Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Dictators, assassination of
Section C. International relations

In spite of the general move towards democracy around the world, there are numerous dictatorial regimes worldwide. In general, military intervention in them would be impossible or impractical, but it is possible that targeted assassination might be more successful. The development of technology, and the greater use of assassination as a strategy for other targets including terrorists, makes assassination a more plausible route for ridding the world of them.

Pros

[1] Murder is rightly seen as wrong in all societies, but the specific circumstance of a dictatorship, where one unelected individual rules a state through force and fear, means that there are no other ways of removing the dictator from power. If the harm that dictators cause is great enough, and their deaths would remove clear and present dangers, then assassination may be justifiable as a last resort — the end justifying the means.

[2] Dictators pose a danger to international peace. Their unpopularity at home frequently causes them to launch foreign wars as a distraction (e.g. the Argentine military junta invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990).The removal of one individual through assassination may prevent thousands from dying and millions from suffering. Moreover, dictators often present a clear danger to their own populations; for instance, the massacres of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

[3] Dictators often promote terrorist activity against other states, as in Iraq, Iran, Syria or Libya, to strike at former domestic enemies now in exile or as revenge against governments which have supported their opponents.

[4] The security with which dictators surround themselves and the climate of fear that they create make it virtually impossible for either popular or elite (i.e. army) opposition to remove them from power, as the career of Saddam Hussein showed. If widespread suffering and death of their citizens are commonplace, this justifies removing them from power in the only way left. Even during the Arab Spring of 2011, it was primarily the fact that militaries switched sides, not mere people power, which overthrew Arab dictators.

Cons

[1] Assassination is simply unjustifiable as murder is always wrong. A soldier killing in war is a special case, justified by the rules established by the Geneva Convention, but the cold-blooded killing of a political leader is not. The ends may not always justify the means; dictators are usually replaced by other members of their military regime, and should the attack fail, it would only make them more bloodthirsty and vengeful than before.

[2] Dictators may threaten their neighbours, but so do leaders in democracies such as India and Pakistan, Egypt and Israel, and indeed the USA in wars from Vietnam to Iraq. Moreover, human rights abuses are far from being confined to dictatorships; for instance, the treatment of the Kurds in Turkey is endorsed by the democratic process. Even under a dictatorship, such conflicts may be very popular with the people for patriotic, territorial or ideological reasons. Assassinating dictators will not, therefore, prevent international conflict.

[3] Even the world’s greatest democracy, the USA, has employed terrorist activity, notoriously against Nicaragua in the early 1980s. Assassination itself is a form of terrorism in any case and to use it is to descend to the level of dictators.

[4] The internal security of a dictator can be destabilised by isolating the regime diplomatically and economically, while keeping the people informed through global communication. Constructive engagement remains the best solution; history has shown that authoritarian regimes do not survive when a wealthy middle class is opposed to them. Creating the middle class through economics is our best attack on dictators.

Possible motions

This House would assassinate foreign dictators.

This House believes that targeted assassination is the only way to bring down despots.

Related topics

Civil disobedience

Democracy, imposition of

Military drones, prohibition of

Non-UN-sanctioned military intervention

Sanctions, use of

Terrorism, justifiability of