It is not historically unprecedented. Officials sit at a secret meeting and decide the fate of an individual perceived to be an enemy of the state. The meeting could go either way. But one way it might go is to hand out a sentence for the enemy to “disappear.” Problem solved.
Used to be, these were meetings between generals, colonels and their dictator. And the sentences were always carried out by men who were specially trained to follow orders without question. They were trained never to ask beyond who and how. They especially never asked why.
The more they were this way the better and more efficient they were, the more their value to their superiors. And if there were moral ramifications for all these, they were subordinate only to the pragmatic requirements of winning the war. And of course there was always a war going on somewhere, some place, not too far away. Which is why, as cold logic goes, we need men like these. We are supposed to thank them for keeping the planet in its proper orbit, to right whatever wrong is out there.
This reminds us, of course, of the late Osama Bin Laden and how he was executed, metaphorically in full view of the world. Before this, people might have argued that what the Americans would do would be to capture the man behind 9/11 and try him properly and publicly for his crimes. “This was the American way!” they insisted. But as change comes to all, always and entirely, so too has changed the American way. Who can tell if it has changed for the better? We can only know the American way has changed and is changing towards greater efficiency where all these are concerned.
And of course, the problem with assassins and human executioners is the wide margin of error. The problem is their humanity. And so the men who meet secretly as a secret court must wish for a way to do all these with the least human intervention possible. Which is why we have killer drones now.
They call them UAVs or Unmanned Armed Vehicles. A drone is a pilotless robotic airplane that can carry either a camera or a missile. They can be operated literally from across the globe using the latest viewing and global positioning technologies. The point of all these is that they can now kill anyone on the planet for as long as they know where they are. They die without even knowing what hit them. Or theoretically anyway, since there is always a margin between theory and actuality wherever technology is applied. The system is not yet perfect. For now the drones tend to kill mostly children and innocent civilians. Sometimes a whole neighborhood of them. But it’s getting there.
And so they dream now of coming upon technology for killing enemies with near to perfect accuracy. Say, a suicide bomber. Say, the immediate superior of the suicide bomber. And since we’ve gone this far, why not include the person who most influences the immediate superior of the suicide bomber? Why not include those hateful religious leaders who are obviously enemies? Why not political leaders? Why not the writers of words to inflame the passions of people?
But let’s not make the mistake of thinking these things are done by men who do not think or have not been mandated by their people to do exactly what they are doing now. These are not mindless acts. These are acts of civilized men and women who do what they do for the highest principles and reasons. They keep the world “safe” and peaceful this way. So that you can sleep tonight without the nightmare of terrorists entering your neighborhood and destroying everything there including yourself, your loved ones, your children and their neighborhood friends.
No, that nightmare is reserved only for terrorists and their immediate neighbors. So always watch who your neighbors are! It can be a life and death issue.
And we must wonder of course where all these are inevitably headed. Since these have become accepted practice we should now have a name for it in legalese. We used to say “extrajudicial killing.” But that has such a hollow ring to it now. As the kids put it: That’s so 70s! It’s so last year! Words fail us.