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Comment by factorialboy | Hacker News Reader

Question is are you in a state of war? Are these considered casualties of war? If yes, then execution without trial is a given.

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The US stopped having wars with nations and instead has gone onto wars against ideas and things. The war against terror and the war against drugs being two of them. This way they can pick and choose which country to war with those elements without warring with a nation.

Things that look like colonialism are no longer considered acceptable in this era.

While I'm not a big fan of drones and other shadow warfare type approaches, it's not like the U.S. just decided this on its own. The terrorists are choosing the kind of warfare because they know they can't win a standup shooting war with the U.S.

The drug war is kind of a completely different thing as well because so much of it is a fight against our own citizens, and "victory" is pretty much unobtainable, which is maybe how the SWAT-team industrial complex wants it.

Last I looked the US weren't at war with Pakistan.

You are so last century mate!

But the U.S. is at war with ISIL, as part of a joint task force involving the Pakistan armed forces.

It's not total war, so the real issue is whether or not the CIA drone assassinations killed innocent civilians. The article mentions how drone attacks have killed civilians, but it doesn't specify if those are the CIA requested attacks or if they were approved by Clinton.

By the same logic, China could declare war at certain dissident groups, say Tibet activists (which I think China assumes to be terrorists) and then drone strike their members in the US, if the US refuses to act against those.

I don't think this is the standard a civilized nation should hold.

EDIT: spelling

Assuming that the U.S. Military is allied with China against (and at war with) the Tibeten activists, and the drone assassination was of a leader in that group - then yes, your hypothetical slippery slope is analogous.

I too, believe that war should not exist.

It's not really a good analogy simply because, in many cases the U.S. strikes, while not always condoned by the governments controlling the land, they are at least not unwelcome. If China pulled that same thing on the U.S., or vice-versa, it would likely start a war. But if they pulled that in Mongolia or Nepal, and those governments were willing to turn a blind eye, it wouldn't.

This kind of situation isn't good, but it's why the State department has the lead instead of Defense.

> By the same logic, China could declare war at certain dissident groups, say Tibet activists (which I think China assumes to be terrorists) and then drone strike their members in the US, if the US refuses to act against those.

China obviously could do that, though they equally obviously would be unlikely to because of the likely consequences of doing so.

ISIL isn't acting active in Pakistan. The US is at war with several Taliban factions and what's left of Al Qaeda and its support groups in Pakistan.

ISIL and Al Qaeda are more enemies than friends at this point in their histories.

One could reasonably argue that the location of the strikes were regions which were not under the writ of the Pakistani govt.

Didn't the Pak army launch a major operation is recent years to retake control of FATA and NWFP from the Taliban / local armed tribals?

Civilians, lot of civilians were killed! Period!

More civilians (mostly muslims) are killed by the Taliban / ISIS etc. than by the United States.

True. However senseless killing by Taliban/ISIS doesn't justify killings of civilians happening by drone attacks...

Are they at war with the Taliban?

The US haven't formally been at war with anyone since WWII[1], so we must rely on an informal definition of war (otherwise even Vietnam would be excluded).

A middle-ground definition of war that requires parties to be nation states but doesn't require a declaration of war, seems a bit arbitrary.

Instead of declaring war, the US now has Congress-sanctioned "use of military force". This includes the current "conflict" with the Taliban regime.

In this context the line between war casualties and assassination is very blurry. I think the blur itself might be one of the worst things about this new way of waging war.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/all-the-...

Well, congress has the other legal tool alongside "War", which is to 'grant letters of Marque and Reprisal'. They both grant war, either on a country, or individual scale.

The actual quote from the Constitution is thus:

"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

If ISIS isn't a state-level entity (which I believe it is, but does not follow agreed upon definitions of countries) then these Letters of Marque are sufficient if levied against their organization.

Letters of marque aren't an alternative to war for non-state enemies (no such alternative is needed; war precedes the concept of the nation-state).

Letters of marque are a means of authorizing private vessels to act as naval auxiliaries (such that they are portrayed by and subject to the laws of war, rather than legally pirates.)

It isn't 1918. That question is meaningless.

We are at war with drugs, terrorism, and poverty, among many other abstract entities. Anyone, any time, any place can be killed for national security.

The US can declare it's at war with "bad behavior", and its executive would believe it's legally covered, no matter who they're killing over it.

There are war laws too you know. And execution without a trial is a war crime.

Death in combat is another thing altogether.

Serious question: is there a definition of the difference between execution and combat?

Sure. Execution is where the victim is captured, disarmed and has no means of retaliating.

Godwin's law or not, it's very tempting to see analogies with the Nazi Germany in an era where we are seriously and casually asking questions such as for the difference between "execution" and "combat" -- or re-legitimize torture...

So would like... the UN consider a drone strike an execution rather than combat?

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