Assassinations

[finnkveldulfr]

According to US policy, 'assassination' of foreign political leaders is illegal and will not be committed by the USA

Comments

[drewkitty]

Legality is a big problem in asymmetric warfare -- for the big guy.

It's essential to protect legitimacy as a distinguishing factor between the larger ("good guy") and the smaller, especially when we have this obnoxious meme of rooting for the underdog.

Policy is not law. As I'm sure you know well, even military regulations are not the laws of war.

Spider Robinson put it best (paraphrasing): "John Wayne is the good guy. You don't expect him to shoot first, from behind, in the back of the head, a little runt who might have a pocket pistol ... and then after frantically frisking him and not finding it, loudly and unbelievably assert that some other little runt must have snuck off with it."

[finnkveldulfr]

All of what you say is true enough, and at the same time, doesn't make what I've said wrong, either

[ihuitl]

I have commented about this earlier:

http://kraygern.livejournal.com/171442.html

Suffice to say, I have no issue with it. When you're dealing with a non-state military force, traditional options that apply only to inter-state warfare do not always apply.

[finnkveldulfr]

I remember your earlier comments. I threw this post up there after one too many arguments with classmates in college over our killing Anwar al-Awlaki via drone strike. There's a few people out there whom I know who do still need to have the issues explained to them realistically, although I'm probably not the calm, reasonable guy to do it right now.