was taking them? Use that.
February 15th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Count U.S. law and morality in the “pants all wadded up” category. The Lieber Code was adopted by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War as the law governing conduct of war. Ever since, it has been the basis of the law of war for the United States and most other countries. This is what it says about what you are proposing:
“Section IX : Assassination
Art. 148. The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism. ”
The reason why should be perfectly obvious.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
corndog, one can make an excellent case for tying the Iranians to terrorism, thereby invoking Executive Order 12333. There’s an interesting discussion of EO12333 here. So it’s not as clear as you would make it.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Executive Order 12333 states flatly: “2.11 Prohibition on Assassination. No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination. ”
The “interesting discussion” you reference is an academic’s suggestion, without citation, that the prohibition might not apply to a response to an attack on U.S. soil or on U.S. nationals. There is not an excellent case for tying the assassination of a research scientist to such an act.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Hardly academic, corndog. A fair number of terrorists have already been assassinated. In November 2004, for example, 6 terrorists were killed in Yemen using a Hellfire missile fired from a UAV.
But feel free to ignore facts. It’s not like I can make you listen.
February 15th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Oh, and by the way, corndog……if a nation is planning to use nuclear weapons in terrorist attacks, and a nuclear scientist is developing those weapons, that ties him (or her) to terrorism, and is thus a target for assassination. I’d rather kill a few people than see an entire city get nuked. Nice to see where your priorities lie.
(Somewhere in the world, a person known as “corndog” claps their hands over their ears, shuts their eyes, and screams “LA LA LA LA LA LA!!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!!”)