On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Jeff G. wrote: @> > > What are your personal opinions on assassination as a means to effect @> > > policy by (or within) a government? @> > @> > Beats war, I think. This is the more fundamental question, really: what are the functional differences when you call government-sponsored murder "war", "execution", or "assassination"? The level of publicity? How much we don't like the people who are the targets? @> > ps you meant 'affect' @> @> No, I meant effect. It can be used as a transitive verb ;) You probably want to use affect in this case, since policy is a thing which already exists and will be changed by the assassination. You would use "effect" if you meant "create a new thing called policy where none existed before". I suppose it's debatable, though.