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Comment by liotier | Hacker News Reader

At least it is a start. Once the killing of US citizen without a trial is accepted as undesirable, then we will move on to attempting to have our compatriots reflect on the morality of killing foreigners. I do not see a problem with starting with a low hanging fruit to let our friends have a taste of some sort of morality before trying to convince them to climb the tree for more...

That said, even if we some day manage to summon political will to regulate the use of violence by our government more strongly, violence of the threat thereof is an essential part of relations between human polities - framing it as uncivilized will not change that.

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> At least it is a start. Once the killing of US citizen without a trial is accepted as undesirable, then we will move on to attempting to have our compatriots reflect on the morality of killing foreigners

I was under the impression that killing US citizens without a trial had been considered pretty much unthinkable until a few years ago, when your president allowed it. I may be mistaken, as I'm not from the US and so not immersed in the culture on a daily basis.

If that's true, I would say that the current development is in the opposite direction of more restraint.

> I was under the impression that killing US citizens without a trial had been considered pretty much unthinkable until a few years ago

U.S. citizens were killed in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it is believed that some of the ones that went to fight for the Nazis were also killed by American soldiers on the battlefield.

U.S. citizens were collateral damage as part of that war. That is not the same thing as targeting an induvidual for execution.

Exactly. Doing so in a deliberate, targeted manner was unthinkable. This is culturally related to the American axiom of never leaving anyone behind (fellow citizen, soldier, etc). Be it hero or traitor, we will go to extraordinary lengths to bring a citizen home for proper, lawful, respectful treatment.

The president who "allowed it" (how can I put this very tactfully) was likewise, as you put it, not so immersed in the culture on a daily basis (to wit, raised outside the US) - exemplified with Anwar Awl Alaki and Benghazi.

(Am trying to handle a hot topic delicately, pointing out differences.)

> Once the killing of US citizen without a trial is accepted as undesirable

Sadly, I suspect the wind will blow the other way on this one.

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