So, if you could go back in time to 1939 and kill Adolph Hitler, you would do that either?
Campos responds to the response on Greenwald's blog (you're linked in that post, by the way).
The belief that an assassination will serve a larger purpose, such as preventing a war, or derailing a political movement, seems to me terribly unfounded.
Has it ever worked? Someone's assassinated the top baddie, and everyone else has just gone home? I can't think of a case.
Our bylaws currently only demand pastry of trolls. I propose that we begin demanding them of people who just massively miss the point, as well. Voting will take place today at 4pm EST.
Winston and James B. Shearer, I suggest you start preheating your ovens.
I have fresh-baked cornbread instead of pastries -- will that do for now?
We'll have to convene a meeting of the Security Council to answer that question.
I'm craving chocolate. I propose that we declare dark chocolate to be the theme ingredient.
Allez cuisine!
"Has it ever worked? Someone's assassinated the top baddie, and everyone else has just gone home? I can't think of a case."
Isn't that how it worked out with Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria?
I'd like some cornbread, please. I have some Irish butter that would go excellently with it.
Does anyone doubt that Raymond Shaw killing his mother and step-father in The Manchurian Candidate was the right thing to do? Back in the real world, who knows what would have happened if Communist leader Leon Trotsky had not been assassinated in Mexico in 1940?
Is it worth noting that nuclear science isn't handed down through charisma and oral tradition?
8: "All I wanted me was a little cornbread!"
Winston, so far your arguments have covered time travel, Hollywood movies, and alternate reality.
You're going to need more than cornbread, I'm afraid.
9: Does anyone doubt that Raymond Shaw killing his mother and step-father in The Manchurian Candidate was the right thing to do?
For that matter, I shudder to think what might have happened if Conan the Cimmerian had failed to kill Thulsa Doom in Conan The Barbarian.
Also, Glenn Reynolds has all the political sophistication of a 13-year-old with a stack of Soldier of Fortune magazines.
9: This is a common mistake and I will gladly provide the simple explanation: that was what we call a movie. The things that happen in it are not real. Scary as it might be to watch, Angela Lansbury isn't dead at all! That's just ketchup and she's actually a mystery writer who solves real murders in her spare time.
If you're working with corn meal, I'd love some blueberry corn muffins. No need to bring butter, though, I'm going to steal some of Gary's.
At least I wasn't the first to bring up comic book references.
We need to get adult here, and not think about some 10- year-old fantasy comic book ninja assassins.
We need adult ninja assassins, like the have on Cinemax.
We need a sexy team of female ninja assassins who pose as prostitutes and get naked to overcompressed smooth jazz before doing in their targets.
That will bring down the mullahs for sure.
Winston, all these examples are of people who should have been killed BEFORE THEY ROSE TO POWER AND CHANGED THE STRUCTURE OF THEIR SOCIETIES. Assassinating Hitler in 1940 would not have prevented the US's entry into the Second World War, it would have just led to a Nazi government which A) had the additional demagoguery power conferred by martyrdom and B) would not have tried to invade Russia.
What we're dealing with in Iran is a society that has already changed for the worse, from America's point of view. Perhaps you could justify going back in time to 1973 and assassinating Ayatollah Khomenei, hoping that the Shah's dictatorship could eventually be undermined by democratic forces rather than by charismatic religious extremists. Or Vladimir Putin 10 years ago. But who exactly could we assassinate now to prevent Iran or Iraq from descending into totalitarianism or roguestatery?
The old Mission Impossible, in the sixties, used to feature agents of our government erasing the minds of scientists, framing leaders as queer, etc. all the time.
I think the legend of the OSS, from out of WWII, and such coups as the Guatemala and Iranian ones of the fifties, when they were believed to have been successful, had left a fascination with this stuff and the belief that it could work.
The Church committee's findings, particularly the history of schemes to get Castro, put all of this in very bad odor, but you have to be of a certain age to catch those references I just used without looking them up.
But who exactly could we assassinate now to prevent Iran or Iraq from descending into totalitarianism or roguestatery?
I would suggest Bush, but I really don't believe in assassinating anybody.
I don't see why we don't just call on Jennifer Garner and Peta Wilson. Together, they would surely be unstoppable.
RH-C, it's too late to assassinate Bush. The people of his country would unite behind Dick Cheney as he stormed the world in the name of freedom.
We have to do this BEFORE THEY RISE TO POWER. Hence the need for time travel, as Winston has astutely shown us.
