Major right wing blogger calls for murder of Iranian scientists

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 1:54 PM on February 14, 2007.

Right wing blogger Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit says the U.S. needs to start killing Iranian scientists and clerics:

This has been obvious for a long time anyway, and I don't understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs' expat business interests out of business, etc.Basically, stepping on the Iranians' toes hard enough to make them reconsider their not-so-covert war against us in Iraq. And we should have been doing this since the summer 2003. But as far as I can tell, we've done nothing along these lines. [Emphasis added.]

That's right, an American law professor is saying that the United States should have started an extra-judicial assassination campaign three years ago. Reactionary radio personality Hugh Hewitt also thinks it's a swell idea to "punish" Iranians-at-large for IEDs in Iraq by knocking off some clerics and atomic physicists who have nothing to do with munitions.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. If you accept that United States may kidnap anyone, anywhere in the world and have them tortured in the name of counter-terrorism, it's not such a stretch to suppose that U.S. is also entitled to murder civilians to put pressure on unfriendly governments. Unfortunately, that practice is better known as "terrorism."

For more on the Instapundit's death squad rant, see Glenn Greenwald's. I despair for our society when it's necessary to supply a rigorous analytical exposition of why our government shouldn't have scientists and religious leaders whacked to get leverage over their government--but Glenn's provided a much-needed service.

I should add that somehow Instapundit can call for the murder of Islamic clerics without damaging his credentials as a "reasonable" guy. But God help you if you suggest that the Virgin Birth is hokum, you fringe-dwelling bigot.

[Instapundit, Instaputz,Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Greenwald, The Impolitic, Pandagon. Image by Cerdip.]

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.