Comments
The ban on foreign assassinations is contained in EO 12333, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and remains in effect.
However, National Security Decision Directive 138, subsequently signed by Reagan, and never recinded, permits both the CIA to form covert operations teams and to use military special operations forces to conduct pre-emptive operations, retaliation, expanded intelligence collection, and when necessary, killing of guerrillas in pre-emptive self-defense.
Have drone - will travel!
"All members of AQ - who additionally do not wear uniforms and therefore meet the definition of being "spies and saboteurs" under the Hague Convention - are military targets, wherever they are found, unless they are hors de combat. Period."
Here's a question. I'm not at all familiar with CIA operations, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my assumption is that CIA agents on the ground in Afghanistan and elsewhere do not necessarily wear military uniforms. If that's true--and again, I have no information either way on this issue--then wouldn't our own CIA be acting against those same conventions?
I dont think that there can be any legal argument against Predator strikes in a close air support role, where 'normal' LOAC / ROEs have been applied, these meet specific military objectives - which would include enemy commanders.
Is there a legal issue with the use of US military capabilities employed in cross-border operations against AQ? Perhaps if you classify them combat operations.
We might consider split the 'war against terror into its two most obvious component parts:
1. the 'regular war part, conducted under the LOAC; and
2. the 'ghost war part, which frankly makes use of activities that would probably be considered illegal against an LOAC benchmark (Im not a legal advisor!), but which most - if not all nations - undertake: be that spying or more direct action. One should accept that our nations undertake all sort of nefarious activities on our behalf.
So, I suggest not trying to reconcile the dark parts of US operations against AQ with the LOAC, they are not the same and never will be. For me, the point is more moral or philosophical: is this the right thing to be doing?
The Lapsed Pacifist
There's a whole lot more to this than just drone attacks inside and outside of Pakistan; targeting thier entire infrastructure from supply lines to banking is one way to ensure that when AQ shows up with a bag of cash, the suppliers, bankers, car dealers, camel salesman, and food and water bearers should react like the bearer of the that bag has the plague and everything they touch is infectious. If anything, we need to make it so that business with AQ is 'bad business' - for themselves, thier friends, family, and their entire calling circle - and, as a result, AQ becomes a pariah within it's own pond.
Hi Bill
Fair point. You wrote:
<b>"We certainly need to keep killing bad guys. And asking questions about whether we are doing it in the most morale, ethical, and legal way."</b>
We are in agreement - it is not the platform or the weapon but *how* it is used on *whom* that matters in terms of law and morality.
My snap dismissal comes from the fact - and it is a demonstrable fact in terms of international law, constitutional law and domestic statutes - that an argument ( or insinuations) that "targeted assassinations" of AQ members with drones is "illegal" is intellectually dishonest nonsense.
The critics of using drones have a *policy* argument, not a legal one. They don't like the war and US policy itself. Or, they feel that the strategic costs of using drones is a poor trade-off for the US. Those would be fair and appropriate arguments to make and contest and I respect ppl who make them, even if I disagree.
Legally though, the United States and al Qaida are in "a state of armed conflict" under international law. The United States has been recognized as acting in self-defense by the UN and NATO. The Congress of the United States has invested the POTUS formally with a breathtakingly broad authorization to use his war powers against AQ anywhere without restriction or condition. By custom and precedent, as well as the letter of the law, <i>we are a belligerent power</i>.
<i>"IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons"</i>
All members of AQ - who additionally do not wear uniforms and therefore meet the definition of being "spies and saboteurs" under the Hague Convention - are military targets, wherever they are found, unless they are hors de combat. Period.
Those who argue that drone attacks on AQ are "illegal" are ( or many of them) consciously making a shady, sleight-of-hand argument. It is an effort to make "new law" by mere repeated assertion, relying on the likelihood that few members of the audience ( and fewer journalists or academics) will correct their misrepresentations of international law or the laws of war.
I can't respect that or treat it seriously; though in light of your example regarding .50 caliber weapons, maybe I should. It may be that we need to make an effort to "beat down" lawfare propaganda in the process of continuously assessing our own policies, which I concede is important and should be an ongoing process.
My apologies for the longwinded, intemperate, rant.
zenpundit,
I wholeheartedly agree that there is no problem inherent in drones. It used to infuriate me that the junk about .50 cal being "inhumane" grew such legs and needed to be beaten down, thank God we're mostly past that. But that simplistic dismissal misses the point that there is a lot going on that is changing the nature of who does what to whom on what authority, in a way that Carlos Hathcock didn't stretch.
We certainly need to keep killing bad guys. And asking questions about whether we are doing it in the most morale, ethical, and legal way.
Meanwhile over at the <a href="http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20100120.aspx">Strategy Page</a> there is an op-ed piece concerning the UAV control infighting between the Army and Air Force.