US considers assassination squads

www.guardian.co.uk...

Pentagon said to be discussing use of units to work abroad

Oliver Burkeman in New York
Tuesday August 13, 2002
The Guardian

The US government is considering plans to send elite military units on missions to assassinate al-Qaida leaders in countries around the world, without necessarily informing the governments involved, it was reported yesterday.
The Pentagon is discussing proposals which could see special operations units dispatched to capture or kill terrorists wherever they are be lieved to be hiding, despite a long-standing presidential order forbidding US personnel from carrying out assassinations abroad, the New York Times reported.

Senior army advisers believe they could justify the practice on the grounds that it would constitute "preparation of the battlefield" in a war against terrorism that has no boundaries, because the September 11 terrorist attacks in effect initiated a worldwide state of armed conflict, the newspaper said.

"We're at war with al-Qaida. If we find an enemy combatant, then we should be able to use military force to take military action against them," a senior adviser to the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was quoted as saying.

The plan was said to be caus ing concerns in other parts of the US government because it might blur the line between army activity and missions usually handled, under strict legal guidelines, by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The president and Congress monitor CIA activities to ensure compliance with a presidential executive order first signed by President Gerald Ford, but regularly renewed since, forbidding government-sponsored assassinations.

The order followed revelations of CIA plans to murder foreign leaders including Fidel Castro and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo.

But Mr Rumsfeld is said to be frustrated by the CIA's activities in Afghanistan, especially when the activities of special forces working with local war lords were slowed down because the Afghans were still waiting for cash payments they were promised for cooperating against the Taliban.

The CIA's director, George Tenet, was understood not to oppose the proposals Mr Rumsfeld is considering, and discussions were under way to negotiate a new relationship between the agency and the army, an official said.

The soldiers who would be used in any such plan are the army's secretive Delta Force and the navy's Seal unit.

"The people in these units are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, anywhere around the world. They are very highly trained, with specialised skills for dealing with close-quarters combat and unique situations posed by weapons of mass destruction," a military officer said.

A senior official in the Bush administration told the New York Times that the US had to adapt its methods to match al-Qaida's for speed and stealth.

"If we find a high-value target somewhere, anywhere in the world, and if we have the forces to get there and get to them, we should get there and get to them," the official said.

"Right now, there are 18 food chains, 20 levels of paperwork and 22 hoops we have to jump through before we can take action. Our enemy moves faster than that."

Shortly after last September's attacks, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, indicated that the administration might review the ban on assassinations, because "to be able to penetrate organisations you need to have on the payroll some very unsavoury characters... It is a mean, nasty, dangerous, dirty business out there, and we have to operate in that arena."

Asked directly if there was a law which would outlaw assassinating Osama bin Laden, he said he did not think so, "but I'd have to check with the lawyers on that".

Presidents since Mr Ford have often been accused of sidestepping the executive order by launching targeted military attacks primarily to kill leaders, such as the 1986 attack on Libya authorised by Ronald Reagan, of which he later commented that he would not have shed tears if it had happened to kill the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadafy.

I think they should have been doing this a long time ago.Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.I like the idea of stopping them before they kill more innocent people.

Your right. If someone intends on killing themselves in an attack, like a suicide bombing or whatever, I suppose the idea of being prosecuted for murder doesnt really bother them.

I don't think going to court even enters there mind.The idea of getting there were they live or hideout is what we should be doing.I think if they knew that there was no safe place for them we would really have them on there heels,and always running. Plus it makes it harder to plan an attack when your on the run.Let's bring the fight to those cowards.

I know it is illegal for us to assasinate a countries leader, I wonder if the legal mumbo jumbo will interfere with this. How much evidence would be required to carry out a hit? If they leave it in the hands of the military, it would work great. On the other hand, the Israeli's have been doing this for a long time, and they still have those blood thirsty baby killers coming out of the woodwork.

Bottom line, if they go through with this policy, I hope they leave the politicians out of the loop. In my opinion, thats the only chance it has to even begin to work. Because if you take out one of their leaders, either through kidnapping and imprisonment, or assasination, there is no lack of ready volunteers ready to fill the niche left vacant.

I hope they leave the politicians out of this.If there left to run this nothing will ever get done.

It depends on whos ordering the hits and why. A few assasinations here and there, and alot could be done to further somebodys personal agenda. And the hush hush attitude of the whole plan, kinda tells me it could happen anytime for any reason. Whos death squads are these gunna be anyway?

SHoot im all for it forget laser guided bonbs this is surgical warfare. Send an assasin squad maybe 45 members at the very most ahve them trained harder than DELTA and tell every country we have them. Just a threat that noone is safe is enough to scare some countries into doin the right thing.

So, most of you think it is ok to murder somebody without trial, in another country which you are not at war with and based on some suspicion that he/she might be an al qaida leader?
Who is btw going to decide who the targets are? The problem i see is that this might not be limited to al qaida leaders. Terrorists come in all sizes and shapes..

its great isn't it.
America condems regimes for setting up secret police who murder without trial people for their political agendas................but has no problem doing it themselves.

then again your currently imprisoning people without trial because of their political adgenda, theology or race so I really shouldn't be suprised your prepared to carry out political executions. after all, your principals on torture and the geneva convention went out the window pretty damn quick so Bush really isn't acting out of kind by turning into a brutal racist dictator.

Well gee why don't just sit around and put flowrers in are hair.

I'm all for taking out scumbag terrorist's.We can sit around and do nothing,and wait for 3000+ people to get killed who will most likely be civilians.Or we can go take take those cowards out.America did not want this war,but we damn sure will finish it.

what like the 4000 civillian casualties in afghanistan?
or how about the million odd in Hiroshima or the thousands in vietnam.

it allways amazes me that the first people who expound the importance of the american constitution are also the first people to chuck it away when it comes to the actions of their own government against a percieved aggressor so long as the media has thrown enough propaganda down your neck.

