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Gangsterism as Foreign Policy: Assassinations are Becoming the New Norm

Cockburn, Patrick
http://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/08/gangsterism-as-foreign-policy-assassinations-are-becoming-the-new-norm/

Publisher:  Counterpunch
Date Written:  08/12/2020
Year Published:  2020  
Resource Type:  Article

State-sponsored assassinations employ the methods of gangsterism and discredit and delegitimise those who use them.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt

All recent US administrations have come into office hoping - and sometimes declaring publicly - that they would not allow themselves to be sucked into crises and messy wars in the Middle East. Invariably, they have failed because the region is where the political tectonic plates of the world meet and grind together. It is the arena where outside powers confront each other directly or through their proxies.

"Targeted killings" on an individual or mass basis may appear to be a way of tipping the balance towards whatever country has decided to go into the assassination business. The killing of Yitzhak Rabin did matter for the future of the Israelis and the Palestinians, but this was the act of a single fanatic and not of a goverment. Few other assassinations in the Middle East have had much long-term impact, contrary to the cinematic view of a world where Mr Bigs, like Goldfinger or Dr No, are evil mastermminds whose elimination will make a difference. In the real world, figures like Fakhrizadeh and Soleimani can always be replaced.

Generals and politicians once imagined that campaigns to kill the local leaders of insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq would open the door to victory. State-sponsored assassinations employ the methods of gangsterism and discredit and delegitimise those who use them.

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