Summations Only

Are you a recognized Nation State?

Is that the case?Doesn't a directed low yield targeted strike endanger fewer innocents then any method in the past?Isn't the targeted drone strike preferable to carpet bombing, long range artillery barrage, car bombs?

I imagine the US would take action against any individual that they deemed a threat to do that.I also imagine that the US would sanction any country that tried or seemed likely to try anything like that.Unless of course, the US wanted that person killed and then getting some other country to actually commit the act provides plausible deniability.

Yes.

But legality has nothing to do with morality.

No, law is born of practicality. Morality is seldom involved.

I don't see any double or even different standards being applied in your examples. The soldier in your example is charged with specifically targeting and killing someone who was not deemed an immediate threat.How is that in anyway related to drone strikes?

No, I do not understand your point other than your seemingly totally misrepresenting the situations. The actual situation is that the soldier is restricted in what he can and cannot do under rule of law. One thing he cannot do is commit a mercy killing. There is no theoretical nature involved. The target is identified and assigned and the soldier carried out the orders.Sorry but I still see no correspondence between the two scenarios.

But that is a misrepresentation of the situation.When someone is targeted it is not because they might be some future danger, it is because they are a clear and present danger.That is hardly theoretical.

Not "Orwellian" at all. The people targeted are targeted as I said, because they are a "clear and present danger".They are targeted based on past behavior as well as continued current behavior.

Too funny.I did not exclude future harm, I said the decision was made based on them being a Clear and Present danger.Nor do I know what the danger was in any specific drone attack, but since I also did not call for them that is irrelevant.The point is that it is still not murder.

Without even knowing anything about those who were killed.The reason I know is that that is the standard our government set for authorizing such strikes.What I do know is that I very much approve of such drone strikes and that I hope in the future we will develop even better methods of selective termination.We are still trying to develop the new set of Rules of War, and so the questions like "What level of suspicion is required to justify killing uninvolved people in a country we are not at war with?" is a valid one, although not relevant to this topic.

And also present enough evidence that was the case to sway the judge or jury. That is not my line of reasoning and simply more misrepresentation of both the scenarios presented and my position.Continuing to create false analogies does not help your position. Terrorism and murder are not synonymous just as killing and murder are not synonymous.

No, that's not what I mean at all.The current set of laws relating to wars are set around the concept of Nation State conflicts and the assumption that there is some governmental body that has both the rights and capabilities of ending a conflict.When looking at terrorism that is not the case.We are basically in our infancy in creating a set of Rules of War involving NGOs.

One is that one behavior is legal while the other is illegal.Second is that your hostage scenario takes place in a nation under rule of law while the drone strike does not.