General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A Note On 'Drone Strikes', Ladies And Gentlemen [View all]dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)You might (if this were an actual war, which I am quite certain it is not) be able to justify killing some civilians in attacks on armed opponents, provided you are at war with the country those civilians live in (we are at war with that country, hence its civilians have reduced protections, or so I imagine). There is no way to justify killing civilians in some random country that the opponent happens to reside in. The host country has its own laws, its own sovereignty, and we have no power over that.
The OP made a far-fetched journey into consideration of some kind of super-sovereignty that we hold over these other nations, an authority based on our position as owners of an empire. That's absurd on its face, and even to consider such a concept as an intellectual exercise is evidence to me of a world-view that is totalitarian in nature.
Another problem:
Membership of the accused to the lethal opposition (it's not enough for them to be ideologically opposed nor for them to be a propagandist for the opposition) must be established beyond a shadow of a doubt. We're dealing with people that don't wear uniforms identifying who they might serve. We're exacting lethal remedy, so it MUST be established (and corroborated by the judiciary, I would think, since there must be an opportunity for these people to refute the charges) that these people are in a state of war against us. We're very, very far from any acceptable establishment of membership, and our actions have shown that we aren't real interested in considering exculpatory evidence that might be presented by the accused, we simply kill them without going through this process at all.
This OP reminds me of some things I've read by CATO or Heritage. Intelligent, well-reasoned, yet misguided and wrong-hearted, using pretzel logic to justify a desired outcome.