George Will looks at the bar of international law and kicks it to the ground, then he uses John Yoo to explain his reasoning for lowering the bar.
Yes, the man who lauded the idea of the "unitary executive" in times of war, and the use of torture as legitimate.
Torture
1. to cause extreme physical pain to, esp in order to extract information, break resistance, etc. to torture prisoners
2. to give mental anguish to
3. to twist into a grotesque form
Is now trying to
justify assassination
Assassinate
1. To murder (a prominent person) by surprise attack, as for political reasons.
2. To destroy or injure treacherously: assassinate a rival's character.
Yes they just love trying to reason that America has the right to do as it damn well please, but anyone else doing the same [apart from Israel] are just a pack of foreign terrorists.
Fortunately, John Yoo of California’s Berkeley School of Law has written a lucid guide to the legal and moral calculus of combating terrorism by targeting significant enemy individuals. In “Assassination or Targeted Killings After 9/11” (New York Law School Law Review, 2011-12), Yoo correctly notes that “precise attacks against individuals” have many precedents and “further the goals of the laws of war by eliminating the enemy and reducing harm to innocent civilians.” And he clarifies the compelling logic of using drones for targeted killings — attacking a specific person rather than a military unit or asset — in today’s “undefined war with a limitless battlefield.”
Because as we know the US is the embodiment of International Law.
Just goes to show what they get up to when you haven't imprisoned them for war crimes.
When you start by justifying torture, then move on to assassinating your own citizens abroad how long before you justify the same tactics at home?
There is also no reason not to assume that assassination will lead to open conflict, as Will would say; there is a precedent for that.
The use of "the war on terror", to justify our base actions sickens me, and that people who should be brought in front of the International Criminal Court are being taken seriously deeply disturbing. We lock non violent drug users up, but we let real criminals walk free; bloody wonderful.
We all know the US is the good guy, it has been stamped on our psyche since birth, this nationalist propaganda doesn't travel well.