Mugabe already was behind genocide that targeted the Ndebele in the '80s, he also has boated of being the Hitler of his time and his desire to be a Hitler ten fold. The corrupt associations of South Africa's and Malawi's w/Mugabe and Congo make the SADC part of the problem. Botswana next door has legitimate grievances given their being flooded by refugees, but they are very peaceful and whether they have the means and will to invade Zimbabwe is doubtful. I'm inclined to vote for assassination. Even the Shona are suffering under Mugabe.
A modest proposal: the US can ask the Security Council to refer Mugabe to the International Criminal Court. If the court issues an indictment, following the precedent it set earlier this week when Omar Bashir of Sudan became the first sitting head of state to be indicted, the US would have a legal cover for a raid-and-snatch mission that, if executed covertly, would land Mugabe in the Hague pronto.
Slightly off topic: inflation in Zimbabwe is now at 2,200,000%.
One problem with the US making use of the International Criminal Court is that it doesn't recognise it (or at least has vowed to invade the Netherlands if it dares to try any US military person).
I'm not sure what to do with the contention that thugs "don't deserve the protection of sovereign immunity:" I'm not an expert on sovereignty, but that seems rather to overturn the whole concept, doesn't it? Personally, I'd be OK with that, but then, I'm an anti-nationalist cosmopolitan: I can see nation states being reluctant to sign up for it in general.
In some respects, nation-states already signed up for it when they legitimized the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine in the 2005 World Summit Outcome document. There is a widespread understanding that a government loses its right to absolute sovereignty when it commits massive human rights abuses. There are currents that suggest this norm might be extended to cover overturning the results of a democratic election; though Mugabe's atrocities against his own people alone would provide enough of an excuse.
As for the US and the ICC, are you honestly saying that the US shouldn't do this if it suits our goals, just because it would be hypocritical? We trade in organized hypocrisy; it's part of good statecraft.
There was a time we said we weren't going to assassinate any foreign leaders. Sometime after the Kennedy administration, I forget the details....
Something about us trying repeatedly to assassinate Castro and failing, and he would have been completely justified to hit back....
It seems like there are a lot of americans who think we should take responsibility and make sure nothing bad happens in the world. I believe this is misguided. We are not actually that powerful, and the world does hit back.
There might be a time and place for the USA to do entirely covert assassinations. There is no valid time or place for anyone who might be thought to influence US policy to publicly advocate US-government-managed assassinations. It isn't something we should admit to considering.
Executive Order 11905:
Section 5(g) Prohibition of Assassination. No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.
I remember a minor debate after September 11, 2001 about whether it banned assassinating Al-Qaeda leaders. The answer seemed to be "no."
The reason I chose to go into academia instead of the foreign service was to retain my right to free speech about US policy. But for the record, as my post clearly concludes, I am advocating against this option, not for it.
As for Farr and any others in the blogosphere who might be taking the pro-assassination position, do you really mean they have no right to discuss policy options other than those openly condoned by the government? (And yes, I assume that in a democracy, anyone has a potential impact on the public debate.)
Surely you don't mean to quash free speech and independent thought in the name of national security? If so, we are in strong disagreement.
Charli, people have rights and responsibilities.
As far as I know, you do have a right to shout FIRE in a crowded theater. You have a responsibility not to do so, unless the alternative looks worse.
If you're a guy in a bar you can advocate killing anybody you want to. If you advocate killing Bush and somebody reports you, you will probably get a visit from a couple of representatives of the US government to check up on you. They will decide you were just a guy in a bar and will do nothing but start a file on you.
If you're somebody that foreign governments might take seriously, then you have a responsibility not to advocate that the US government assassinate foreign leaders. I don't think it's illegal, and I don't think it ought to be illegal.
If you were to be irresponsible enough to do it, there would nothing for me to do about that except perhaps make my poor efforts to get you out of positions where you would be taken seriously.
I don't see that I'd be violating your right to free speech to do that, when anything I did to hurt your career would be as a private citizen. There are lots of organised groups doing this sort of thing already. Scientologists try to hurt anybody who says bad things about scientology, Bnai brith tries to hurt people who say bad things about israel, various creationist groups try to hurt teachers who talk about evolution, etc. All far far more effective than I could be.
No one thinks you've personally violated anyone's rights by expressing your opinion. I simply wanted to clarify whether indeed this was your actual opinion. I see now that it is, so here's my response:
You claim Wharton is irresponsible for even suggesting this policy option (and, it seems you think that I am irresponsible for even engaging with his argument, though I don't endorse it.) I'd love for you to back either of these claims up with some evidence.
Start by defining "responsibility." So far all you've suggested that it's irresponsible to advocate a position that countervenes US treaty obligations. Does this apply for all treaty obligations, or only for assassinations? (Waterboarding doesn't appear to trouble you much.) Does it apply to all assassinations or only those of foreign leaders? You don't seem overly concerned about the targeted assassinations of alleged terrorists. In fact, you don't seem concerned about actual assassinations at all, just about discussing them publicly.
Sometimes, US treaty obligations are wrong or inconsistent. I don't agree that they are in this case, but I could point to many others. It is up to thinking citizens to inform themselves and engage with questions of US foreign policy. I don't agree with Wharton's particular policy recommendation, but I congratulate him for at least following what is happening in Zimbabwe and joining a discussion about what a response could look like.
What is truly irresponsible is to stand by and mindlessly abdicate one's agency as a citizen when people are being persecuted by their government - be it here or abroad. When crimes against humanity are occurring, shouting FIRE is perfectly appropriate; and when governments stand by and do nothing in response, it is everyone's responsibility to engage.
