Assassinations

   I am ironically bemused by the debate on political assassinations --
including anonymous' comments - below.

   Last week the President apologized for the CIA and military abetting
the slaughter of 200,000 poor, Mayan Guatemalans. This apparently moves out
of the pale of assassinations into the realm of -- oh well -- and as such
deserves little discussion.

   We know that in the past the CIA routinely considered political
assassinations and admitted to a few under congressional pressure.
We have no idea of the total scope of those assassinations as it is
hidden from us under the rubric of National Security.

   On the other hand we have the recent words of the staff director of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), that the CIA
is building a strong paramilitary capability. Paramilitary is another
way of saying civilians killing directly or by proxy. So while we debate
the morality, practicality, or other aspects of assassinations, the HPSCI
and the CIA openly build a killing force.

   The record of the CIA and its paramilitaries (I was one) is or
should be known to all. In Vietnam at least 35,000 assassinations,
in Indonesia, the abetting of the killing of up to a million people,
the deaths in CIA's Secret War in Laos.

   The recent events surrounding Pinochet's problems -- a military despot
empowered by the CIA.

   CIA's support of Death Squads or death-squad-supporting governments
around the planet.

   One could write a list of wholesale killings engendered by our
National Security State.

   One thought comes to mind -- as we go about killing people to
protect our "National Security" when will victim countries and peoples
retaliate? Is this blowback occurring now with International Terrorism?

   The Morality of such? I burned out emotionally fighting and protesting
the wholesale slaughter of the Vietnamese (some four million people)
during that unjustified and unwinnable war.

   For a short while we seemed to draw back our killing impulses but
during the eighties they took on new life.

   Now as the President apologizes -- we plan further wholesale slaughters.
Is it moral? Is it practical? Is it just politics? Who Cares?

   To justify the killings, the CIA builds again the Mighty Wurlitzer --
a massive media facility to turn public opinion on demand, and on a dime.
George Orwell shouts from his grave -- "The Ministry of Truth," "the Ministry
of Peace," are well and operating in the Land of the Free -- the Central
"Intelligence" Agency.

Ralph McGehee
http://come.to/CIABASE

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Anon:

>Well, a lot of hoopla about darts, and umbrellas, and who's going to move
>into the limelight by doing another subversive somewhere...while the question
>comes up "but is it legal"? "Is it murder"? While somewhere deep in the
>American psyche resides the notion that killing a dog - or a bunch of them -
>isn't a crime at all. Not even under modern statutes. It merely constitutes
>a misdemeanor depending on the value of the dog; simple destruction of
private property?

>Well, what if ownership of the dog can't be established? Absentee ownership,
>perhaps. Seems then that there is no crime at all. Cruelty to animals? Yes,
>that should be punishable!

>But if the dog - and I love dogs - is about to bite a small child? Would it
>then be justifiable to do him ? Before he bites?

>This concept of "a smaller evil to accomplish a greater good"; or "a smaller
>evil to avert an even greater one" seems to be equally well anchored in the
>American psyche.

>When, then, either now or in the past, is it legal and justified to kill
>another human being ahead of time? If the answer is "never", we are
>saying then that we must wait until the potential purpotrator has done
>somebody. But if we have knowledge that this purpotrator - or many of them -
>is about to do somebody, and we remain silent? Where does the concept of
>conspiracy come into conflict with "silent consent"?

>No wonder those politicians make a lot of money: they're damned if they do,
>and they're damned if they don't. I wish someone would answer these
>questions; but I suppose it's better to live in a democracy where the
>politicians do the thinking, rather than in a de facto dictatorship where
>every Tom, Dick and Anarchist wants to shnip a piece of the pie...

>Yours faithfully,

>Anonymous

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