#19 / Assassination: Over The Long Term

The following quote is from Page 353 in Dirty Wars, a book by Jeremy Scahill: 

Obama's first year in office was marked by an aggressive embrace of assassination as a centerpiece of US national security policy. 

Scahill goes on to quote Admiral Dennis Blair, President Obama's former director of national intelligence, explaining how the administration viewed this policy:

It plays well domestically, and it is unpopular only in other countries. Any damage it does to the national interest only shows up over the long term. 

For what it's worth (the morality of assassination as a basic national policy aside), I think the "long term" is actually pretty important!

Image Credit: 
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/4/23/read_an_excerpt_from_jeremy_scahills_dirty_wars_the_world_is_a_battlefield