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Arafat Assassinated?

JihadJane said:
If you accept assassination of one political leader then you have to accept the assassination of all politcal leaders, including your own, as fair game. That's how morality works.
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Actually, no I don't, and no it isn't.

In fact, there is no moral component to the interactions between nations, and I do not want there to be. A goverment's sole responsibility is to act in the best interests of its own citizens. If the very best thing for the citizenry is to assassinate someone, then that someone should be assassinated.

As a practical matter, it is rare that assassination will result in the best outcome for the citizenry. It is more likely that assassination will serve the goals of the sitting goverment rahter than the actual best interests of the citizens.

In what way was Arafat an enemy of the US?
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Where did I say he was? For that matter, how did you leap to the conclusion that the US assassinated Arafat? That would seem to be unlikely.
 
JihadJane said:
the prestige didn't say "So what if he's on someone assassination list". He said " so what if he's assassinated" as if assassinating political leaders is the most unproblematic thing in the world!
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So what if he's on someone's assassination list?

And what, exactly, are the problems with assassinating Arafat if the motive is there and the opportunity arises?

If you accept assassination of one political leader then you have to accept the assassination of all politcal leaders, including your own, as fair game. That's how morality works.
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I'm okay with that.jpg

If someone tries to assassinate the Prime Minister of the UK or the President of France, you won't see me complaining that they're not allowed to do that.

I accept as fact that every world leader is probably on some other leader's assassination list. My only real concern is not whether assassinations happen, but whether the on the giving and receiving ends of the assassination are the people I'd like to see in those respective positions.

Israel assassinates Arafat? Score one for my team.

Hamas assassinates Arafat? Own goal for the other team, and good riddance anyway.

Hamas assassinates Obama? Score one for the other team... they should probably enjoy it while they can.

In what way was Arafat an enemy of the US?
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In what way was he not?

If he was assassinated by state-sponsored agents then it undermines the effectiveness of the international body politic in favor of thuggery.
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Given that the "international body politic" includes thugs and defers to thuggery, I'm not sure your distinction is meaningful.

Also, I don't think "effectiveness of the international body politic" should be the defining constraint on free action by sovreign nations.

Certainly it's not going to be the constraint for some nations. That in turn requires that it not be a constraint for any nations, practically speaking.

Privincialism gone mad!
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If by "provincialism" you mean "not recognizing any common ground or joint well-being with Yasser Arafat", then I'd say it's provincialism gone sane.
 
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Ziggurat said:
Why do you think "my side" is Israel? I'm a US citizen, living in the US. What made you think otherwise?
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Because Arafat wasn't a thorn in the US's side. That makes no sense. Ergo, you consider Israel to be your side or ignore that there's a difference.

Ziggurat said:
Yet you think Russia poisoned him, because... why? Oh, that's right, you failed to mention that.
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I was sarcastically agreeing with WildCat's absurd remark, which he made to express his absolute belief that "Putin had" Litvinenko poisoned. Which is far from proven and considered by many including me to be highly unlikely.
 
Childlike Empress said:
Because Arafat wasn't a thorn in the US's side. That makes no sense. Ergo, you consider Israel to be your side or ignore that there's a difference.
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Israel is an ally of the US. You don't think that the security of an ally is an interest of ours? What a peculiar position to hold.

I was sarcastically agreeing with WildCat's absurd remark, which he made to express his absolute belief that "Putin had" Litvinenko poisoned. Which is far from proven and considered by many including me to be highly unlikely.
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You implied that both Arafat and Litvinenko were assassinated by the same people. Aside from the fact that you haven't backed up your claim about the connection between the two, who exactly do you think was behind both killings?
 
sarge said:
Actually, no I don't, and no it isn't.

In fact, there is no moral component to the interactions between nations, and I do not want there to be. A goverment's sole responsibility is to act in the best interests of its own citizens. If the very best thing for the citizenry is to assassinate someone, then that someone should be assassinated.

As a practical matter, it is rare that assassination will result in the best outcome for the citizenry. It is more likely that assassination will serve the goals of the sitting goverment rahter than the actual best interests of the citizens.
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If a country acts immorally its international reputation will plummet, as has that of the US over the last decade.

Where did I say he was? For that matter, how did you leap to the conclusion that the US assassinated Arafat? That would seem to be unlikely.
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This is what prompted my question:

sarge said:
I would support the assassination by agents of the US of any enemy of the best interests of the citizens of the US provided...
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Ziggurat said:
You implied that both Arafat and Litvinenko were assassinated by the same people. Aside from the fact that you haven't backed up your claim about the connection between the two, who exactly do you think was behind both killings?
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I said it was interesting that they found that the polonium in both cases is of the same age. I'm not gonna comment on the Arafat issue before I watched the documentary, but in case of Litvinenko I see two possibilities: Could have been an accident while smuggling the stuff, but the main elephant trails lead to his longtime boss and Zsar Putin maker who used him as a spectacular little gift to his creature which turned on him. Beresowski, the most cunning of all Russian oligarchs with excellent connections to the underworld, especially the Israeli one. Where the possible connection to this case could lie.
 
