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Obama's Secret 'Kill List' Unites Far Right and Far Left

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lawhawk5/29/2012 11:54:17 am PDT

re: #57 Daniel Ballard

Frankly I don’t consider a drone strike morally any different than a squad attack or an artillery shell. These are enemy combatants. As such shoot to kill. Fancy tech hardly changes that. At least not to me.

Previously we would either have to let them get away or kill too many others in collateral damage. Sniping away at terror combat cells with missiles makes perfect sense to me especially as compared to big operations to get the same guys.

If we had treasonous citizens in with the enemy in WW1 or WW2 or now it seems the same to me. Drop the hammer.

The UAV strike is no different than a manned aircraft dropping ordnance. The outcome is the same.

The real issue isn’t the use of UAVs. There are a couple of issues that are related. It’s the persons being targeted and where they’re being targeted. The moral question is how that person got to be considered a terrorist worthy of being targeted in the first place. Who determines whether evidence is credible and sufficient to warrant targeting. What safeguards are in place and are they sufficient to prevent someone from being wrongly targeted.

Once you’ve made that determination - and here I’m assuming that there are safeguards in place that someone is truly a target, the legalities of going after them come into play.

Targeting a foreign-born terrorist (AQ and/or Taliban) in Afghanistan? Not a problem because it’s a theater of operations for direct military action, the targeted person is considered enemy combatant under rules of engagement and laws of war.

Targeting a foreign-born terrorist (AQ and/or Taliban) in the frontier provinces of Pakistan? Quite problematic because while the targeted person is an enemy combatant under rules of engagement, we’re dealing with a country that is a nominal ally and we’re not supposed to attack allies. It’s even more problematic when attacking targets within Pakistan proper - such as Abbottabad (on the OBL raid), which can be construed as an attack on a sovereign nation and casus belli for war against the US. The issues are similar for raids in Yemen.

Americans that have joined with the terrorists still have rights of American citizens unless they’ve renounced their citizenship or otherwise acted against American interests. Joining AQ, such as with Adam Gadahn or Anwar Awlaki, acting as their propaganda wing or recruiter, would be considered those steps - and trial isn’t needed.

What’s different now is that the technology makes reaching out and hitting these individuals is so much easier. 50 years ago, you couldn’t target these guys without a substantial military force and large amounts of ground forces. 30 years ago you would still need substantial forces on the ground and multiple airstrikes. 10 years ago, you’d still need multiple airstrikes, but a smaller ground presence due to the improved satellite tracking.

Now? With satellite tracking and UAVs, you could have a small team of operators at a remote airfield hitting multiple targets thousands of miles away.

Does the ease with which hitting these targets raise new moral questions?