Used to be, the armed forces were free to kill the enemy. Enemy civilians at their homes were bombed, enemy soldiers on the battlefield were shot, bombarded, machine gunned, flamed, everything except poison gas was used to make 'em into casualties.
War was something that was done between nation states. Now we have Al Quada, Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban and other shady clandestine organizations. They aren't nation states, they don't wear uniforms, they hide within the civilian population. They are terrorists. They blew down the Twin Towers in NYC and killed 3000 American civilians. That's an act of war. And, we took them up on that, we make war right back on them.
Far as I can see, under the laws of war, we are entitled to kill, capture, interrogate or wound any terrorists we can lay our hand on. Doing 'em by Predator drone is just a neater technique than dispatching a sniper to do 'em. You can stay on base, safe and comfortable, keep your uniform clean, take the terrorist out. Going in after 'em Arnold Schwarzenegger style is hard work, your hands get dirty, and it's hard to find enough hard case snipers to do the missions.
Now we have some lawyers whining that this terrorist or that terrorist was a US citizen and we shouldn't whack citizens without a lawyer giving the OK. Pretty soon the lawyers will be wanting the infantry men to ask for a legal opinion before they take a shot.
In my humble opinion, an Al Quada terrorist is an Al Quada terrorist and it make no matter if he was born in the US, he is still a terrorist, and deserves to be whacked. And the lawyers can just dry up and blow away.
2 comments:
I couldn't make out the breathless concern over targeting "American *citizens*!!1" myself. There are only two ways to be a traitor to the US in the Constitution: make war upon the country or aide and abet the enemy. Any American who chooses to join the Taliban, or most especially Al Queada, is guilty of the second at the very least, just on the basis of their chosen associations. And treason is still punishable by death, even tho we haven't executed a convicted traitor since 1953...
Actually, we would do better to take 'em alive and grill 'em, rather than missiling them from a Predator. Even if the target is way off somewhere in the boonies, we can load soldiers into helicopters and go and get him.
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