targeted killings of u.s. citizens outside armed conflict zones

We should set clear limits on political assassinations. Hence his act, if it is wrong, is not as wrong as terrorism is. A “just” assassin refuses to do that – or, at least, he doesn’t do it. Someone in his organization probably thought that it would be better to kill the official’s extended family or to put a bomb in the restaurant where he and “his kind” regularly dine. By aiming carefully at a person thought to be guilty of something, by choosing weapons that can be used with discrimination, the assassin indicates his rejection of indiscriminate killing and also his concern about collateral damage. Justice in assassinations depends on the character of the targeted official, the character of the regime he or she serves, and the immediate political circumstances: what else is there to do? There are often many other things that should be done, or attempted, before sending in the assassins.īut even if assassination is a wrongful act, as it usually is in history if not in literature, the wrongfulness is of a second order.

He may be a “just” assassin, as in Albert Camus’s play by that name, though I don’t think that the justice of the killing depends, as Camus argues, on the killer’s willingness to accept death himself – obviously, Camus hadn’t heard of suicide bombers. But someone who takes aim at a particular person, a political official, say, is engaged in a different activity. We need to be firm in rejecting all apologetic efforts on behalf of terrorists. No qualifications, no excuses: this is wrongfulness of the first order. Untargeted killing, random killing, the bomb in the supermarket, café, or bus station: we call that terrorism, and its condemnation is critically important. But targeted killing with drones? Here the old argument, though it still makes sense, leaves me uneasy.įirst things first. Targeted killing isn’t new, and I am going to repeat an old argument about it. It is always a hard question whether new technologies require the revision of old arguments.

Targeted killings of u.s. citizens outside armed conflict zones