You currently live in a country where your government is locking up american citizens without charge for indefinite periods of time.

where your government refuses to recognize legitimate political democracys who's idiologys it disagrees with and now

who is proposing to blatantly assasinate people without having to tell you who, when and most importantly "why"

for some reason that kind of totalitarian power freeks me out just a little.

I'm surprised that somone who believes in freedom and democracy and expounds the virtues of a constitution that grants you these things isn't too bothered.

You mean the dead terrorist's in Afganastan.

If I rember my history I do belive the Jap's alsostared that little war.Pearl Harbor ring a bell.And the U.S put a quick stop to that war with the atom bomb.Think how much longer that war would have dragged on with even more people being killed.

Vietnam was just a blood bath.A war run by idiots(politicians),it should have been run by the people fighting there.

Would you be so quick to defend terrorists if it was your family that was killed?



This is a new kind of warfare we don't have one country trting to take over the U.S., We have groups of cowards killing American citizen's and other counties citizen's.The coward's need to be dealt with.Its going to take a new way of dealing with,so if we have to take them out in the caves they hide in so be it.

You mean the dead terrorist's in Afganastan.
no I mean civillians blown up through indiscriminate carpet bombing campaigns.
I have no problem with you shooting terrorists.

If I rember my history I do belive the Jap's alsostared that little war.Pearl Harbor ring a bell.And the U.S put a quick stop to that war with the atom bomb.Think how much longer that war would have dragged on with even more people being killed.

yeah, except the kids who are dying of malignant cancers every year from the fallout and had absolutely nothing to do
with pearl harbour don't seem to find your solution quite as humane

Vietnam was just a blood bath.A war run by idiots(politicians),it should have been run by the people fighting there.

agreed

Would you be so quick to defend terrorists if it was your family that was killed?

I don't defend terrorists, I defend civillians and I defend every humans right to exist in a society where their government does not weild supreme power without having to answer to its people, and I guess that includes you.

This is a new kind of warfare we don't have one country trting to take over the U.S., We have groups of cowards killing American citizen's and other counties citizen's.The coward's need to be dealt with.Its going to take a new way of dealing with,so if we have to take them out in the caves they hide in so be it.

wow, thats almost exactly the same argument hitler used to justify the holocaust.

remember what a government is and question exactly what they are proposing and if you agree.

do you agree that your government can kill any one in the world including your own citizens so long as they say that person is a terrorist?

If you agree with that then go ahead and defend this, if theres a small part of you that remembers Tiananmen square and thinks "hang on......that was a government who decided they could kill anyone so long as they said they were a terrorist" then maybe you should consider what sort of power your handing to your government and its implications.

I don't see our government just going around and killing anybody they want.I do not thimk this is anything like Hitler or the holocaust.We are not trying to wipe out a race,just the bad apples.I also think by sending units in to go after terrorist's,that would help cut the number of innocent's killed.Bombing a house to get one terrorist,is like using a shotgun to kill a fly.I do not condone killing civilian's.

Unforntunatly it is going to happen.I don't see any other way to deal with the problem,terrorists can't be reasoned with,they don't want peace,and we(the world)can't afford to sit on our butt's and do nothing.

nyeff, don't bother w/ Lupus, it's futile.



- It's not just 'us' shooting terrorists, lupus, your country is there also.

- Dropping the bomb to end WW II was the most humane option available to the U.S. at the time. Otherwise, the death toll would have been enormous. Kid's dying of cancer is unfortunate. When you say that, don't forget about the kids that who then lost their parents at Pearl Harbor.

- If you think Vietnam was a bloodbath then surely you think it was equivalent to a holocaust after we pulled out.

- nyeff is correct. The cowards DO need to be dealt with. Your Hitler analogy, Lupe, makes no sense and isn't even witty.

When a jet is crashed in your back yard or a suitcase nuke is set off in your town let's chat and see how you feel then. And if such acts never happen then you can thank your governments diligence in protecting you from people that want you dead.

[Edited on 28-8-2002 by Bob88]

I think it is a wonderful idea!

It is a wonderful idea.I think its one of the best ways yet to deal with terrorism.Get them on their own turf,and reduce the number of innocent people killed.It should be more than the U.S doing it though.If the world wants to be rid of terrorism then we all need to fight it.

Although I do agree with ridding the world of terrist scum I would have to disagree with the analogies of Perl Harbour and the ending of ww II. It is a completly diferent war.

- Dropping the bomb to end WW II was the most humane option available to the U.S. at the time. Otherwise, the death toll would have been enormous. Kid's dying of cancer is unfortunate. When you say that, don't forget about the kids that who then lost their parents at Pearl Harbor.

--sorry to say but Pearl Harbor was a military target, the 2 Japanese cities were not.

A war is a war is a war. People are going to die. It is an unfortunate outcome, but carpet bombing and a-bombs are not going to solve the problem it's just going to breed new ones.

Speaking of which, though, My perception was that the a bomb was dropped in someones back yard. Maybe Bob88 would like to live in that neighbourhood for a awhile, oh sure raise some kids and watch them die of cancer, if you live that long. The A bomb in general is a bad idea.

Assisinations can be condonned IF there is substantial evidence of the leader in question. But it should be world effort, not as an effort to back a country up. Otherwise a war will break out. WW1 was started because of an assisnation. duh.

Bob doesn't have to, Bob's country didn't attack America, and commit atrocities all over the Pacific rim. Also, Bob's country didn't lie to their people and tell them that the white barbarians are coming to torture women and children, and that death was better than capture.