Darya Dugina, a Russian journalist, was recently killed by a bomb placed under her car in Moscow. She was apparently not the intended victim. Her father, Alexander Dugin, was the target because of his writings against Ukraine. A last minute change of cars caused the error. Still, it was unexpected because Dugin is considered a man of letters, not a leading politician who is usually singled out for this kind of attack.
The result? Certainly a heightening of tensions In this prolonged war. Beyond that who knows? Assassinations through the ages have had unexpected consequences. They have satisfied an impulse for revenge, but the assassin is taking his chance for what follows. They are an uncertain instrument of warfare.
One of the most famous occurred in 45 BC when a group of republican Romans stabbed Julius Caesar to death in the senate because he seemed to be on the verge of one-man rule. This led to fifteen years of civil war with the deaths of most of the assassins and the establishment of Augustus as the first of a series of Roman emperors – the opposite of what the republicans had wanted.
In 1865 Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln because he had led the north against the seceding south. The result was an outraged north imposing an even harsher rule on the defeated south. In 1914 Serbian radical Gavilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne, precipitating a world war in which Serbia lost over half of its army and a quarter of its population.
In recent times assassinations have become more complicated. It’s not always certain who the assassin is or his motives. Initially, it was clear President John F. Kennedy was shot by a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald withcommunist connections. Subsequent researchled others to find a variety of assassins operating on such concerns as the war in Vietnam and nuclear weapons for Israel. The matter is unresolved.
Assassination has also become much easier. Death by drone is now an everyday affair. For example, President Trump, egged on by his neocon advisers and billionaire donors, approved the drone killing of top Iranian General Soleimani, while White Houseoccupants cheered the outcome in comfort nearly half a globe away.
Israel is by far the leading country in assassinations, according to Israeli author Ronen Bergman in his book “Rise and Kill First.” Trying to make do in a hostile neighborhood, Israel has targeted mainly Arab adversaries and Iranian nuclear scientists with an unexcelledproficiency but at a high moral cost, says Bergman. Peace is no closer in the Middle East. The U.S. has followed the Israeli example with the Obama administration setting an American record of 353 assassinations.
Given the state of the world and the nature of humanity, assassins will no doubt continue along with serious qualms about them.
