Why is targeted killing wrong

It also violates international law, under which lethal force may be used outside armed conflict zones only as a last resort to prevent imminent threats, when non-lethal means are not available. Putting people on a "kill list" for months at a time is clearly not limited to last resort or imminent threats. How does the targeted killing program operate?

There is very little information available to the public about the U. According to news reports, names are added to a "kill list," sometimes for months at a time, after a secret internal process. In effect, U. What are the standards for being placed on the targeted killing list and who is on it? No one knows what the standards are for being placed on the list because the government has not disclosed them.

We do know that people on the list are suspects who have not been found guilty of any crimes. The secrecy and lack of standards for sentencing people to death, resulting in a startling lack of oversight and safeguards, is one of our prime concerns with this program.

We don't know how many people are on the government's kill lists — we don't even know how many Americans are on the lists. And equally troubling, we don't know on what basis people are added to the list.

How much evidence does the government have before it adds a name to the kill list? Who reviews that evidence? The government should not be imposing the death penalty on the basis of standards that are secret. Who maintains the targeted killing list? Under the Obama administration, many of these targeted killings have been carried out using unmanned drones. Despite the high number of civilian casualties and criticism that the program lacks transparency, President Barack Obama has repeatedly defended the strikes.

While government officials claim the drone strikes are accurate and rarely harm innocent civilians, strikes can kill or injure anyone in the area, even if they are only meant to kill a targeted individual. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline.

Here the assumption is not only that they are unlawful, but that, being unlawful, they are morally impermissible. No doubt some targeted killings are unlawful in some jurisdictions and, moreover, morally ought to be unlawful, notably those that take place in well-ordered jurisdictions. Since I discuss such type 2 settings below, I set this possibility aside here. The question to be answered at this point is different; it is whether or not targeted killing in theatres of war morally ought to be lawful.

The answer is evidently not only that targeted killing in theaters of war ought to be lawful, but that in fact it is. That said, the killing of terrorists in theaters of war does give rise to moral problems not necessarily present in killing conventional combatants in such theaters. One important problem arises from the difficulty of distinguishing terrorist combatants from innocent civilians.

However, in the case of targeted killing, as opposed to, say, combatants responding with lethal force to a current terrorist attack in a firefight in a civilian area, there has been a prior investigative process that has resulted in a description of the role of the target in the terrorist organization and a unique identifying description of the target. Moreover, the target is to be killed only if he or she can be reliably identified as such at the time of the killing. Further, the targeted killing is discriminating—only the target is to be killed.

It follows, therefore, that, at least in principle, the problem of distinguishing terrorists from innocent civilians is substantially reduced by the tactic of targeted killing. This is, of course, not to say that some investigations are not sloppy, that mistaken identity does not happen, or that all targeted killings are as discriminating as they ought to be.

Far from it. For example, there is evidence of faulty intelligence in relation to the targeted killing of Taliban leaders in Afghanistan by NATO forces. But it is to say that the tactic of targeted killing, insofar as it lives up to its own standards, is not morally impermissible—and, therefore, ought not to be legally impermissible—on the general grounds of the difficulty of distinguishing terrorists from innocent civilians. Further arguments against targeted killing rely on appeals to various practical and essentially consequentialist considerations, such as ineffectiveness.

For example, it can be argued that the targeted killing of some terrorists might not reduce terrorist attacks, since others take their place. However, these kinds of arguments rely on the truth of empirical claims that might turn out to be false under certain circumstances. Accordingly, they do not show that targeted killing is necessarily morally unjustified.

I conclude that the targeted killing of terrorists is, in principle, morally permissible. This is consistent, of course, with the actual policies and practices of targeted killing on the part of, for example, the United States and Israel in specific contexts being morally impermissible.

Such action might well be morally justified self-defense at the collective level s in the context of ongoing armed conflict even though, at the individual level: The aim is to kill rather than capture or arrest ; There is no imminent deadly threat from the target to any individual e. Morality of Targeted Killing Given this description of targeted killing in the context of armed conflict—and the earlier definitions of targeted killing and of terrorism—let me now turn to the moral considerations in play in the use of targeted killing by the security forces of liberal democratic states in counterterrorism operations.

To understand whether or not a strategy of targeted killings is effective or ineffective, we must begin addressing fundamental questions. What is the policy? What is the strategy? And, does the action of killing a specific individual serve or undermine the policy? The intent here is to briefly examine these practical questions — with a focus on specific Israeli targeted operations — in order to offer an understanding as to why TKs should be an effective strategy.

That is, it is assumed that the strategy of killing a specific individual serves policy. Whether the assumption is correct lies within the specific context of each case, though it may well be possible to ascertain trends as to when or where it is most likely to succeed or most likely to fail. TKs must also be understood within the specific context of the time they are being employed. That is to say, war. The armed rebellion, which lasted from , witnessed a dramatic increase in a strategy of TK carried out by the Israeli military.

Throughout the armed rebellion for all intents and purposes a war , Israeli targeted killing operations underwent a number of critical evolutions — in terms of tempo, tactics, boldness, lethality, and even legality — ultimately proving TK an effective strategy. If one is to understand the strategy of TK, then the policy and the tactics must also be understood at the same time. A strategy requires both a policy to define its purpose and tactics to make it happen — these are the fundamentals of strategy.

Good strategy requires coherence in this tripartite association and TKs are a particularly good example for the teaching of strategy. The policy must always be rational and attainable. The objective to influence Hamas to abandon armed violence is a rational and attainable political objective. If the policy were to wholly destroy Hamas as a physical and ideological entity, a strategy of TK would likely be ineffective, as the policy would be simply unattainable and possibly irrational, in purely tactical and even technical terms.

If it has the opposite effect the policy itself is wrong. That is why policy, strategy and tactics must always be understood in partnership at all times — otherwise, the likelihood of success diminishes.

While both Israel and the United States utilize similar tactics drones, fighter jets and helicopter gunships to carryout a similar strategy i. TK , importantly their policies are also similar. Both countries, in their own ways, seek to bend or compel irregular armed organizations to their political will by the use of armed violence as a means to set forth their policy.

Ultimately, and in its most basic terms, this is the use of armed force against armed force. However, equally important is context. Even if a strategy of TK is effective, as was the case against Hamas during the armed conflict for example, this clearly does not imply that the strategy is always effective at all times.

Ultimately, it continues to remain the policy of the Israeli government to force Hamas to reject violence. If the policy of the Israeli government changes, so must the strategy. For example, if Hamas were to abandon armed violence and become a non-violent organization, targeted killings would not serve Israeli policy because the use of armed violence against civilians would almost certainly be counterproductive in terms of the conflict and illegitimate in the eyes of the international community.