The assassination conundrum

I once blogged about the discomfort I felt when a remotely piloted drone aircraft targets an individual for death, or a team of Special Operatives hunts down and kills someone. That’s more akin to assassination than warfare as usually practiced, and I contrasted it with the glee I feel when the US Marines come crashing ashore to accomplish the same deed. Somehow, taking the bad guy out in a full frontal assault is okay, while dispatching a Hellfire missile or killer team seems evil, or anyhow not the work of gentlemen.

So it is with the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai earlier this month. The man abducted and killed two Israeli soldiers, among other activities. Now either what he did in that instance was either an act of war or a cold-blooded murder. If an act of war, then his assassination by what we assume were Israeli agents is no less problematical. And if murder, how can we possibly object to his receiving the same treatment in his turn? It’s not as if Hamas is going to bring him to justice, or the statelet of Dubai, and certainly not the International Criminal Court.

Yet the BBC among other western news outlets report on the assassination as if Mr al-Mabhouh were the victim and his assassins the criminals. Partly this is the result of a reflexive anti-Israel bias, and partly the West’s confusion over how to respond to an enemy who wears no uniform and follows no code of war. Blue skies! – Dan Ford