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Ziggurat said:
I could not find that in the lab report. Where did you get that information, and how did they determine this?
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Somewhere else on the net from someone commenting on the documentary. I'm going to watch it later or tomorrow and report if it is in there or not. You can check yourself, should be interesting. They worked nine months on it they say.
 
JihadJane said:
It would be murder.
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You know, I think this is the first time I've ever seen you give a direct, germane answer to a question.

I kinda like it.

Anyway, my view is, depending on the laws of whoever has jurisdiction, it might be murder, and it might be justifiable homicide. Not all killings are equal.

I know that people have differing opinions about that, and I know that "who gets to decide" is an open question.

And I know that granting one state the luxury of deciding when homicide is justified necessarily grants all states the luxury; "that's how morality works".

And like I said, my concern isn't that states assassinate, it's that the people I prefer are on the respective ends of the process.
 
Ziggurat said:
Israel is an ally of the US. You don't think that the security of an ally is an interest of ours? What a peculiar position to hold.
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Nope. US interests are things like access to markets, resources and termination of any threats to the US. The continuing existence of Israel is secondary to US interests from the point of view of the US. Israel knows this which is why it quietly subsidies its local arms industries.

Okey there are other theories of foreign policy but I tend to find them depressingly idealistic.
 
Darth Rotor said:
In an Occam's Razor moment, his wife knew (IIRC) where the money was hidden. I'd guess she had motive and opportunity, if anyone did. (Absent Arafat's extensive enemies list ... who most likely didn't know where the money was).
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Ah the money. Not much has surfaced has it? A pretty common claim with various ah interesting leaders is that they have large amounts of overseas wealth. Thing is once you remove those like the house of Saud who are open about it Gaddafi appears to have been the only one who may genuinely have had such accounts.

I suspect in this case most of the money that did exist was PLO grey funds and quite a few people would have been able to acess them.

The hard part is "where did she get her hands on that polonium" and I confess I don't have a good answer for that.
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Pretty available from scientific suppliers if you want it for some reason. Otherwise there are various reasons an arab group might have old soviet kit.
 
geni said:
Pretty available from scientific suppliers if you want it for some reason. Otherwise there are various reasons an arab group might have old soviet kit.
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Po210 has a half-life of 138 days. I don't much old soviet kit existed anymore at that point, since it would have decayed to 1 part in about 21 billion even in 2004. And that's assuming you're talking about stuff made in 1991, on the eve of the fall of the USSR.

However, Pb210 has a much longer half-life (210 years), and it decays to Po210. So Pb210 will last a long time, and constantly produce small amounts of Po210. It will never accumulate a lot since Po210 decays, but Pb210 will keep producing Po210 for a much longer time than the Po210 itself will stick around.
 
theprestige said:
I apologize for any confusion.

Let me be clear: I do support the assassination of Yasser Arafat (assuming that's what in fact happened). He was definitely on my "needed killing" list, and assassination has never been off the table for me as an option.

But that's not the point I'm making. Or rather, it's not the question I'm asking. The question I'm asking is, "so what if he was assassinated?"

I'm not making a point, I'm asking: What's the point of noting that he might have been assassinated?

Is the possibility really that unlikely? Is it really that shocking? Is it really that unacceptable?
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If he assassinated there was pretty much by definition an assassin. I suppose if it were a minor Palestinian fraction (there are so many) it might not mean much but other options would be far more interesting.
 
Ziggurat said:
Po210 has a half-life of 138 days. I don't much old soviet kit existed anymore at that point, since it would have decayed to 1 part in about 21 billion even in 2004. And that's assuming you're talking about stuff made in 1991, on the eve of the fall of the USSR.
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However kit that needs the stuff can last rather longer which provides an ongoing level of acesses if the kit is to be kept working.

However, Pb210 has a much longer half-life (210 years), and it decays to Po210. So Pb210 will last a long time, and constantly produce small amounts of Po210. It will never accumulate a lot since Po210 decays, but Pb210 will keep producing Po210 for a much longer time than the Po210 itself will stick around.
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But where would lead 210 come from? Its in the decay chain of radium but if they were able to pick up traces of Po210 I doubt they would have missed significant amounts of radium. I'm not aware of lead 210 having any industrial or chemical aplications and picking up the decay products of the trace amounts found in regular lead would be impressive.
 
geni said:
If he assassinated there was pretty much by definition an assassin. I suppose if it were a minor Palestinian fraction (there are so many) it might not mean much but other options would be far more interesting.
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I see your point. I'm actually coming at the question from the other direction: I'm assuming there are assassins, and then I'm not surprised that Arafat might have been assassinated.

Did you have any specific "far more interesting" possibilities in mind?

I guess the US would be pretty interesting, only because I can't really see that as plausible. So if it turned out the US did it after all, that'd be some kind of "Black Ops Tales of the Weird".

Israel seems like a more plausible option, but for that reason, less interesting. It might be interesting to know why the Israelis thought it was necessary to kill him, but that's about it.
 
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