The government itself says it is not legal, whether this kind of killing is declared as legal or not is a "work in progress". They do not even have a clear legal code of conduct, while they still kill civilians. 36 for one terrorist or so statistics say.
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Originally Posted by Skybird
[...] If above mentioned persons get targeted for misidentification reasons, bad intel, fog of war or such, it is tragic, but an event of war. War is no police law enforcement. War is war. That's why we have a separate name for it. [...]
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There is terrorism, and there is war. Both are not the same by definition.
Drones are just that: Police enforcement, worldwide, by your own police rules.
So if you send a drone into another country to kill own or foreign residents without knowing or approval of said country's government, not having declared war to them, even unknown to your own people and violating your own jurisdiction in clandestine operations, how do you call
that ?
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If you have a military objective or target and want to achieve that, and in doing so former mentioned non-combatant persons get hit by crossfire or by random chance stand in the fireline or inside a blastradius of an explosion that indeed precisely hit the target, they are unlucky and tragic victims. Still: no murder.
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BS. You do it against international law, you did not declare war to said country, but you are killing its residents.
Is that murder or not ? Or is it a war of aggression ?
By modern standards, and by standards being applied after WW2 ?
Your problem is that you are talking about a war, using warfare to accomplish goals, but this is not a war. What is it ?
Quite conveniently, Bush's advisors said it was a war against terrorism. If this implies warfare against neutral or even befriended countries and inhabitants you did not declare war to, what does that say about international law and your own signature under such treaties, while incriminating other countries of doing what you yourself do.
I take it you do not have children, but if a drone accidently killed your girl friend or parents who were so unfortunate as to be near an assumed "terrorist" (which may even turn out to have been a mistake or just bad info), what would you do. I take it you would still appreciate signature strikes as they call it, call them "unlucky and tragic victims" and then explain publicly why it was the right thing to do ?