Its extremely simple, ones ignorance allows Americas military actions to continue and ones ignorance allows Americans leadership to not be answerable.

I assume that a person who joins an enemy (defined as someone engaged in armed conflict against the US state and declared as an enemy by the head of state/Congress) or fails to abandon someone named an enemy, will fall under jus in bellum and not criminal law.

In jus in bellum, targeting someone for killing is not problematic. An example is the usage of high value target lists. However, the killing must be performed by personell and/or material that belongs to a declared and uniformed army.

If not, you get some peculiar results. It would for example have been unconstitutional to plan battles against the confederacy in the civil war.


Now if someone has unjustly been declared an enemy, the entire matter of course changes. I have problems seeing how this could apply to "al-Qaeda and its allies" which are the groups specified in the original article OP linked.

I disagree

Assume i have zero knowledge and lay it out to me from step one please.

On it's face your two statements contradict each other in my opinion.

Thanks for that. I am Norwegian.

Ultimately the decision to engage in armed conflict is sovereign, so if the US want to pursue a policy of non-intervention that is of course its prerogative. There are of course also moral arguments for as to why such a policy is preferrable, though on a practical level it could be argued that such a policy is far from guaranteed to attain what it sets out to accomplish.

TD,

I want to echo MC's sentiments - really appreciate your thoughtful insight in these matters. You seem to know what you are talking about re international law and Al Qaeda etc. I was hoping someone would come along to temper my one sided view on the topic.

I hate that the US acts as "world police", but on the other hand it does seem necessary in some instances.

How would you feel, for instance, if china decided that america were being too aggressive, meddling in stuff that was no concern of theirs, and generally throwing its( americas) weight around. Would you feel it was necessary in some instances for china to police the USA?

We are responsible for our nations actions, when we don't take this responsibility the administration does what it wants. By ignoring our duties we both are responsible for the actions and the administration does not answer to us.

It might seem illogical that the one thing produces 2, but thats is the conditioning we've received that makes such an obvious point hard to see.

This is the other thing I wanted to point out. I dont' think this is true by any means. Does the US make these decisions on it own? Does NATO make a decision on its own? Each entity what ever it is, only acts as that entity for its best interest, and changes form when needed. US acts as an individual sometimes, sometimes its administration acts as an individual. Sometimes US and taliban work as an army (so I've heard). Sometimes the American Navy works with a foreign country. Sometimes North America acts together. Sometimes Hilary Clinton makes deals with countries not fully supported by America. Sometimes certain members of government form alliances that cross multiple national boundaries. Sometimes we have double agents, sometimes we work with enemies for strategic position. Sometimes cops are gang members sometimes gang members are cops. Sometimes we commit crimes to pursue bigger crimes etc.

Not sure I pointed that out well but I take issue when we think America as a group is against a certain other group. These false divisions don't make any sense when you really break them down.

Well thank you for the explanation, i still disagree

In theory I think this would be good.
In reality I think it would be very treacherous (ie. we all end up in nuclear winter)

I'm curious about what part, or do you just think thats illogical to say?

I'll respond to you here in a bit of a collective sense. Most of my posts have been from a formal/legal/rational perspective, and to some extent referring to trends and events without reflecting much upon if things could have gone differently.

How a person should consider the same events are seen from a moral perspective, a political perspective... that isn't really something I have commented upon - and admittedly it is not something I'm overly interested in commenting upon either. Such discussions will usually just boil down to emotional sentiment thrown out without much consideration. I think the "how" and the "why" is better... and then each person can individually form an opinion if that is enough.

If one should even consider the institutions (the state model, international accords, federal laws, the constititution) involved in armed conflict as legitimate - those are monstrous and difficult debates in and of their own. Volition vs the social contract, individualism vs collectivism, freedom vs duty... all tough and lengthy discussions. I haven't touched upon it here, because from experience I know this invariably just becomes a noisefest.

Consider the most basic of all objections to war: Could one not merely say that a killing can not be morally mediated by context? That is a good question and anyone who pretends it is easy should (in my eyes) excempt themselves from ever debating the justification of armed conflict.

I'm under the understanding this cannot be shown to be false.

Yes, it is poorly worded - I rephrased it in an edit.

I'm not sure I understand the words now, its true isn't it, that killing cannot be morally mediated whatsoever?

This comes down, doesn't it, to a situation for example where I am being tortured and beaten and I finally kill my captor. I just don't think we can morally say its justified regardless. Especially if 'my' situation and response leads to world sized war.

Well, a critic would argue that your last sentence is a moral mediation that makes the killing worse - thus you are implying (by default) a "moral scale". Anyways, I think this topic probably is better suited for a thread of its own so we don't stray to far off the OP.

Ah, maybe by mediate you mean can't be shown to be either way?

I think if thats the case then we can still use that understanding to deescalate. If we can agree that killing can't be shown to be right or wrong, then we take out some of the moral justification that holds up much of the killing in the first place don't we?

I don't see that the civil war is a good comparison. For starters, the confederate armies were in open, armed rebellion on what was considered US soil. Secondly, there were clearly what we can call battlefields. Off these battlefields the union military wasn't just allowed to kill anybody as they pleased simply by claiming they were in some undefined shape or form collaborating with the enemy.

In addition, there is a clearly defined end to that war. Once the confederation surrenders the war is over. In contrast the "war on terror" is open-ended with the whole world defined as a battlefield.

I disagree in principle that any government should have the power to kill its own citizens without due process.

Well, in essence a killing could only be subject to one moral judgment (we'll assume "wrong", because that is the typical case) and thus any action that involved killing would be "wrong" by definition.

The purpose of the claim isn't necessarily to show that the claim is "true", but to showcase important ethical considerations of things like warfare, policing and self-defense.

If your military (or parts thereof) is "killing anybody they please", I'm fairly certain you can have the involved personnel courtmartialled with punishments going as far upwards as death-sentencing.

*edit* Anyway, I'm far from an expert on the US constitution - so I'll not argue the correctness of this any further. However if what you are describing is correct, you have a "legal loophole" which an enemy of your state can easily abuse.

Decent overview article from July last year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18896236

Very nice find. It sums it all up nicely I would say.

What A Drone Can See From 17,500 feet

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/AHrZgS-Gvi4