Quote:
Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
[Even if we had or have decided, post-9/11 to adopt the preemptive assassination approach developed by the Israelis in dealing with palestinian terrorists.]
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I am certain that there was not widespread support for hunting down and killing terrorist leaders until 9/11. After the first attack on the WTC people didn't support that. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that it wasn't until we were hit hard that people would support going to those extremes. That is true of the Israelis, too. Look how bad things had to get before they went after the leader of Hamas. And Arafat is still alive. There may be an advantage to keeping him alive now, but at points in the past, the Israelis could have benefitted by taking him out.
It is a big deal for a democratically elected government of a civilized people to hunt people down and kill them. Something as bad as 9/11 or the constant barage of terrorist attacks that go on in Israel have to happen before civilized people will support something like that.
One counterargument advanced pre-9/11 against killing OBL was that you might actually make terrorism worse by killing the leader. You turn him into a martyr and it becomes a recruiting tool. So then what? Invade Afghanistan, too? I seriously doubt the American people would have supported assasinating OBL and invading Afghanistan pre-9/11.
We felt too safe pre-9/11 here in America. We were wrong, but only after it happened to us on that extreme scale did we open our eyes as a people. And only then did we support these drastic measures. I am a hawk and I would have been uneasy about invading Afghanistan pre-9/11. I would have worried that it was going to be like it was for the Russians. Now in hindsight, I see that isn't true. But even post-9/11 many people expressed their fears that the US would have a tough time in Afghanistan like the Russians did.
