[shadowgovt]

I should probably clarify: assassination of high-visibility undisclosed targets. Osama bin Laden was tagged as an enemy combatant quite publicly, and I'm not aware of anyone disagreeing with the US's tactical call to kill him during Operation Neptune Spear rather than take him alive.

Some Congresspeople have made ill-advised claims around Assange, but to my knowledge he is not tagged as an enemy combatant in a war on terror and there would be quite a lot of surprise if the US sent in a SEAL team to shoot him.

[whymauri]

Just to clarify, you're saying that the US is not currently in the business of assassinating high-visibility targets.

Just clarifying, because there's a history of state-sanctioned assassination attempts and plots during the Cold War.

[whymauri]

Confused by downvotes. It is a historical fact that there were assassinations plots during the Cold War. It was investigated and declassified by Congress. For starters, look at the Church Committee, a U.S. Senate Committee from 1975, that investigated intelligence malpractice.

There should be nothing remotely controversial about these events existing.

Second, by asking a clarifying question I am not implying that the "US is not currently in the business of assassinating high-visibility targets" because I have no way of knowing this. I just want to clarify this person's point-of-view.

[tremon]

there would be quite a lot of surprise if the US sent in a SEAL team to shoot him.

Of course there would be a lot of surprise, that would be an open act of war. The US's preferred method would be a drone strike operated from within the US borders, just as Russia's preferred method is with some radioactive poison.