I don't know, you guys. When Marty was at the Under The Sea dance and his date was his mother, his hand started to disappear. It was touch and go; he was trying to play guitar so that his dad would ask his mom to dance and they could fall in love. I think Winston has a point.
That will bring down the mullahs for sure.
OSTMWHYB.
("Sweet! Sexy female ninjas!")
21 to 17. As for 23, no worries. All you need to do is get a TARDIS. Problem solved.
Democracy ninjas, whiskey ninjas, and sexy ninjas?
Has Jessica Biel ever played a ninja assassin? I only know her work through what ogged links to.
18: Well, I'd start with Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, Davudi, and select members of their Council of Ministers and Council of Guardians.
Labs, your posts are like crack. I hate you. To repent, your school must give me a job even tho' my dissertation lies unfinished.
Argument 1: Covert assassination of top leaders and scientists will prevent warfare by delaying research projects and undermining unsavory political movements. Strike at the head, the body will follow.
Counterargument to 1: This ignores that political movements and scientific research aren't mere cults of personality; while surely Iran would mourn the loss of its top nuclear scientist, he works on a team who has, among other things, research notes and a source of funding.
Counterargument to the Counterargument: Sed contra, covert assassination of top leaders and scientists will prevent warfare not by delaying research projects or undermining movements indefinitely. That would be silly! But it will drive up the opportunity costs of recruiting leaders and scientists; there isn't an indefinite supply.
Counterargument to (the Counterargument)^2: There isn't an indefinite supply, certainly. But now you're proposing an extended series of assassinations. There's a couple problems here. Remember, these assassinations were supposed to be covert; even if you manage to remove all traces of American interference, it will begin to seem awfully suspicious if all of the top researchers die in mysterious ways.
Second, your goal of having a deterrent effect, presumably keeping young Iranians from nuclear science, cannot work if the operation is covert. So you end up in the weird position of needing the operation to be covert in order to avoid warfare, but requiring it to be something feared in order to have the requisite effect.
She played an anti-vampire vigilante once.
I know, we could use that death ray they invented in "Real Genius", with Val Kilmer? It like totally shot from outerspace using this mirror thing. That would so work.
Who would take their places, Winston? Perhaps I should have included you in comment 14.
29: How much time travel will be necessary for this plan to work? Sounds to me like 15 years or more.
35:
Select members we've NOT assassinated, of course. You want their names?
But now you're proposing an extended series of assassinations.
In fact, it will be assassinations all the way down until it's revealed that the regime is propped up by nothing more than turtles.
No, see, you need to assassinate the important scientists and leaders but then replace them with look-alikes with clever wigs so that no one knows they were really assassinated so that Iran won't retaliate and the look-alike can derail the nuclear research by accidentally using the wrong log base when doing some important calculation. But you have to make sure the look-alike has studied the target well so the substitute can answer the trick question the target's wife asks to verify he is who he's pretending to be (ah hah, husband look-alike, I don't really have a sister, so how can you think she's hot?!)
I nominate Ogged for the mission.
Okay, we've got ninja and turtle references. Now all we need are references to mutants and teenagers and we're done.
I support Winston's plan to make the Iranians support a US-allied government by
A) assassinating the members of their current government
B) convincing the Iranians that they all died of the flu
C) ??
D) magically creating new Iranian government members who are somehow less anti-US than their US-murdered predecessors
but it would be better if we also dropped a nuclear bomb on them, to show them who's boss. Not only would it terrify them, but it would eventually make them love us when in 2025 all the mutant teenagers will have us to thank for their reduced levels of overpopulation and their astonishing superpowers.
If it didn't compromise pseudonymity in every possible way, I'd photoshop Ogged onto one of those Bond posters where he's simultaneously stopping Goldfinger and getting it on with some buxom blonde. Ogged stars in "Operation: TIVO"-- resetting the Iranian nuclear program while getting laid. Awesome.
Regarding 7, I just want to say that I've decided that any chocolate cake recipe can be improved by changing it to use dark chocolate and add a little orange extract.
Dark chocolate orange is my favorite flavor ever.
33: That'll never work. How are we going to get the leadership of Iran into the professor's house? Sheesh. Your plan does have the advantage of copious popcorn, however.
Only slightly more seriously, why don't you just pop down to the recruiter's office and suggest this, Winston? Hell, if you're so hot to "pop a cap" as the kids say it, or perhaps "pop several caps" in this case, just show up and volunteer for the job. No, really. I'll just be sitting here waiting for the FARK headline.
