As Americans, can we truly condemn the actions taken by the Israeli government to assassinate Ahmed Yassin, leader of Hamas? Most people don’t want to cheer the killing of a paraplegic man with a missile, but Yassin was a man who began a terrorist group with the simple goal of destroying an entire country. After Sept. 11, it would be difficult to find Americans who weep over the death of a terrorist, even one who was assassinated while leaving a mosque. We can’t muster much sympathy for Yassin, because deep down we know we might have taken the same actions as Israel in that situation.

As much as we might not be inclined to do so, we definitely need to condemn this assassination. If nothing else, the attacks of Sept. 11 showed Americans how hated we are around the world. Terrorists hate us for our culture and who we are, just as Hamas hates Israel for being Israel. Just as killing Yassin in the middle of a quagmire solves nothing, selectively choosing a “hit list” of terrorists for elimination will not make the United States safer from terrorism in the long run. Ignoring the real galvanizing force of terrorism will only breed more bin Ladens and Yassins to replace the ones we hunt down and kill.

As the protests on the year anniversary of the Iraq war raged over the world, it became clear the world is no longer shy in criticizing us, and that’s just our allies. Instead of desperately trying to improve our image internationally, we continue to endorse condemned practices like assassination.

On March 25, the United States vetoed the U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the assassination of Ahmed Yassin. As quoted by Reuters, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said, “This Security Council does nothing to contribute to a peaceful settlement when it condemns one party’s actions and turns a blind eye to everything else occurring in the region.”

Our ambassador does not want to condemn Israel if the United Nations is not prepared to condemn Hamas, which makes sense. However, do we need to deny the other countries without Security Council status from expressing outrage? Couldn’t we have just voted “no?”

The real reason our government cannot truly condemn the assassination of Yassin is because we would be condemning our own actions. Many governments have voiced opposition to any military action that endorses assassination, but not the good old United States.

We have a rich, modern tradition of assassination attempts. Kennedy went after Castro; Reagan went after Gadhafi; Clinton (sort of) went after bin Laden, and Bush went after Saddam.

We’ve never been too squeamish when it comes to killing heads of state. In fact, assassinations are apparently how we like to get a war going early in the morning.

The first shots fired into Iraq around 5:30 a.m. on March 20, 2003 were not aimed at factories, bases, bunkers, missiles, roads, bridges or even tanks. The some three dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were aimed at Saddam Hussein and his sons.

Even if the missile strikes that began the invasion of Iraq had been successful and Hussein had been killed, it seems apparent now that little would have changed.

As his eventual capture seems to attest, the rebels launching strikes against our troops are not deterred by the fall of their former leader. Do we expect al-Qaida to act differently?

In the end, it seems the tactic of assassination will only backfire on those who use it.

In an Associated Press article from March 23, Ismail Hanieh, an aide to Yassin, said in regard to their leader’s death, “Sheik Yassin’s death is not going to harm or affect the movement. It’s going to give us encouragement to go ahead with our program to achieve our goal.” Instead of stopping or slowing attacks on Israel, the assassination of Yassin will almost certainly bring retaliation from Hamas in the form of increased suicide bombings.”

The hate and conviction required to convince young men and women to strap bombs to their chests in order to kill as many civilians as possible is much greater than the influence of mere individuals such as bin Laden or Yassin. It requires a powerful culture of hate.

When Israel or the United States focus on the short term problems of terrorism by resorting to assassination, we ignore this pervasive culture of hate and become no better than our enemies, giving them all the more reason to band against us.