Would Cuba have been right to send a hit squad to US to kill Orlando Bosch?

[Bonobo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Bosch

Orlando Bosch Ávila (18 August 1926 — 27 April 2011) was a Cuban exile militant, former Central Intelligence Agency-backed operative, and head of Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, which the FBI has described as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization". Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called Bosch an "unrepentant terrorist".<3> He was accused of taking part in Operation Condor and several other terrorist attacks, including the 6 October 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which all 73 people on board were killed, including many young members of a Cuban fencing team and five North Koreans.


So the real question is would Cuba have been morally justified -even lauded- for taking the law in their own hands and having a hit squad kill him. After all, the US refused to extradite him.

He lived an awfully long time with the blood of innocents on his hands.

So the question is not "did he deserve to die". The question is "would you have supported Cuba in invading the US to kill him?". If not, why not?

[pintobean]

1. Oh, geeze. Again?

[Liberal Veteran]

13. No. It's like this.

[pintobean]

14. Thank you LV

I learned SOMETHING today.:rofl:

[xchrom]

2. Given current justification: yes. Nt

[Fuddnik]

3. Nah, they would have invaded Biscayne Bay.

[JVS]

4. Sure. Plus it would have been ok to cause a lot of collateral damage.

[yawnmaster]

5. From Cuba's frame of context, it probably would be okay...

as our attack on OBL in his "mansion" is okay from our frame of context.

[Bonobo]

7. And that's all I am trying to get people to see.

That it depends on frame of reference.

And since it does, this kind of action is a justification for any country to do as they feel right.

That is the danger of not having the rule of law governing our actions.

Without laws, it is the Wild West and the biggest gun wins. That is not civilized behavior and is not ultimately the way a civilized nation should act.

[originalpckelly]

18. What we really need is a strong world government.

That's the only way that any real international law will exist, because when the victims of a crime are allowed to determine the punishment, it pretty much eliminates any hint of actual justice. Even if the conclusion would be the same, the sentence the same, it would at least eliminate any appearance of impropriety.

[hack89]

56. Hopefully you are kidding.

because why do you assume that it will be democratic and supportive of progressive values like freedom, justice and equality? Do we just toss the Constitution and hope that the rest of the world won't remove our freedoms?

Where is the room for despots and dictators in your world government? Are you just assuming that they will simply give up and adopt western concepts of freedom and democracy?

[Nevernose]

30. I'm not sure how much "morality" or "justftcation" play into things in the real world

Or even concepts like law or justice.

You're right, of course, that Cuba would have had justfication in that case. But that's not really important. The leaders can -- and often do -- invent their own justfications. Morality differs by culture, and one of the universal truths is that, like justification, morality is often invented, assigned, or applied as people find it necessary.

And all of these concepts kind of break down on a nationalistic, global scale. It's like when people start discussing the US defecit in terms of balancing a household budget. It seems obvious and even natural, but in reality they have as much in common as Bach and a tool-belt: not much.

I've often wondered to what extent might really does make right, where and when do we take motivation into concern, and don't countries generally act in their own self-interest anyway? Perhaps we can't even use analogies or hypotheticals when we discuss international events, because the very fact that different times and countries are involved make things totally different (a little like that physicist's poor fictional cat, locked in a box on death row).

Or maybe I'm just ranting and thinking out loud. Things would be easier if the residents of this planet weren't so interested in killing one another, or if we were at least local government socialist-anarchists.

I do know that big questions very rarely have any correct answers, usually just many incorrect ones that vary only in their degree of incorrectness. That's why they're big questions.

[Bonobo]

32. Yes, these are big questions.

Not as simple as saying "he deserved it", is it?

We can all agree that on some level OBL deserved it. But it really is bigger than that.

Lots of people deserve it.

[sabrina 1]

37. Yes, the standards we are using if they're good for us, are good

for everyone else. The US is saying that if someone harms our country and citizens, we have the right to execute them, no matter where they are.

I'm sure the US thinks that this is a special rule that only applies to us. But I am equally sure that there are others who will vehemently disagree.

All they have to do is write up their own version of the Patriot Act giving their leaders the authority to do it.

[The Magistrate]

6. Certainly, Sir

[Bonobo]

9. And the fact that they could not do so underscores the fact that might makes right.

Where do laws and notions of sovereignty enter the equation?

[The Magistrate]

10. Nowhere, Sir: One Does What One can, And Forgoes what one Cannot

[ProSense]

34. "the fact that might makes right."

"Where do laws and notions of sovereignty enter the equation?"

Where does that fit into the equation of bin Laden's terrorist attacks?

