"... why (should) progressives be opposed to public assassination ?"
I reply:
I'm not a self-defined "progressive," and I imagine many others on this list aren't either, and therein lies the rub. Probably everybody or nearly everbody on this list contends that terrorism targetting innocent civilians (especially on a mass scale) is inexcuseable, and thus are ready to condemn the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as outrageous and heinous. But where we fall out is not only on what action constitutes an appropriate response, but also on what political instrument that response should be waged with.
Personally (and I am confident I am not alone on this) I have zero inclination to suggest a particular proactive course for the U.S. state, precisely because I do not recognize the U.S. state as an organ which acts on my behalf. I can muse about what path I hope the U.S. state takes, just as I can muse about what path I hope the French state or the PLO or one of Bin Laden's cells takes. I can register my dissent with what the U.S. state does, just as I can register my dissent concerning what these other entities do. But to recommend a course of action for the U.S. state to take presupposes that I think that my status as a U.S. citizen is something more than a mere historical accident and I that I have voluntarily opted for the U.S. state to represent me. If I am not mistaken, "progressives" such as yourself, Max, and other social democrat/democratic socialist-types (such as Harold Meyerson) do recognize the legitimacy of the U.S. state as a vehicle for your political agency. Thus, even though you may deeply disagree with the policies of Bush's Pentagon/State Department/CIA etc., you are moved to debate about how the U.S. state can best protect your life and limb, whether it be through putting armed federal marshals on commercial aircraft, or sending the Delta Force into the Hindu Kush.
I, on the other hand, merely grudgingly acknowledge that by historical accident I was born into a (more or less oligarchic) bourgeois democracy, and hence as a U.S. citizen I have some puny leverage over what the U.S. state does, but that does not mean that I identify the U.S. state as an apparatus that prosecutes my political will. I can (in however meagre fashion) influence U.S. foreign policy or protest U.S. foreign policy, but to _endorse_ a proactive course of action for the U.S. state -- such as having special operations take down Bin Laden and crew -- presupposes that I have extended the U.S. state license to act in my name, which I haven't. Now, if there was an international team of red-green militias which formed to "root out" and "punish" Bin Laden et al (prematurely assuming that he's the man) for their crimes, that would be a different matter ...
I don't think I'm being terribly clear about this, and perhaps I'm being either too ontological or formalistic here, but I think you catch my drift.
JG