I thought I'd wade in here and suggest two related readings, with some trepidation (because there's always someone willing to pounce before considering all the arguments in full):
1. Africanist Stephen D.K. Ellis has just written a thoughtful op-ed type piece at the Complex Terrain Lab, on Zimbabwe, state non-failure, sovereignty, and intervention (click my name to link to it).
2. Christopher Zorn and Zaryab Iqbal have just published an article entitled "The Political Consequences of Assassination" in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Surely there's room for some serious discussion - not advocacy, but rather reasoned analysis of the subject - on the uses and abuses of assassination and targeted killings in international relations.
Sorry - what I just wrote sounded like a criticism of the discussion going on here. It wasn't intended that way. What I meant to suggest was that given the serious thought being given to the issue - again, not advocacy, but serious research, assessment, and commentary on its role in international relations - that surely there's a larger debate to be had on this.
Ahh, citizens... All this talk of assassination makes me nostalgic for the good old days of the Roman Empire, when a jolly dose of the blade or a bit of hemlock with dessert was considered a most efficient method of advancing one's political agenda.
But let us not forget that what we are talking about is, in fact, murder.
Don't take my word for it, just pick up a dictionary:
ASSASSINATE - "... to murder [a prominent person] by surprise attack, as for political reasons..."
Killing, the first of the often overlooked Commandments, is only sanctioned in two forms:
1. Of combatants in war, and
2. Of criminals by execution.
A third sanctioned form would be criminals dispatched in extremis, for the public good, such as the bank robber who dies in a gunfight with police, but even this usually requires review by a board of inquiry to establish its legitimacy, and is a state or national matter, not an international one.
Beyond these narrow exceptions, killing people, however bad you may claim they are, however good and noble your reason may supposedly be, is, not to put to fine a point on it, murder.
Is Mugabe a bad man? Certainly...
Does the international community have a license to put an end to his shenanigans? Not according to the Treaty of Westphalia...
His own citizens do, but so far, they seem to prefer to save their own skins rather than storm the Bastille, so they have got just the sort of leader they deserve. Let them eat cake, at ridiculous rates of inflation.
When the people of Zimbabwe have finally had enough, they'll no doubt give Mugabe the sort of farewell party he well deserves - if not, well, "dura lex, sed lex" - the law is harsh, but it is the law.
It's OK to discuss the reasons to change national policy when you are convinced national policy should be changed.
And when there's a serious argument going on about changing policy in a boneheaded way, it makes sense to join in and argue against it.
But note that some foreign governments look at such public discussion as a signal that policies are about to change. And when it's just stupid people blowing off, what response is justified beyond "This is such a bad idea they made it illegal"? Or sometimes "This is such a bad idea they forbid it in the Constitution".
I guess the problem is that no matter how stupid it is, no matter how illegal, whether we've signed treaties and created international law about it, still foreign governments might be *correct* to think we're about to do it anyway.
Great post Dr. Charli!
I am against assassinating Mugabe on the pragmatic grounds of a) age - Mugabe is more likely to die slipping in the bathtub, breaking a hip and contracting pnuemonia as he is at the hands of a CIA black op; and b)assassinating Mugabe does nothing to remove his generals and secret policemen who are the real day-to-day government of Zimbabwe. Mugabeism can outlive Mugabe.
What to do? If Zimbabwe's government is to be removed then either it can be subverted from the inside by splitting the leadership into launching a coup ( best option, if possible) or to arm the democratic opposition a la the Reagan Doctrine with the cold eyed realism that a civil war is perhaps a better outcome than a slow democide of the liberal, democratic elements and certain tribes by starvation and murder.
If we are prepared to do neither then then nothing will be done. South Africa supports Mugabe's regime to the hilt, the EU will njot intervene militarily and economic sanctions have little to sanction given that Zimbabwe's economy is effectively nonexistent.
Setting aside the moral debate regarding assassination (on which I largely agree with Charli's points), Mugabe's assassination would not have any real effect on the stability or strength of the regime. It is not that assassination would lead to instability that could trigger ethnic violence in Zimbabwe (an issue I'll address in a moment). This kind of talk seems predicated on an assumption that Zimbabwe -- and, for that matter, most states in Africa -- are personal dictatorships with few institutions or means of dealing with succession crises. Instead, Zimbabwe is a fairly strong party-state (and one that has strengthened since 2000). There are internal divisions in the ruling party, but actions taken by Western governments (including both public pronouncements and the imposition of targeted sanctions) have strengthened party cohesion and empowered hardliners. If Mugabe were assassinated, the JOC would (likely) back Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed him, we'd get another round of rigged elections, and ZANU-PF would be able to play the last-holdout-against-neocolonial-oppression card even more effectively.
As for ethnic conflict / genocide in Zimbabwe, very unlikely. The bulk of state-sponsored violence since 2000 has been concentrated in the Mashonalands (the ruling party's heartland), and there is no evidence of the state or thugs at the local level targeting on the basis of ethnicity (or even mentioning ethnicity), even though the minority tribe votes for the opposition by very large margins. At the grassroots level, politics right now is simply not ethnicized.
I'm holding out hope that Zuma will threaten to cut off electricity and transport links next year.
I think that a more interesting question is whether we should continue to spend resources (we do right now, by the way) to catch and punish any expatriate zimbabwean who would wish to assassinate Mugabe. The Westphalian principles lead us to stop private actors who wish to topple dictators and are expatriates on US soil.
Should we continue to do so?
Mugabe *** and his henchpeople*** need to be tried in absentia for murder, genocide, torture, etc, and then summarily executed at the next possible opportunity.
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