News / Politics / Soleimani / Editor's Choice

‘Soleimani's assassination marks new low in US immorality’

Tuesday, 07 January 2020 10:49 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 26 December 2020 8:01 AM ]

A destroyed vehicle is seen on fire following a US strike on the Baghdad international airport road, in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 3, 2020. Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in the strike. (Photo by AFP)

The United States’ assassination of revered Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani marks a new low in America’s immorality, says a British journalist, offering a list of numerous American attempts to assassinate foreign leaders over the past decades.

In a Saturday column in the UK-based The Guardian, Ed Pilkington wrote there had been no shortage of US attempts over the past half-century to eliminate America’s foreign foes — such as former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Congo’s Patrice Lumumba in the 1960s — “through highly dubious legal or ethical means.”

But the assassination of Lt. Gen. Soleimani, he said, “was in a class all its own.”

“Its (the assassination’s) uniqueness lay not so much in its method… but in the brazenness of its execution and the apparently total disregard for either legal niceties or human consequences,” the British journalist wrote.

Pointing to the “gloating tweets” by US President Donald Trump meant to justify the assassination, Pilkington said the Twitter blitz rather led to Washington being blamed for “the very crimes it normally pins on its enemies.”

‘A litany of American sins’

The journalist also pointed to a book, “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II,” by William Blum, which recounts “a litany of American sins, from invasions, bombings, overthrowing of governments, assassinations to torture and death squads.”

Citing University of Notre Dame’s international law Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, Pilkington said the assassination of the Iranian commander marked yet further “dilution of international law” by the US administration.

“We are moving down a slope towards a completely lawless situation,” O’Connell said.

A protester holds a banner reading “Down with America,” during a demonstration outside the US consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on January 5, 2020. (Photo by AFP)

O’Connell, according to the daily, added that “there was only one step left for the US now to take: To completely ignore the law.”

“Frankly, I think President [Donald] Trump is there already,” she said.

Trump ordered a US drone at Baghdad’s international airport early on Friday, assassinating Lt. Gen. Soleimani, who was the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), as well as eight other people.

Iran has pledged a “harsh revenge” against America for the assassination.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir