Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The people targeted in drone strikes were not "suspected terrorists." They were actively waging war against the US. The teenager who was killed was not targeted. He was killed a month later in a strike while he was traveling with a terrorist who was the target of the strike.

View on HN

They were actively waging war against the US.

Anything to back that up? These are extensive extra-judicial killings, outside of 'war' by any meaningful definition, which in my book makes them wrong even in the (highly implausible) best case where every victim is a genuine evil-doer.

See e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/12/pakista...

The premise of the article is ridiculous at base. Law is something that binds civilians and their government together. Law does not bind the military apparatus of one country against another. It is meaningless for Pakistanis to decry something as illegal when the actor in question is not bound by Pakistani law. If aliens came and started shooting at the white house, would we run to the courts?

The use of force abroad exists purely in the political, diplomatic, and military realms, not the legal realm. If Pakistanis want us to stop drone strikes in Pakistan, they'll have to resort to one of those avenues.

> The use of force abroad exists purely in the political, diplomatic, and military realms, not the legal realm.

Again, you are incorrect. International treaties are legally binding. What is the purpose of the Geneva Conventions, for instance, if the U.S. can, according to you, sign them, ignore them, and not have broken international law?

International treaties are not automatically binding on the US. In US courts, they are binding only to the extent that Congress passes implementing legislation or Congress signals that it is self-implementing. But they have the status of ordinary law, so if the AUMF says the President can do something, as the later enactment it overrides anything in the Geneva Convention.

Outside of US courts international law is irrelevant as applied to the US. We're not a party to the ICC and we have veto power over any enforcement decision of the ICJ.

> We're not a party to the ICC and we have veto power over any enforcement decision of the ICJ.

We're getting a bit into the woods here, but veto power over the enforcement of UN rulings _does_ _not_ change international law. You can say that it is irrelevant because it is unenforceable, but _it_ _is_ _not_ legal for the U.S. to violate international treaties which it has signed. This is "legally binding". This is what that means.

The U.S. can overrule any enforcement decision, as you said. It cannot determine the ruling in any ICJ case.

See: Nicaragua v. United States.

Its a "what's the sound of one hand clapping" situation. We purposefully have not put ourselves in a place where international law cannot be enforced against us. Without that, its a total fiction to say there is any law. Unenforceable obligations aren't law. They're conventions or guidelines, maybe aspirations.

Your argument relies on two distinctions that seem dubious to me: civilian versus military, and domestic versus foreign. Why do these things matter? Aren't all sentient beings equal? Shouldn't we apply the golden rule to all other such beings? The moral concerns around using force, whether at home or abroad, trump any political, diplomatic, military, or legal concerns. I suspect that distinctions such as civilian versus military and domestic versus foreign are just ways to ease our conscience about hurting and killing other people far away, who aren't quite real to most of us anyway.

If Al Qaeda believed it were more effective to band with a nation state and form a uniformed army, they would. But the US should not sit on their hands until that day comes. As for the golden rule, how does that apply to people who actively trying to kill your family?

You are totally incorrect. The most recent news about civilian deaths in drone strikes:

> At least 1 in 5 drone strike victims a confirmed civilian – leaked Pakistani records

http://rt.com/news/drone-strikes-pakistan-civilian-casualtie...

Victims are different than targets.

(I'm not making a moral argument about drone strikes, but the fact that you bring up in no way refutes `rayiner's.)

Well, I was trying to reply to his refutation of "the use of drones to indiscriminately kill civilians", but I suppose if he was merely contesting the word "indiscriminately" he might have a point.

That is, if we believe the U.S. is making a good enough attempt to avoid civilian casualties in drone strikes, which is questionable.

He wasn't refuting that. He was refuting the air quotes around "suspected terrorists". He did not refute the fact that drones killed civilians or the teenager.

No, he isn't totally incorrect. Had you not written that totally unnecessary barb at the beginning of your comment, you'd both be correct. The strike that killed the younger al-Awlaki was in fact targeting someone else, who was uncontroversially considered a terrorist.

So, when US gov bombs some country it's defense, but if someone plans bombing US then it's terrorism? And if you travel with that terrorists then you are dead? Lol :-)

Also, looks like you can't see that this scenario will only make more terrorists, because you seed hate between people. If you want someone to respect you and be your friend you don't really need to bomb, kill or bully him. And you know what, sorry to burst your bubble, but your GOV is doing all that shit on purpose, so they can defend you from terrorist -> by spying on everything you do.

And yet, they talk up a storm telling us how careful they are when they authorize strikes, yet they didn't even know who they were shooting at? And they blew them up in a restaurant, with other people around!

What evidence there is? When they were declared guilty by a court? When they were charged with a.crime.in first place?

Crimes are domestic constructs for internal policing. Waging war on the US from tribal lands in Yemen is not a crime, its in the nature of a military action. Killing in military actions does not require a judicial determination of guilt. Did we get a court to tell us the 50,000 Japanese we incinerated at Hiroshima were guilty?

We declared war on Japan. We have not declared war on Yemen or Pakistan.

So?

> Killing in military actions does not require a judicial determination of guilt.

To which I respond:

> We have not declared war on Yemen or Pakistan.

Which means that our military actions in Yemen or Pakistan are illegal. This is still ignoring other obvious questionable points about drone strikes, such as issues regarding proportionality.

Illegal how? The strikes are within authority authorized by the AUMF. No "formal declaration of war" (whatever that is, it's not a term that is defined anywhere) is necessary.

What isn't authorized?

War crimes are a subset of crimes, not all crimes are domestic and internal (see: Interpol).

No one in Yemen is waging war on the US, that's a construct of the creative imaginations of a bunch of people that stand to profit from having a bogeyman so they can sell their toys.

The people in the tribal lands of Yemen can't wage war on the US since:

(1) they don't have air strike capabilities able to reach the continental US

(2) they don't have a shared border where a land war could be waged

(3) they don't stand a chance of getting a boat in US coastal waters Yemeni people or people residing there are not waging war on the USA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com