[Bonobo]

35. They were crimes. Crimes are dealt with with laws.

I think that is where it fits in.

[ProSense]

36. Here

Authorization

Law (PDF)

[Bonobo]

38. It is a bit disingenuous to write special case laws to fit immediate desires.

It would be like me writing a law that says that I can steal $100 from the casino if I have no money.

So you are right that they had a "law" to cover themselves, but it is not in the spirit of what laws mean (to me anyway).

So we will just have to agree to disagree on that one.

[ProSense]

41. What?

So now you're questioning the law?

"It is a bit disingenuous to write special case laws to fit immediate desires."

Disingenuous to write a law (authorizing the use of force) in response to terrorist attacks on the U.S.?

[sabrina 1]

40. That only applies to the US. So, all another country has to do

is draw up similar laws, giving their own leaders the authorization to order the execution of anyone who they believe has harmed their country.

[ProSense]

42. What?

"That only applies to the US."

Other countries are prohibited from declaring war and defending themselves? Do they know that?

[sabrina 1]

44. The US has passed laws, unfortunately, that have given

the POTUS the power to order the assassination of anyone he considers to be a threat to this country, no matter where they are.

I am not sure how other countries are going to feel about that.

However, since we have done this, other countries can now do so. All they have to do is draw up their own laws as we did. That was the question in the OP. Other countries can even send their commandos into this country to get their targets.

We are now living in a lawless world. Bush of course started us down this road, and as predicted at the time, and I remember warning rightwingers who supported it not realizing how it would also apply to a Democratic president. Now they have learned. Which is maybe a good thing. Maybe now they will not be so enthusiastic about these kinds of 'unitary executive' powers when they finally realize that not only their guy gets to use them.

[ProSense]

45. That

has nothing to do with bin Laden and the AUFM.

Nothing!

[sabrina 1]

46. Are you serious?

:rofl: Every country in the world is probably drawing up its own version of the Patriot Act right now.

How long before we hear about a commando raid by some other country? And what are we going to say about it so long as it is legal within their country and the feel their national security is threatened?

This is what happens when we abandon the rule of law. We get a lawless country and a lawless world.

[ProSense]

47. Hmmm?

"Every country in the world is probably drawing up its own version of the Patriot Act right now."

What the hell did my response have to do with the Patriot Act?

Are you serious?

[onenote]

52. every country in the world is drawing up their own versions of the Patriot Act?

That's one heck of a ROFL statement.

While we may often fall short, at least we accord some semblance of respect to the concept of the rule of law. There are a considerable number of countries in the world that barely go through the motions if that. Countries with nothing approaching the Bill of Rights or the concept of due process, countries where people live in fear that what they say or even believe could get them incarcerated, disappeared, killed.

[Ikonoklast]

8. Sure, why not?

They certainly could have tried if they wanted to.

[Bonobo]

12. Because they are not "strong enough" to have done so...

Therefore morality is not the determining factor, power is.

Might makes right. Not right makes right.

Open season to follow your own sense of justice as long as you are strong enough to do so, correct?

[Ikonoklast]

15. If they had the capability and failed to employ it, is a different question.

And 'morality' is a shifting sand.

There are no moral absolutes, as history has shown us, over and over.

[Bonobo]

19. Agreed, but how many people cheering will not even admit that?

In a world with no moral absolutes, there must be laws to protect the weak.

That is what we have undermined with out last 10 years (and more of course) of military actions and killings.

People here, though, largely see only the moral absolute that OBL was a bad man but do not, cannot, see that it is ia slippery slope.

[Ikonoklast]

25. One must determine where to draw the line in the shifting sands of morality.

"Here, and no further."

It is, of course, an arbitrary point that was chosen, and is influenced by current events, history, politics, human foibles...but it does create a place from which one can say "This behavior has fallen beyond what is acceptable, and therefore must be punished."

And for a certainty, in the future that point will be different from the present one chosen.

[Bonobo]

27. Good post.

But laws protect us, to a degree, from the drift that can occur when people are feeling emotional about a crime.

When a family member is murdered, we do not allow for them to kill the perpetrator of the crime -even though it may be justified in a moral sense from their POV.

I see this situation as no different.

[Ikonoklast]

31. I am leery of 'laws'. They are an artificial construct, nothing more.

I see them more as a reflection of the current state of the society that creates them, and much less as some sort of moral framework to restrain human behavior.


For instance, I believe the laws of this nation will be seen as quaint and contradictory almost to the point of schizophrenic when interpreted by future historians.

[yawnmaster]

50. I believe you have been working on a false premise, that one has to be strong enough to ...

complete an action such as this.
OBL and his associates were able to complete the 911 attacks as a much weaker power than the US.

