About Israel's removal of the terrorist leader Ahmed Yassin, Andrew Stuttaford in NRO's The Corner asks,

Yassin was, undeniably, a bad man and there's no need to shed many, or any, tears over him, but can anyone explain what, exactly, was achieved by his killing?

The deterrence angle is probably the weaker of the two. People who seek "martyrdom" are not too likely to be afraid of death, unless it comes without the usual innocent civilian victims. On the other hand, we don't often see the leaders of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda or Hamas strapping the explosives to themselves. They'd rather send gullible fanatics out to do their dirty work. You'd think they were eager to get their 72 raisins, but apparently not. So perhaps those who have "terrorist leader" as their career goal will re-think their aspirations.

Punishment seems to be a more likely reason for Israel to have whacked that evil SOB. Justice doesn't need to be done in a courtroom, after all. But justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done... and I'd wager there's not a single Israeli who doesn't know that Yassin is now terminated. The elimination of Yassin is, for Israel, as big as or bigger than the US exterminating Usama bin Laden in a spectacularly public fashion (which I hope we do soon... assuming he's not already a puddle of decomposing slime in a cave somewhere.)

Rot in hell, Yassin.

Posted by Russ at 05:20 PM, March 22, 2004 in Nat'l Security