Posted on 08/16/2009 6:42:25 PM PDT by Marguerite
A recent front page of The New York Times featured an article entitled "Drug chieftains tied to Taliban are US targets - Shift in Afghan policy." It stated that:
"Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed... and that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the 'joint integrated prioritized target list.' That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time."
According to this newly announced policy, 50 alleged civilian drug dealers have now been made subject to targeted killing if they cannot be captured.
When Israel used targeted killings to eliminate Sheikh Salah Shehade, Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who were admitted leaders of terrorist groups that were engaging in combat against Israeli civilians, it faced a tsunami of condemnation from the US, the EU, the UK, the French, the Italians, the Russians, the UN and The Vatican.
(Excerpt) Read more at cgis.jpost.com ...
Yet there has been no comparable outcry from the international community, despite the fact that the US’s policy is less defensible morally and legally for the following reasons:
1. Israel has used targeted killings to protect civilians against war crimes, from an enemy sworn to its destruction. The US is using a far broader form of targeted killing, thousands of miles away from its civilian population, against an enemy that poses no immediate threat to its civilian population.
2. Drug traffickers are not direct combatants, thereby making an attack on them far more questionable under international law.
3. International law requires that any attack must be intended and tend toward the military defeat of the enemy. Israel has targeted those known to be directing terrorist attacks, whereas here it is less than clear that killing a drug trafficker would tend towards a military defeat of the Taliban.
4. Compounding this, the ratio of terrorist to civilian deaths for the Israel Air Force is better than 1:30 (Amos Harel, “Pinpointed IAF Attacks in Gaza More Precise, Hurt Fewer Civilians,” Haaretz, December 30, 2007.) - that is, 30 terrorists killed for every civilian, whereas that for the US is 1:14 (The UN Special Rapporteur on unlawful executions, Philip Alston, reported that as of 3 June 2009).
Israel developed targeted killings of terrorist leaders, particularly in the Gaza Strip, because it could not arrest the terrorists who were ordering the firing of rockets at Israelis. The most notorious leaders, Shehade, Yassin, and Rantissi were only targeted after publicly acknowledging that they were giving the orders and pulling the triggers and were responsible for hundreds of Israeli deaths.
One more example of Obama administration and the left blatant hypocrisy. If the previous administration made lists af targetting killings, the “anti-war” crowd and the leftists would be yelling in the streets and all across the media; but if Obama is doing it, their silence is deafening.
Maybe this is Obama’s way of dealing with the Guantanamo Bay thing. He made a promise to close it, which he is now bound to do. But to prevent future problems, the best way to avoid future prisoner issues it to take no prisoners, just kill them on the battlefield. I realize Obama would rather invite them to the White House and apologize to them, but maybe someone in this administration is a pragmatist.
The problem is not why he’s doing it, but that while doing it, he’s sermonizing Israel and playing Abbas’ busyboy.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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