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Comment by DominikR | Hacker News Reader

"There, he participated in classified anti-terrorism missions such as assassinations and kidnappings."

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.

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I doubt YCombinator is a political forum. But, because of this thread, I'll at least bring some light to the topic.

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.

I absolutely agree with you, and I didn't try to start a discussion about which side is good or evil in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

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.

Would you say that the Navy Seals who risked their lives and captured Bin Laden are not also heroes?

Captured? I thought they killed him and dumped his body out of an airplane.

It was a boat.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

No, he was dumped overboard several days after he was killed in the raid and his body interred on a Navy vessel.

The burial at sea was within 24 hours of his death, I believe in accordance to his religious customs. That's the official story according to wikipedia anyway.

Sounds very fishy though. Suddenly a "respect to his religious customs" -- and without anyone seeing the body.

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.

I think the idea, officially, was more in lines of "we're going to pay lip service to his religious customs because we don't want to inflame moderates who care about that sort of thing", but yeah. It makes sense to me that they would do it that way, but it certainly leaves open the possibility that everything was not on the level (which I consider plausible, but not not necessarily probable).

Yes of course, as long as their mission was not to outright assassinate him no matter what.

Assassinations and Kidnappings are just crimes to me, I can't believe we are even having this discussion.

They would have loved to take Bin Laden alive, it would be the ultimate humiliation for him.

I'm not disputing that they tried to capture him alive.

So you think kidnappings are a crime, but you are okay with forcefully capturing bad guys? Whats your definition of "kidnapping"?

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.

Well, not that much. A mission of men armed to the teath, invading some BS hideaway in the middle of nowhere, with helicopters, ultra-modern technology and support from their base.

Not exactly A-level hero stuff.

So going deep into a hostile territory, at night, near a foreign military compound, using unproven equipment with little fuel reserves against a dangerous, armed a forsworn enemy is not heroic? I'd like to see your definition of A-level hero.

That's an interesting question:

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.

All soldiers go into "hostile territory -- often at night. Not all are heroes, unless we stretch the definition much.

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.

>A mission of men armed to the teath, invading some BS hideaway in the middle of nowhere, with helicopters, ultra-modern technology and support from their base.

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-...

Putting your life on the line to kill or capture someone who is responsible for the unwarranted deaths of many (i.e. a terrorist) would be heroic, in my book. :) Peaceful negotiations are not always an option.

Be careful all of you criticizing DominikR don't fall of your high horse.

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".

Which is totally relevant to this particular case.

Anybody who kidnaps and assassinates people based on political orders is not someone I'd call a hero.

Besides, you're playing ignorant. The article paints those two facts as a good thing, considering the narrative.

His time in the IDF being, of course, not why the article is referring to him as a hero. I'm not defending assassinations and kidnappings, I'm pointing out the holier-than-thou attitude in these comments based on what appears to be a quick skim of the article is totally unfounded.

True. Whether or not one might feel that his actions as an IDF commando were heroic, I think we can agree that standing up to terrorists on one's plane is heroic.

Pretty sure the "hero" bit is referring to the part where he reportedly died fighting the 9/11 hijackers. Careful you don't fall off that high horse though.

I didn't criticize that part or any other part of his life, I'm just shocked that this aspect (assassinations and kidnappings) is presented like it's a great thing he did.

Your intention here is noble but also naive. You'll have to convince the Israeli public that the people defending them every day are not commendable, regardless of how you feel about the Israel/Palestine situation and individual incidents where there really is malice and abuse of power.

I am well aware that every powerful government is assassinating enemies and always did. No matter if its the Chinese, Russians or the US.

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.

I'm not here to defend assassinations, I just don't think it's valid to shoot the guy down just because he was a part of Israel's counter-terrorism forces.

> And that's a hero?

Yeah, it is.

We really don't know what specific missions someone was involved in during their time in a special forces unit, but I tend to think negatively of Israel's kidnappings after this eggregious example.

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?

The fact that you perceive Vanunu as a positive figure is a matter of your personal political views. I'm sure that Al-qaeda members also don't consider SEALs to be heroes. In Israel Vanunu is considered by most to be a traitor, and he has obviously violated Israeli laws.

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.

It's a great point about their leaders choosing their mission and their risking their lives for country--I agree completely.

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.

Well, if that's a hero to some people, they've been watching too many Hollywood movies.

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.

Assassinations and Kidnappings were an obvious part of military operations since even before Sun Tzu wrote about it in 500BC.

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.

>Assassinations and Kidnappings were an obvious part of military operations since even before Sun Tzu wrote about it in 500BC.

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.

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