The commando scientist billionaire who died fighting terrorists
philipithomas.com
philipithomas.com
And that's a hero?
Edit: I didn't mean to attack that person, he achieved a lot, and I read about him before. (though I didn't read anything about assassinations)
It was just a snap reaction because the article seems to glorify assassinations and kidnappings, which I am opposed to. I directed this question to the community to see if there are really people here who believe that assassinations are great and worthy of putting on your CV.
At least the guy who wrote the article seems to believe it.
Not saying that it wasn't him -- but could have been torture of what have you involved which they didn't want shown. Or they didn't want him to have a public trial.
Assassinations and Kidnappings are just crimes to me, I can't believe we are even having this discussion.
Concerning assassinations, what exactly are you opposed to? Are you against kill-or-capture manhunts for known terrorists? Are you against killing high-value targets as part of achieving a military goal, or are you against killing in a war in general? Would you oppose the failed British WW2 plan to assassinate Erwin Rommel, or the plan to assassinate Hitler? How about kidnapping them? Or is it simply the wording of "assassination and kidnapping" that you are against? Is it ok if we call it "killing and capturing" instead?
Honestly I don't know what exactly you "can't believe". You have to be extremely naive to be categorically opposed to "Assassinations and Kidnappings", whatever that even means.
Not exactly A-level hero stuff.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/104009-i-need-a-hero/
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/10/134387637/heroic-acts-to-prote...
I think to be truly heroic, an action has to involve putting yourself in harm's way selflessly, to save somebody else.
By that standard, killing your enemy--who's already got it in for you--isn't heroic, it's just strongly motivated self-interest. Even moreso if it's literally your job and you're being paid to do it.
I would say the members of Seal Team Six are brave, courageous warriors, but they aren't necessarily heroes.
And I seriously doubt the "unproven equipment" (or the "little fuel reserves"). It was a mission with a bunch of (armed, I give you that) guys in a hideaway against an elite team from a superpower.
>I'd like to see your definition of A-level hero.
Well, the people who got off the boats in Normandy are A-level heroes.
Or people like the Red Baron.
Or those that went on their own volition to fight for the liberty of another people in a foreign country, like 1936 Spain, with sparse guns and makeshift camps against a properly armed fascist regime with foreign state support.
If I'm allowed a movie metaphor, a hero is more "Wild Bunch" or "The Magnificent Seven" than some kind of elite calvary, charging in armed to the teath and killing everything in sight.
This is the description of every high profile special-operations mission in the last century. But the reality is that those mission carry a much higher risk of failure than most other military operation, and phrasing it in the way you chose doesn't remove the inherent disadvantage of the assaulter or the extreme complexity of the mission.
There is no shortage of failed special operations missions or dead operators. With plenty of recent examples such as the failed Bulu Marer hostage rescue attempt in 2013 or the Chinook shootdown in 2011. Even the Bin Laden operation would have looked completely differently had one of the pilots not managed to miraculously crash-land the helicopter with minimal damage.
I recommend reading something like Fearless[1] to get a better understanding of how those missions look like and what risks they entail, and why "ultra modern-technology" or "support from base" often don't mean that much.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Undaunted-Ultimate-Sacrifice-...
The problem is, once you start glorifying assassinations you create acceptance in the public, which in turn allows governments to create acceptance for even worse crimes.
I think that's exactly what we are seeing since 9/11. TV series like 24 glorifying torture, torture in Guantanamo, drone assassinations by the US government, what's next? I'm just afraid we are entering into a new dark age.
Yeah, it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu
Imagine if we had done this to Snowden? Would those special forces men necessarily be heros for following orders?
But the bigger point is that the people doing those "kidnappings" don't choose their missions. Their democratically elected leaders do it for them. What makes them heroes is that they choose to risk their lives for their country.
However, there are situations where even a soldier must use their conscience. I mean I hate to pull the "Nazi card" but in reality, those people could be tacitly called heroes under the same nationalist banner. This is the danger with Israel. Israel is a great country with a lot of good people, but I personally disagree with their mandatory draft, status as a religious state and their disrespect of the sovereignty of other nations. No country has clean hands, but we cannot compare 'bad actions' side-by-side... we should consider them on a case-by-case basis based on the facts we know. In the case of Vanunu, he is a conscientious objector in a sense and none of the information he divulged materially endanged Israelis more than Private Manning's information. The difference of course is that he was residing outside the country when he committed his crime and he was not a soldier, which entitles him to civilian justice. However, Israel bypassed these considerations and literally kidnapped him in another country's territory. And we haven't even begun to discuss the implications of their nuclear proliferation in spite of the worldwide ban on such activities... they are literally the only country in the world who are getting a free pass on this issue because US foreign aid would be have to be statutorily denied.
