Killer politicians

“No one will rescue me from this troubled priest?”, asked Henry II, while inciting the murder of Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in 1170. Over the centuries, presidents and princes around the world have been assassins and have assisted in murder, as they documented Pitrim Sorokin and Walter Lunden, in statistical detail in their masterpiece “Power and Morality”. One of their main findings was that the behaviour of governing groups tends to be more criminal and immoral than that of the people over whom they rule.

Rulers highly prefer disbelief. But, with the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by his government, the poisoning of former Russian spies living in the United Kingdom, and the words that Interpol head Meng Hongwei has performed in China, the curtain of denial has dropped more than usual. In Riyadh, Moscow, even Beijing, the political class is trying to cover its deadly ways.

But no one should feel shy here. American presidents have a long history of murder, which is unlikely to disturb current President Donald Trump, whose favorite predecessor, Andrew. Jackson, was a cold-blooded killer, slave-owner and ethnic cleansing of local Americans. For Harry Truman, Hiroshima's atomic bombings spared him the possible high cost of Japan's conquest. However, the second atomic bombing, Nagasaki's, was completely irrefutable and occurred amid a simple bureaucratic momentum: bombings apparently occurred without Truman's clear command.

Since 1947 the denial of presidential murders has been eased by the CIA, which has served as a secret army (and once a death squad) for the American presidents. The CIA has been a party to murder and chaos in all parts of the world, with almost no supervision or responsibility for its countless murders. It is possible, although not completely proven, that the CIA even killed UN Secretary General Doug Hammerskyld.

The CIA has only been held responsible for one case. The 1975 U.S. Senate hearings led by Frank Church. Since then, the CIA has continued its violent ways and yes, assassins, without any responsibility for this or for presidents authorising its actions.

Many mass murders by presidents have included the conventional army. Lyndon Johnson escalated American military intervention in Vietnam on the pretext of a North Vietnam attack on the Gulf of Tonkin that never happened. Richard Nixon went even further: shelling Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, he asked to introduce the Soviet Union's fear that he was an irrational leader capable of anything (Nixon's willingness to apply his crazy “theory” is probably the self-fulfilling test of his madness). In the end, American Johnson-Nixon War in Indochina took millions of innocent lives. There was never any real accountability, and perhaps quite the opposite: many precedents for later mass killings by American forces.

Massive killings in Iraq under the leadership of George W. Bush, of course, is better known because the U.S.-led war there was on TV. A semi-civilized country committed to spreading “oversight and fear” to overthrow the government of another country based on completely false claims. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died as a result.

And, Barack Obama was widely attacked by his right because he was too soft, yet he too is responsible for a large number of deaths. His administration repeatedly approved fears in which not only terrorists were killed but also innocent and American citizens who opposed America's bloody wars in Muslim countries. He signed the presidential decree authorising the CIA to co-operate with Saudi Arabia in the overthrow of the Syrian government. This hidden “operation” (verbalised very little on the pages of the New York Times) led to an ongoing civil war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and millions displaced from their homes. He used NATO air strikes to bring down Libya's Muammar el-Qadaf, resulting in a failed and ongoing state violence.

Under Trump's leadership, the United States has supported the mass murder of Saudi Arabia (including children) in Yemen, selling it bombs and advanced weapons with almost no awareness, surveillance or accountability from Congress or the public. Murder committed away from the media is almost no murder.

When the curtains fall, as with the killing of Khashogg, we for a while see the world as it really is. A Washington Post columnist is brutally murdered and torn apart by America's little “aleat”. The great American-American-American lie that Iran is at the centre of global terrorism, a claim rejected by data, is briefly threatened by concern over Khashogg's recent discovery. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who apparently ordered the operation, has been placed at the head of “the” of the case; Saudis have fired several senior officials; and, Trump, a non-stop master of lies, repeats the long Saudi stories about a fraudulent operation.

Several government and business leaders have postponed visits to Saudi Arabia. The list of withdrawals announced by an investment conference is a list of America's military-industrial complex: Wall Street's top bankers, major media companies and senior military contractors, such as the head of Airbous's defense.

The United States boasts that they are a constitutional democracy, but when it comes to foreign policy, the president is not much different from a despot. Trump has just warned the United States of the Treaty of Nuclear Forces with Middle Reze, not to mention Congress.

Political scientists must test the following hypothesis: countries run by presidents (both in the case of the United States) and unconstitutional monarchs (such as Saudi Arabia) and not by parliamentarians and prime ministers are vulnerable to political killings. Parliament offers no guarantees, but rule by one man in foreign policy, both in the case of the United States and Saudi Arabia, almost guarantees allowing mass bloodshed.

Americans are justly terrified of killing Khashogg. But the murderous ways of their government can be very different. The spread of killings sponsored by the State is never an excuse for treating the killing as acceptable. Rather, it is an excuse for submitting power to strict constitutional restrictions and especially international law, including the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is our only true hope for survival and security in a world where violence can easily be the end of all of us. /Project Syndicate/ BIRN/