[aikoaiko]

11. I don't think I would care either way.

[neverforget]

16. Chile did it in Washington DC on Sept 21, 1976

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/03/kill_teams?page=0,5

The act: On Sept. 21, 1976, a car traveling through Sheridan Circle on Washington D.C.'s Embassy Row exploded, killing Orlando Letelier, who had served as Chile's ambassador to the United States, foreign minister, and minister of defense under leftist President Salvador Allende -- as well as a young American colleague, Ronni Moffitt. Since emigrating to Washington after being released from jail by Augusto Pinochet's right-wing dictatorship, Letelier had worked with Moffitt at the Institute for Policy Studies think tank and had become one of the most prominent international critics of the Pinochet regime.

A plastic bomb placed below the car blew a 2-foot hole under the driver's seat and was shaped to concentrate its blast upwards. A U.S. court ruled in 1980 that the Chilean government was responsible for the killing; the U.S. government even sent Pinochet's government a $12 million bill for the crime. A number of senior Chilean officials including Manuel Contreras, commander of the powerful DINA secret police, were charged with the crime. In 1987, a former DINA official confessed to having helped orchestrate the bombing. A Cuban exile recruited by DINA confessed in 1991 to having planted the bomb. Contreras was eventually charged in Chile in 1995 and is currently in jail.

Recently revealed documents have reignited controversy over the case: U.S. diplomats had knowledge that the Chilean government was planning an assassination campaign against its enemies in the months leading up to Letelier's death but did not bring it up with Chilean authorities for fear of insulting Pinochet.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

23. Letelier was not a terrorist or murderer. -nt

[neverforget]

28. linked to it only because a foreign nation killed one of their nationals

on our soil.

[joshcryer]

17. It would not fit the Cuban narrative.

Only imperialists do things like that. We also try people without jury and execute them a week after they commit a crime. Oh wait...

[Bonobo]

20. Much better to keep them on Death Row for 20 years and then execute them.

That way you are killing a person that cannot even remember what they were like when they committed the crime.

By the way, this OP has nothing to do with defending Cuba, so why even go there?

[joshcryer]

33. Well, I didn't say Cuba would have been wrong to do what you proposed in the OP.

And I don't think that they would have been wrong if they did it. But it's necessary to show that these kinds of acts aren't relegated to "might makes right." Even a pitiful sanctioned state can do things like this (non-judicial executions).

They're also free to make the case for the lawfulness of their acts (the capturers were trying to defend themselves, etc).

There is also one detail missing from the comparison, though. You didn't suggest that Cuba had permission to do it. In Pakistan the details suggest that the US had permission to act (otherwise the army base would've probably overwhelmed the complex within minutes).

[Keith Bee]

21. Who says they didn't?

He died in a plane crash on a crystal-clear day, with winds of 14 mph.

[former9thward]

26. Who are you talking about? Bosch did not die in a plane crash.

Died of an illness.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. HELL YES, and lo and behold, Luis Posada Carriles, unlike Bosch, is still alive!

Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

[malaise]

24. K & R

I for one will never forgive this act of terrorism

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DainBramaged]

39. I'll take the big red X for $1000 Alex

we did what we did, and know what, it's the choice of an AMERICAN President. Not someone else's.

Goodbye.

[provis99]

43. If America does it, its ok; if anyone else does it, its not ok.

Got it.

[Bonobo]

48. In the end, that seems to be what it comes down to -and everyone here knows it. nt

[yawnmaster]

49. wrong. to some it will be okay, to others it won't be okay. Just like this situation. eom

[Better Believe It]

51. When the Cuban government sent agents into right-wing terrorist groups guess who went to prison.

The right-wing Cuban terrorists in Florida?

No!

The five Cuban intelligence agents who were infiltrating the terrorists outfits in order to find out their plans and espose their operations to U.S. officials were arrested. They have served years in maximum security prisons!

[Baby Bear]

53. Of Course Not

It would be treasonous for a US citizen to support a foreign military operation against the U.S. There is no morality loophole for treason.

You could protest, you could engage in civil disobedience, but you may not engage in treason.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

55. I assume the OP, by "supporting", meant "agreeing" or "applauding", not "participating".

And even so, although a US citizen participating in such an action would probably be criminally charged, I can't imagine how it could be construed at treason. Such an operation would not be "against the US".

[Puregonzo1188]

54. Was just about to post this. Thank you. He died too last week, but all the newspaper articles just

referred to him as a "militant" not a terrorist.


Thank you for exposing US hypocrisy.

[hack89]

57. Sure - if they were willing to accept the consequences. nt