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Friday--November 22, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 436
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Assassination Breeds Terrorism
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by
Cliff McKenzie
   Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News

       GROUND ZERO, New York City, Nov. 22 -- Thirty-nine years ago today a Terrorist shot and killed President John F. Kennedy.  In those days we didn't call such acts "terrorism."  We called them "conspiracies."

         The shroud that hangs over JFK's death will probably never be lifted by the truth.  His death will be forever clouded by the range of conspiracy theories ranging from the Mafia to Castro, from Russia to even LBJ, the vice-president who assumed Kennedy's Presidency.   Few if any think the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone.
         Not too many years ago Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate former president George Bush, father of the current U.S. President George Bush Jr.  There are no conspiracy theories over that attempt.  Assassination of political war lords has become an accepted article of speech and action.  Today, we are publicly trying to assassinate Osama bin Laden, and, the pen is poised over Saddam Hussein's death warrant.

         Assassination, once a dirty word in both moral and political circles, has taken on a new dull amorality.  The word "assassination" can be easily spoken without raising eyebrows or spearing the hearts of the "politically correct"  who would have once lost their lunch over hearing a world leader emit such words in juxtaposition to another world leader--good or bad.
         Osama bin Laden, regardless of his lack of soil to rule, is a world leader.  He leads the Terrorist World, an amorphic state of shadows that appear to have spider-webbed themselves into every nook and cranny of the globe.  When Osama pops up, the anti-Terrorist assassination guns swivel wildly in search of his "kill zone."  Nothing would sate the appetite of the Terror Hunters more than to bring his head on a silver platter to Pennsylvania Ave.    He even has a $25 million bounty on his head--true blood money for him--dead or alive.
      

        Assassinations aren't news to America.  Four presidents have been killed in office: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy.   Below is a chart of American leaders who were targets or victims from 1865 to current time.   Included in the list is an attempt on FDR's life.

          There is little doubt we live in a world of Terrorism even at the top of the political food chain.  Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are not new arrivals to the proliferation of Terrorism or assassination.   They are not the head of the hydra.  But unlike most assassins, their targets are indiscriminate.   Rather than isolate one individual who represents a "political" or "social" icon, these assassins prefer to target their "children," and other political "wards of the state."    By killing the women and children for whom the leader is responsible to assure their safety, Terrorists believe they weaken the leader's role of "protector."  They believe such acts undermine the nation's confidence.  Also, modern political assassins prefer the glee of making the "parents" suffer over the "children's deaths."   They like to hold the parent (leader) captive while they torture their "children" on CNN.
           The Mafia as well as any criminal Terrorist will use the threat of reprisal against a victim's family as leverage rather than sticking a gun to a victim's head.  "I'll kill your children, your mother, your father and all your friends unless you do what I say.  Their blood will be on your hands unless you surrender to my will," is the twisted threat Terrorists use these days.  Such cruelty often begets equal cruelty.

          In Yemen, we recently allowed the CIA to assassinate an al-Queda leader with an unmanned Predator.  Nary an eye blinked in the U.S. when the nightly news reported our act.    From Washington, our leaders openly speak of "killing" or "removing" or "erasing" or "eradicating" the Terrorists and their allies, as though assassination was an endorsed process of justice against Terrorists.    Trials are no longer camp.  Capturing and prosecuting seems less important than hunting and killing on sight.
          America has a thirst for blood.
          But does it work, this retaliation of sending "death squads" to counter "death squads?"

             Last evening on MSNB a host of news pundits reviewed the success of Israel's "an eye for an eye" retaliation strategy against suicide bombers   It hasn't worked.   The more Israel "assassinates back," the greater the number of suicide attacks.   It seems violence begets violence, death breeds more death, assassinations seed more assassinations. 

       The other night in the Sopranos latest HBO episode, Mafia leader Tony Soprano became enraged at one of his lieutenants and beat him to death.   The other lieutenants, suspecting Tony killed one of his own "top ranking" crime bosses, questioned if their lives were safe.  Tony broke the old pact--"Thou Shalt Not Assassinate Another Leader." It's the same pact the U.N. holds dear when it denies the right of another nation to assassinate a political leader to force a regime change.  "Thou shalt not kill they brother/sister leader."
         The undercurrent in the Sopranos television crime drama is retaliation.  The under-bosses are now wondering  whether they should "whack Tony" before he "whacks another of them."  Assassination sets into motion more assassination.
          Newton's Third Law of Motion also comes into play regarding assassination.   "For every force there is an equal and opposite reaction force."
          What is interesting in Newton's Law is the words "reaction force."   If one uses "assassination" as a political or social power tool, then one can expect "assassination" in return.   However, Terrorism's nature violates Newton's Third Law by expanding the word "equal and opposite reaction force," to "unequal and opposite reaction force."  Terrorism multiplies its reaction force, and redirects it from the object acted upon to the innocent rather than the cause of the force.   Terrorism would rather react agaisnt the universe than exert direct force back on the one who caused the disturbance.   Terrorism justifies indiscriminate reaction rather than discriminate retaliation.

           Attacks on innocent victims in Bali and the World Trade Center are just two examples.   Suicide bombers blowing up buses with women and children aboard offer others.   The recent thwarted attempt in London to blow up subway commuters shows how Terrorism "assassinates" in unlike "reactive"  terms.
          Thirty-nine years ago today when President Kennedy was killed in Dallas by an assassin, it set off a string of events unlike previous political assassinations or their attempts on U.S. leaders.  

         Most believe Kennedy's death was a well-planned, well-plotted conspiracy by nefarious forces not unlike the al-Qaeda in design.   It sent a message to those vulnerable targets that a single Terrorist could infiltrate and wreak death and destruction at will upon the highest of all leaders.   It cracked the egg of security of America.
          Kennedy was a political target.   He threatened the Russians with nuclear war.   He launched the war in Vietnam.   He tried to invade and topple the regime in Cuba.   There is even strong evidence he conspired with the Mafia to assassinate Castro.   Besides numerous domestic enemies, he invoked the wrath of countless foreign ones.
        Kennedy, like President Bush, didn't win the popular vote.   Nixon garnered 49.7% of the popular votes compared to 49.5% for Kennedy, but Kennedy, as Bush, won the electoral college votes.
        Kennedy's administration took us to the moon, but it also brought us to the brink of a horrible war, one that would have decimated the earth.   It also ushered in  the principle of "political assassination" as an open forum to eliminate threats.
        Today, the legacy of "assassination" has become a household word.   It belies a moral crumbling of former respect for war as a tool to defeat enemies, and places in its place crosshairs and Predators and the authorization of the CIA to "hunt and kill."
         My concern with anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy is that it highlights the legacy of Terrorism in America and abroad.   I find it necessary in my own thinking to try and seek the source of current events, and their malformations through time.
         If Terrorism begets Terrorism, then November 22, 1963 hallmarks a critical timeline for its overt appearance.   November 22, 2002 hallmarks its presence in living rooms across the world, and a sanction of its presence at dinner tables, and its insidious ability to creep into the mushy minds of youth who hear the news and wonder, "hmmmm, assassination must be okay."
         As a Citizen of Vigilance I believe this is cancerous to our children, and our children's children's children.   I fear it will bring more Terrorism, more assassinations.

       Yes, there is blood on the moon.
        It is the legacy left from thirty-nine years ago.
        It is also the tears of the Sentinels of Vigilance who know there is no Courage, Conviction or Right Action in Assassination, only more Fear, more Intimidation and more Complacency.