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In any reasonable situation what these people are allegedly doing would be grounds for trying them for treason, for which they could be executed. We are skippi
by jlgreco 14y ago
In any reasonable situation what these people are allegedly doing would be grounds for trying them for treason, for which they could be executed. We are skipping the "pesky" catching/trial step because we find it inconvenient.
Now yeah, everyone is saying that expecting people to arrest others in a military engagement is crazy... but what is happening here can hardly be called military engagements. These killings are not taking place in the heat of a firefight, they are meticulously planned with the sole objective of killing the target.
Any reasonable man outside a court of law would call these executions. Execution by missile, without a trial.
- bloaf 14y agoDoes a military sniper execute his targets?
- jlgreco 14y agoIs this military sniper on a battlefield? If not, then I would consider it an execution.
- gnaritas 14y agoWars are no longer fought only on battlefields.
- tptacek 14y agoWhat's a "battlefield"? World War 2 was fought all across the cities and suburbs of Europe. It's been centuries since people flew banners and lined up to whack each other in the heads with halberds in an orderly fashion.
- bloaf 14y agoThe sniper is at his post near a military base. He sees a heavily loaded van approaching at high speed. The driver is ignoring the warning signs and shouts from the guards. The sniper shoots the diver. The truck is found to be loaded with explosives. Did the sniper execute his target, or fire the first and only shot of a battle?
- anigbrowl 14y agoThese killings are not taking place in the heat of a firefight, they are meticulously planned with the sole objective of killing the target. You could make the same argument about the use of snipers or bombers. As far back as the siege of Troy, there were arguments about whether the use of archery qualified as a legitimate form of combat since arrows could be shot from beyond the range of normal hand-to-hand combat. There is no legal requirement that military engagement be limited to pitched battle or that combatants must meet in the field on equal terms. An interesting historical example (that I may have suggested you read up on before) is the ambush on Admiral Yamamamoto during WW2.
- jlgreco 14y agoI defer to Jameel Jaffer's concerns about target location: http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/justice-departments-white-paper-targeted-killing http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/justice-departmen... I am well aware of Yamamoto's killing. Allow me to refer you to the killing of Herberts Cukurs.
- tptacek 14y agoI don't understand this comparison. Yamamoto was at the time of his death an instrumental component of one of the largest military threats the US ever faced. Cukurs was decades out of the military when he was assassinated. Yamamoto was killed to degrade the combat effectiveness of a combatant army. Cukurs was killed purely for revenge.
- jlgreco 14y agoAbsolutely. I think these extrajudicial killings we are talking about now lay somewhere rather in the middle.
- tptacek 14y agoI agree, in that I think the available evidence suggests that some of the killings have been reasonable in the context of military operations, and others have been haphazard, negligent, or poorly justified. Of course, that's the way of all wars. Drone killings are alien to us and thus easy to fret about, but far worse things happen when you put troops on the ground. Scared teenagers have done far worse in good faith efforts to take down well-conceived targets than drones are likely ever to do. You'd hope that people would take away the right lesson from this; not "US citizenship is a sacred talisman of safety in war zones", but that we shouldn't be declaring idiotic wars against enemies that almost by definition can't be "defeated".