Scott says he was just following the method of problem-solving that the Marine Corps taught him (one he doesn't follow now, btw). Also, his proposal got v oted down.
ICONOCLAST: My next question has to do with tactics and stopping a system that is doing something wrong. You proposed assassinating senators who supported the Vietnam War and then you were targeted for assassination by the FBI and survived. Can you talk about what went through your mind during that time before and after the assassination attempt on you?
CAMIL: To start with, the information about me proposing to assassinate senators is a little bit not correct. I'm going to get it specific for you. My plan was to kill the hawks in Congress. That was congressmen and senators, and they were defined by the term hawk. I never issued any name of specific people and I didn't target just senators.
What I said was if we are willing to go halfway around the world and put our lives on the line to protect the Constitution, why should it matter who it is that is trying to hurt the Constitution? If we can go halfway around the world to fight Communists because they want to destroy our way of life and our C onstitution, then shouldn't we be willing to risk our lives right here in our own country defending those same rights and the same Constitution?
The public is against this war. The government is not listening to the public. The highest authority in a democracy is the public. It's us. It's not the Supreme Court. It's not the Congress. It's not the President. They are public servants for me. It is my duty as a citizen of this democracy to put them in check, to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and when they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, it is my responsibility to do something about it because those things were being done in my name with my money.
So we the people are the ultimate authority, and when the government is out of control, we use the minimum amount of force to change that. That's where I was coming from. Let me also just mention further about that. I recognize that not only was the war in Vietnam criminal, but the government was murdering blacks in the United States. They were killing people in the American Indian movement. They killed people at Kent State. My government was criminally out of control, murdering people around the world and murdering its own citizens and it was the responsibility of those citizens in the democracy to stop it.
The final thing is after spending 20 months in Vietnam as a Marine Corps Sergeant, my experience and method of conflict resolution was as a Marine Sergeant. It was my training and my experience that led me to the conclusion that this is how to solve the problem--turning the guns around, if you will.
("Dogged by War: Vietnam Veteran Remembers. Winter Soldier' Interview With Scott Camil" by Nathan Diebenow," February 6, 2006 Lone Star Iconoclast.)
Jenny Brown