Israel Matzav

Targeted killings by me but not by thee

The United States recently announced that it will be using 'targeted killings' against drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan (Hat Tip: Free Republic).

Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional study to be released this week.

United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law.

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In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is releasing the report, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the “joint integrated prioritized target list.” That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.

Maybe it is legal. But as Alan Dershowitz points out, the United States - and its European allies - all claimed that targeted killings are illegal when they were used by Israel against confessed terrorists.

When Israel used targeted killings to eliminate Sheikh Salah Shehade [pictured. CiJ], Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who were admitted leaders of terrorist groups that were engaging in combat against Israeli civilians, it faced a tsunami of condemnation from the US, the EU, the UK, the French, the Italians, the Russians, the UN and The Vatican.

Yet there has been no comparable outcry from the international community, despite the fact that the US's policy is less defensible morally and legally for the following reasons:

1. Israel has used targeted killings to protect civilians against war crimes, from an enemy sworn to its destruction. The US is using a far broader form of targeted killing, thousands of miles away from its civilian population, against an enemy that poses no immediate threat to its civilian population.

2. Drug traffickers are not direct combatants, thereby making an attack on them far more questionable under international law.

3. International law requires that any attack must be intended and tend toward the military defeat of the enemy. Israel has targeted those known to be directing terrorist attacks, whereas here it is less than clear that killing a drug trafficker would tend towards a military defeat of the Taliban.

4. Compounding this, the ratio of terrorist to civilian deaths for the Israel Air Force is better than 1:30 (Amos Harel, "Pinpointed IAF Attacks in Gaza More Precise, Hurt Fewer Civilians," Haaretz, December 30, 2007.) - that is, 30 terrorists killed for every civilian, whereas that for the US is 1:14 (The UN Special Rapporteur on unlawful executions, Philip Alston, reported that as of 3 June 2009).

Israel developed targeted killings of terrorist leaders, particularly in the Gaza Strip, because it could not arrest the terrorists who were ordering the firing of rockets at Israelis. The most notorious leaders, Shehade, Yassin, and Rantissi were only targeted after publicly acknowledging that they were giving the orders and pulling the triggers and were responsible for hundreds of Israeli deaths.

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The Israeli Supreme Court has limited targeted killing to those engaged in terrorism. They would never permit it to be used against drug traffickers or those who would not qualify as combatants.

There will be some criticism of the US, but not condemnations - no draft of Resolution, boycott or divestment.

Will Spain attempt to put the American commanders on trial? I doubt it. Will England attempt to arrest the American commanders when they land at Heathrow Airport? No way. Will the New York Times editorialize against the targeted killings by American forces? They might have if President Bush were still in power, but they won't as long as the Obama administration is in power.

We live in a world of hypocrites with double standards. Or do we just live in a world of anti-Semites that target Israel's every action?

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:12 PM