40: It might be easier to just hack into Cerebro and get Professor X to kill all the Iranians with his mind.
I've never got onto dark chocolate and orange. But a little cherry or raspberry with a chocolate cake is wonderful.
I repeat, just in case anyone had forgotten, that Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian who's suspicious of the state's competence.
"We have to, Professor. Have you found them? Kill all the mullahs. Kill them all."
in ze munich circus, i was known as the incredible nightcala!
Labs, that's probably in some twisted way a part of the point for him. An organized (some might say "legitimate") war effort would doubtless get bogged down in funding debacles and public debate and the timeless rivalries of bureaucracy but a single super-ninja assassin with clear orders is free to direct her/his actions according to their own will and theref... zzzzzzzzzz.
Like the "ticking time bomb" torture scenario, Reynold's "assassinate the evil scientists" came out of comic books or other pop culture. The guy's mind is wasted.
We need a sexy team of female ninja assassins
Call Jason Lee?
I probably should have read the thread before I posted what everyone else said an hour ago.
The last six years, the empowerment of loons and the imperviousness of the government to rational analysis or sage counsel has made us all a lot more frightened of this mentality than we used to be. It's always been with us, we just didn't believe we'd have to take it seriously before.
34: In the spirit of extending an olive branch after mocking you, I shall direct you to the single most excellent hip-hop lyric ever recorded, by Roots Manuva:
I'm all things to all men
all of the women, all the children
Just say when and I'll take you to my TARDIS
Who's the hardest... Who's the hardest...
From the classic track All Things to All Men with TCO.
51: in ze munich circus, i was known as the incredible nightcala!
Totally airwolf.
45- Just use the picture of his scar instead of his face.
From a recent Reynolds post on nonpartisan redistricting: "This is another of those things that I would be more excited about if the prospect of it working were better." Heh.
We have been at war with Iran since 1979.
That's why Ronald Reagan sold Iran weapons, right?
Reynolds' fantasies aren't even Who-worthy. They're totally Torchwood. But without the alien sex.
Here is some evidence that in some contexts assassinations can be very effective. This seems plausible enough to me.
Dr. Slack raises the real question, which is: who would not violate so-called 'international law' to prevent a world menaced by James Earl Jones and his an army of hippies. The man could turn into a snake! He had to die.
Do you think this is one of those contexts, baa?
Do I think assassination of scientists would retard the Iranian nuclear program? Probably. Do I think it is a good idea to attempt such a thing? No.
Cala, when did you first reveal your (totally justified, I should add) obsession with the X-2 version of Nightcrawler? Am I the only one this is news to?
Ah, the Rumsfeldian baa reasserts himself. The idea that assassinating the right scientists would slow the program seems platitudinous; the idea that it would be less costly, all-in, then more straightforward use of force is implausible.
I suspect Glenn probably has Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels, or one of the knock-offs, in the back of his mind, more than comics, myself.
There's an issue of plausible deniability at work perhaps. I think it is unquestionably true that *if*, per stipulation, Iran is seeking to damage US interests in Iraq by supplying arms and training to Shia elements there, it's abso-freaking-lutely rational for them to do this covertly. So too, it might be plausible that there are some covert ways to damage Iranian nuclear aspirations than are more "all-in" desireable from the US perspective than overt use of force. For what little it's worth, assassination of scientists sounds better than airstrikes. It's just that both sound really like really bad options.
It hardly even feels fair bringing up further counterarguments to 29, but: gosh, that plan has worked so very well for Syria in maintaining its hold over Lebanon. (And, needless to say, they're a hell of a lot mroe subtle about it than the Americans would be if they attempted the same in Iran).
it might be plausible that there are some covert ways to damage Iranian nuclear aspirations than are more "all-in" desireable from the US perspective than overt use of force.
Could be, baa, and not that I have much knowledge of what's possible in this arena, but I suspect the sort of work that would have a serious effect on the program would be very hard to do covertly or w/ plausible deniability.
For what little it's worth, assassination of scientists sounds better than airstrikes.
My initial inclination is to believe that to be true. But...assassination is cheap and non-public, and therefore a policy rife with the possibility of abuse. Also, because it's cheap and easy, once it's clear that we're doing it again, and at the level of scientists (and mullahs, apparently), a lot of crazy anti-American ranting in other countries about US plots to control various governments are going to sound much less crazy. I've heard lunatic theories before that Israel, for example, wants to make sure that it's the dominant non-oil economic power in the region, and that it doesn't want Arab countries to develop internal intellectual wealth. If we start killing top scientists, claims like that are going to sound less crazy.
