(no subject)
I was on an elliptical machine at the gym this morning, in front of a bank of television screens. I had music occupying my ears, but my eyes were free to take in headlines from the various cable news stations. Though I mostly focused on CNN, I did catch the talking heads on Fox News supposedly discussing whether the weekend's killing of OBL means the president is now free to order assasinations.
I am not surprised if the station's editors are just now discovering the possible threat of unchecked executive power, but this has been bothering me ever since: where do they get off calling it an assasination?
Just to make sure, I looked up the definition, which says "the murder of an important person for religious or political reasons." In backwards order, I don't think the reasons were political because the objective was not to effect any particular change, or any change that is particularly likely. I think the objective was simply to eliminate one person. I reject that there were any religious reasons. And as for important, the guy wasn't the head of a state, running for office, affiliated with a state or carrying out something important for a state (like being a scientist for the nuclear program). That's usually what I think of as being important enough that one's death gets labeled an assasination. Important is kind of a value judgement; I'm sure he was important to a good many people, but there have to be some guidelines.
This person, on the other hand, was the target, stated openly, of military capture or killing by a state, for almost a decade. If everyone in the world knows that if a certain nation finds you, they'll shoot you, then I think it's a killing, not an assasination. It seems to me that to see the killing of OBL as an assasination, you'd have to take the following fictional description in stride: "FBI agents raided the compound today of a multi-state human trafficking ring and assasinated the head of the criminal organization." It sound weird to me.
And at any rate, wasn't the time for this discussion nine years ago when the former president declared this person wanted dead or alive? I think it's somewhat debatable that the current president ordered the killing rather than authorized the operation that put a previously established U.S. policy into effect. But that is just semantics. In the end, what bothers me is that the news station feels free to the scariest set of words it has to gin up emotion instead of the appropriate words to describe events.
I am not surprised if the station's editors are just now discovering the possible threat of unchecked executive power, but this has been bothering me ever since: where do they get off calling it an assasination?
Just to make sure, I looked up the definition, which says "the murder of an important person for religious or political reasons." In backwards order, I don't think the reasons were political because the objective was not to effect any particular change, or any change that is particularly likely. I think the objective was simply to eliminate one person. I reject that there were any religious reasons. And as for important, the guy wasn't the head of a state, running for office, affiliated with a state or carrying out something important for a state (like being a scientist for the nuclear program). That's usually what I think of as being important enough that one's death gets labeled an assasination. Important is kind of a value judgement; I'm sure he was important to a good many people, but there have to be some guidelines.
This person, on the other hand, was the target, stated openly, of military capture or killing by a state, for almost a decade. If everyone in the world knows that if a certain nation finds you, they'll shoot you, then I think it's a killing, not an assasination. It seems to me that to see the killing of OBL as an assasination, you'd have to take the following fictional description in stride: "FBI agents raided the compound today of a multi-state human trafficking ring and assasinated the head of the criminal organization." It sound weird to me.
And at any rate, wasn't the time for this discussion nine years ago when the former president declared this person wanted dead or alive? I think it's somewhat debatable that the current president ordered the killing rather than authorized the operation that put a previously established U.S. policy into effect. But that is just semantics. In the end, what bothers me is that the news station feels free to the scariest set of words it has to gin up emotion instead of the appropriate words to describe events.