Monday, February 6, 2017
You won't hear this on the evening news...
In an interview Sunday, President Trump was asked how he could respect Vladimir Putin, being that he’s a killer. He answered, in part, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” A couple of points.
First, the interviewer never explained what he meant when he said Putin is a killer. Did he mean that Putin has actually placed a gun to someone’s head and pulled the trigger? Did he mean he had ordered the killing of certain people, particularly political opponents? Or did he mean that he has no problem with the concept of killing political opponents, regardless of whether or not he has actually done it himself or ordered a hit on a particular person? We can make assumptions here, but I’m not sure we have any direct evidence.
Second, would it be wise for the new president to condemn as a killer a leader of Putin’s stature right out of the box. That’s a pretty serious accusation. Trump has said he wants to try to form alliances with the Russians. Calling their leader a killer may not be a very wise diplomatic move. I suspect that if Putin proves to be a back-stabber, the president will not be shy about calling him whatever epithet pops into his head.
Back to Trump’s answer: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” In response I call a few names to your attention: Patrice Lumumba, Osama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (16-year-old son of Anwar). Each of these people was assassinated by order of the President of the United States without due process because it was deemed to in the interest of national security. There are probably many others, and there are certainly many others who have been killed by the CIA or military, not because they were enemy soldiers in a declared war, but because their deaths were deemed to in the interest of national security. There is reason to believe the CIA attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro numerous times.
According to WikiSpooks.com, “The CIA has long had a policy of assassinating individuals for a mixture of reasons. Formerly, these attacks were covert, but increasingly, the US government is open about assassinating anyone whom it pleases. The official narrative, however, avoids the word assassination, preferring instead the euphemism “targeted killing.” Attacks are being made on individuals or leaders of quite small groups who are post hoc designated “terrorists.” Since 2011 there have been killings of nuclear technicians in Iran. Drones are proving increasingly effective at killing targets, and are even being programmed to make autonomous decisions about whom to kill.”
I am not necessarily objecting to this practice, but to be fair, there is substance to Donald Trump’s assertion that America is not so innocent. What one leader may see as a national interest may not be seen that way by others. I’m sure there are plenty of people in Yemen who consider Barrack Obama a killer. I’m sure there were plenty of Congolese in the early 60s who considered Eisenhower a killer. I’m sure plenty of Cubans wished they could have consider Kennedy a killer. Unfortunately for the people of Cuba, his CIA never succeeded.
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8 comments:
I think this is as intelligent and measured an analysis of Trump's much-maligned comment as anything I've read. Some, especially on the right, have been huffing and puffing about "moral equivalence" as though every "wet measure" we have taken has been for the purest and most noble of reasons. I'm sorry, but I've been around too long to accept that. None of this is to say we aren't the good guys - I deeply believe we are - but part of being the good guys is a willingness to recognize where we fall short of our own ideals.
I couldn't agree more that Trump is in the early stages of cultivating a relationship with Putin, one that could be very useful for us. Much smarter than confrontation with the world's second most powerful military. That relationship would be immediately sabotaged were he to start throwing around pointless ad hominen attacks in response to a question from a journalist.
Isn't it worth noting, too, that President Roosevelt - St. Franklin - cultivated a personal relationship with Josef Stalin, perhaps history's greatest killer - to achieve a higher end? I think something similar is at work here.
When I heard this exchange I immediately thought of the guy Obama had killed in Yemen as an example Trump could have, and should have used. If for no other reason, it would have forced O'Reilly to give a more definitive definition of who has Putin killed. Instead, Trump uses the Iraq War as an example of us not being so innocent. Certainly not the best example a smart fellow could have used,
Wow, Tom, we finally agree on something!
The Iraq example was ill advised and wrong on its merits.
Don't get to excited, Dave. We can certainly agree we have not been so innocent when it comes into mingling in another countries affairs. Now, if as I suspect O'Reilly was talking about Putin killing his Russian political foes on Russian ground, that's different from what we do.
It may not be too different. There's the as yet unsolved case of Seth Rich, the DNC employee who was murdered last July. According to his mother, "There had been a struggle. His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything." The DC police have put up a $25,000 reward, Wikileaks has offered a $20,000 reward, and a DC lawyer has recently put up $105,000 of his own money as a reward to catch the killer. Wikileaks has suggested that Rich was helping them hack the DNC. We may never know who killed Seth Rich or why, but it is not totally inconceivable that he was killed by some arm of the Powers-That-Be for political reasons. There are plenty of other unsolved cases that conspiracy theorists have latched onto (i.e. John Kennedy). Are any of them politically motivated hit jobs, or are there a more reasonable explanations, like ordinary street crime? We may never know for certain. Hit men are notoriously clever. They leave very little evidence behind. They are professionals, after all.
There will always be conspiracy theorists, but that doesn't mean we should give them credence. 9/11 and inside job. Newtown never happened. Obama is gay and will leave his wife who has a penis for another man.
The thing is, since Putin came to power it seems that some journalists, power brokers, etc. that goes against Mr. Putin or his policies wind up dead in unsolved cases for the most part. Obama was POTUS for 8 years and yet no one at Fox was murdered, Rush is still on the air, and Breitbart still publishes their hate. Would they exist in Russia?
I'm not arguing your point. Putin has probably ordered the execution of various political adversaries. But I underline the word "probably." We have no direct evidence. It could be that various actors who know who Putin would like to see eliminated have acted in his behalf but without his knowledge. It's really impossible to say for certain. There is no uncertainty, however, that Eisenhower ordered the execution of Lumumba, and Obama ordered the execution of Bin Laden and the Awlakis. That may be mixing apples and oranges, but Trump's point was that we are not so innocent. We sometimes kill people without due process if we think it's in our national interest. I'm sure Putin justifies whatever he does on the same basis. But regardless of the reality, I think it would be poor diplomacy for Trump or Tillerson to make public declarations that Putin is a killer. I'm glad they refused to go down that path.
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