Not to mention that you'd have to kill them all at once, which really is a comic book scenario, because it's not as if there wouldn't be increased security after you killed one or two. Just on the grounds of practicality, Reynold's suggestion is truly stupid. The rest of the discussion is chaff.
Right, which is why I say that even though it may seem better than bombing, it's probably not a viable option.
Did you take a look at the Olken paper? Really, that was my main impetus for posting. I found it pretty neat, and thought at least one conclusion -- that assassination of autocratic leaders has pro-democratic effects, but assassination of democratic leaders has minimal effects -- both plausible and gratifying.
If we kill the mullahs with ninjas, they'll just grow new, even more powerful space mullahs—and our space ninja program is still in the planning stage.
Surely they could all be mysteriously invited to a party, and when they were assembled, Sgt. Fury and his Howlin' Commandos could swing in on curtains while firing submachineguns.
I didn't, baa. It too closely resembled work. Will do, and get back to you on it.
There is way too much love for the lesser Conan movie around here. James Earl Jones is no match for Sarah Douglas. Every movie with Wilt Chamberlain is a classic. A movie with Wilt & Andre the Giant in a rubber suit, jeez, it hurts.
Grace Jones and Olivia D'Abo.
No contest.
78: lesser Conan movie
Oh my. I do believe I'm frothing at the mouth.
--Why can't we just kill the swarthy bastards?
--Though a foul notion, it is, sadly, necessary to keep the world from crashing into the sun, and it kind of makes me hot.
--Are you honestly saying that we could never possibly be justified in killing the swarthy bastards?
--Not even a teensy bit justified?
--Traitor hippies smell bad.
How much of Reynolds schtick is just "Unfrozen Caveman Law Prof"'? My primitave brain doesn't understand your modern diplomacy. Make the bad people go away please, you can use this magic bullet. Next he will advocate isolationism, in Fortress America.
Standpipe Bridgeplate said everything I wanted to say, but more eloquently.
To complete the cycle-batting of 48, maybe we could convince Iranian teen self-defense killers to turn vigilante, stalking Tehran by night and proving that mullahs are a superstitious and cowardly lot.
You know, I'd take that comment differently if you weren't black.
Yeah, you people are always the victims.
Remind me why we can't just kill the swarthy bastards?
But some of my best friends are eloquent!
76: "Surely they could all be mysteriously invited to a party, and when they were assembled, Sgt. Fury and his Howlin' Commandos could swing in on curtains while firing submachineguns."
He's with S.H.I.E.L.D now; I vote for calling in the Punisher.
Walt, a ninja, time-travels to several comments ago.
Forget ninjas, we need the killer bees!
Killer bees kill for sho! sho!
Killer bees! For sho!
The times call for that truest of heroes, Dolemite, swinging in on a curtain.
Dolemite is our best hope. He would probably hump the Iranian scientists so ferociously that they agreed not to pursue nuclear technology.
I _am_ a ninja. Little known fact: Ninjas all converted to Shia Islam in 1953. So Reynolds is shit out of luck on that front.
95: If honeybees are filled with honey, what are killer bees filled with? This may be a trick question.
Oh, boo hiss. I missed all the fun.
What is B filled with?
Would this be a good place to note that when Jim Henley mentioned "the Iranian Glenn Reynolds" the other day, I totally read that as a reference to -gg-d and got confused for about 30 seconds before I straightened out what Henley was talking about?
99: Killer bees are filled with pure 100% killin'.
Oh noes! She is a cannibal then?
108: I just opened up Unfogged and there was a "99" staring me in the face. Had to doe something about it, that was the best I could come up with on such short notice.
Unfogged is filled with black mamba.
109: I can't go for that. Noooo, no can do.
103: At the moment, nothing; there's no damn food in the house and I'm starving. Which makes me all the more upset about missing the pastry earlier.
there's no damn food in the house and I'm starving
Wallk softly, boyfriends!
"One reason that we'd prefer quiet assassination is that it's a better alternative than conventional war, and Reynolds pretty clearly has this consideration in mind."
It's worse than that. He advocated assassination as a better alternative to both diplomacy and conventional war.
Regarding 7, I just want to say that I've decided that any chocolate cake recipe can be improved by changing it to use dark chocolate and add a little orange extract.
ITYM "high-quality orange liqueur".
