(If you don’t feel like reading my whole post Instaputz wraps it up nice and sweet)
Reynolds has decided to respond to the Paul Campos column. Reynolds has distinguished himself by starting with a strong statement and systematically failing to defend it in his column.
It starts with a strong “joke” followed by an assertion:
Paul Campos has beclowned himself. He did it in the usual way, by arguing loudly about things he does not understand.
I love his use of the verb “beclown”, which seems to be a verb meaning “to make a clown of”. He also asserts that Campos does not understand the issue of political assassination. Strong words. Lets see how Reynolds backs that up.
The best part of this article is instapundit’s extremely accurate summary of the Campos column:
Campos chose to devote an entire column…to a blog entry of mine from last week, in which I wondered why the Bush administration wasn’t acting covertly to kill radical mullahs and atomic scientists, rather than preparing a major attack on Iran. (Silly me, I thought this was advocating a less warlike approach). According to Campos, this suggestion was both morally wrong…and illegal.
Hmm…yes…very peaceful. And I am sure that Iran’s rational and reasonable leadership will react to assassinations inside its country with candy and flowers. Anyway, so far, no argument has been made. Next we get a little more foreshadowing: “Campos, however, has both his law and history wrong.” (oooh I can’t wait! Its a cliffhanger paragraph):
History first: There’s nothing beyond the pale about suggesting assassination and covert action as an alternative to warfare. In 1998, Sens. Dianne Feinstein…and Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked the government to look into assassination as a means of dealing with terrorists; Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va., suggested assassinating Saddam Hussein the same year. On Jan. 3, 2001, Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., introduced legislation to facilitate the assassination of terrorists. And in 1997, George Stephanopoulos wrote: “A misreading of the law or misplaced moral squeamishness should not stop the president from talking about assassination. He should order up the options and see if it’s possible. If we can kill Saddam, we should.”
This is a crap argument and Reynolds knows it. First Reynolds goes to the old right wing standby: if a democrat at anytime advocated something, that must mean the entire left must also therefore stand down, because we never disagree with our own. His example sucks though, because (according to him) Feinstein and Biden asked the government to “look into” assassinate terrorists. Hardly advocating assassinating scientists and foreign government and/or religious officials. And if they did advocate assassinating terrorists, I personally would strongly disagree with that, just like I and many on the left have disagreed with party leaders many times. Then he points out that a wingnut house rep, and aging dixiecrat and George Stephanopoulus also agree with him, or at least at one time advocated assassination. This is all to prove that Campos has his “history” wrong. Campos, of course, did not claim that no one ever advocated assassination. He just claimed that it is wrong and illegal, even if George Stephanopoulus (the left’s foremost political thinker) thinks it a good idea.
Now, here comes the meat. Why isn’t assassination illegal Glenn?
Nor would such action be illegal. Assassination is forbidden by executive order. Nothing prevents the president from rescinding that order, or amending it. And as a 1989 memorandum by the Judge Advocate General of the Army notes, killing enemy leaders or weapons scientists isn’t even assassination: “Civilians who work within a military objective are at risk from attack…
Ok, I am not a legal expert, but I think that in arguing that assassination is legal instapundit just proved that it isn’t. To repeat “Assassination is forbidden by executive order. Nothing prevents the president from rescinding that order”. Ok, Glenn you are right. If the president changes this law (which he does have the right to do) then assassination would be legal. Good point. But that doesn’t change the argument Campos was making…assassination is morally repugnant and currently illegal. Further, the JAG seems to be arguing that strategic bombing in war is not the same as assassination. As presented here (unattributed and unsourced) this memo doesn’t begin to claim that killing foreign leaders, officials and scientists inside countries we aren’t at war with is acceptable. In the height of the cold war Reagan renewed this prohibition and did not attempt to assassinate soviet scientists or officials (Executive Order 12333). (Of course just because Reagan did it doesn’t make it right…but Glenn, if Regan thought it was a bad idea…)
Strikingly Reynolds doesn’t even break out the best “but Clinton did it” example here. The Clinton administration attempted to kill specific people with cruise missile attacks after the bombing on the Cole. (similar to Bush administration “targeted killings” using drones) I suspect that Reynolds doesn’t bring this out because it would then be obvious how assassinating Mullahs and scientists in Iran is hardly the same thing. (personally I oppose both) Again, shall I repeat, we are not at war with Iran.
Ok…so we are near the end and still no real refutation of the points Campos made. To wrap up Reynolds claims:
International law is unlikely to be a problem either. The bombing attack on Moammar Qaddafi was legally justified, according to the State Department’s legal adviser, as an act of self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter because of Qaddafi’s terrorist activities. The Iranian mullahs are worse, and are trying to get nuclear weapons besides.
Oh well then. That makes it ok. I mean think about it: the State Department’s legal adviser argued at one time that bombing Moammar Qaddafi was acceptable as a response to terrorist activities! That obviously means that killing civilians in Iran as a response to what we think might someday be a possibility of helping terrorist activities is like, totally kosher!
Finally Glenn totally misses the point:
Instead, he authored an uninformed column, and then added a thuggish suggestion that my university should discipline me for daring to utter thoughts that, in his uninformed state, he found uncongenial. After he has educated himself sufficiently to have an informed opinion on the subject, Campos might still disagree.
I agree that Reynolds should not be disciplined or fired for having a dumb opinion. But as Instapundit says:
I’m sympathetic to this argument, but I’m not sure that the berth of academic freedom is wide enough to encompass advocating or condoning genocide, which seems to be where [Ward] Churchill was heading.