Don't misunderstand, I am not arguing the merits of their case... I see the principle issue as the kidnapping of a person in a foreign government's territory. I know the US likes to take liberties with this (such as the case of Bin Laden), but that is something they could be judged on as well... I am speaking of Israel's case specifically.
An assassination is an assassination. That in modern western states we have managed to open the Overton Window so wide open that people consider that (and torture) as heroism, is a despicable sign of the times.
It is only in recent times, when the majority of people in the western world can spend their entire lives musing about what's right and wrong while sitting on their couch, drinking beer and eating ice-cream, that suddenly it becomes debatable whether killing bad people is wrong or not.
They still weren't considered heroes, and most peoples with actual histories and traditions of war and such don't consider such behavior heroic.
>It is only in recent times, when the majority of people in the western world can spend their entire lives musing about what's right and wrong while sitting on their couch, drinking beer and eating ice-cream, that suddenly it becomes debatable whether killing bad people is wrong or not.
A, the "you can't handle the truth" defense.
Unfortunately, I'm not from the little cushy "western world", in fact we have a huge death toll in various wars in the 20th century. So it's not just "couch potatoes musing about right and wrong" that consider killing bad people wrong.
Morals is not some kind of luxury. People have had them even in the worst combat situations. Even people in the frontlines can and do have ethics. If anything it's the couch potatoes and the heavily armed nations that don't sacrifice much and see war as fun and/or a videogame that put such moral issues aside.
We all know that government authorized assassinations and kidnappings are always directed towards terrorists, and not to achieve geopolitical goals. /s
I'm not saying this is the case here; I'm saying serving in elite forces and battling "terrorism" doesn't instantly mean "hero".
Besides, you're playing ignorant. The article paints those two facts as a good thing, considering the narrative.
First some data: Israel was unfortunately at war and it's foes were explicitly targeting civilians in Israel and Danny is said to have participated in killing (aka assassinating) the militants that targeted the civilians. In defense of Israel's foes, they've justified targeting civilians because they feel like they aren't powerful enough to defeat Israel head on and many countries including the Allies in WWII in Dresden and Hiroshima have targeted civilians.
Then the analysis: Should people in the army ever be called heroes? I don't know. Is it good that armies have defended countries? I think it's good that WWII ended with the allies winning. I'm not sure about Vietnam, although I think intentions were good. I'm not so sure the war in Libya did anything for anyone even though Europe achieved its objectives.
Personally, I think someone is a hero when they make sites load faster or when they explain the world to people.
I definitely think he's an incredible hero for standing up to the hijackers and building Akamai.
It's just the use of language in this article that is insulting to me. Not because I want to judge Danny, but because such wording more generally creates acceptance in the public for assassinations. Just like the TV show 24 that glorified torture.
I don't want that one day our societies accept assassinations, kidnappings and torture as something that is positive or good.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm See the section on flight 11. Not conclusive but indicative.
"As this was happening, passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari, was stabbed by one of the hijackers-probably Satam al Suqami, who was seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. He may have made an attempt to stop the hijackers in front of him, not realizing that another was sitting behind him.27"
so where is footnote 27?
Therefore an eyewitness, primary source from the time of the event.
"According to flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong, who contacted American Airlines during the hijacking, the hijackers had stabbed flight attendants Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui and slashed the throat of passenger Daniel Lewin.Lewin, an American-Israeli Internet entrepreneur, had served as an officer in the elite Sayeret Matkal special operations unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Lewin was seated in 9B, and Suqami was directly behind him in 10B. The 9/11 Commission suggested that Suqami may have stabbed and killed Lewin after he attempted to stop the hijacking. Lewin was believed to be the first fatality in the 9/11 attacks."
To harp on whether he was precisely the first victim or not is trivializing the event, the man and the impact both had.