Summations Only

From Mark Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for Time Magazine (link):

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No one — at least no one with any chance of living in the White House in the foreseeable future — wants to find out precisely how the U.S. public would react to a second 9/11. So Obama is — under the post-9/11 authorization for the use of military force — methodically whittling away at those who would do American harm as well as those the CIA and President believe might do the nation harm. 9/11 showed that suicidal zealots, no matter where they are today, can attack the U.S. tomorrow. That broadens the President’s rifle scope to include the entire world.

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It’s a slippery slope.

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Don't be so quick to label things "bumper sticker reasoning."

Not exactly...that's why we have judges and juries and criminal courts! But I see your point. Now that is a true statement...and perhaps the reason why the stated topic of this thread is slightly dead-ended. An objective truth such as whether a certain term such as "murder" applies to a certain action is not always very enlightening. A convincing reason why said action is unjust or unnecessary is much more enlightening. Unfortunately, though, mistakes are mistakes. I'm sure that soldier who committed the mercy killing on the battlefield wished in hindsight that he hadn't, and maybe even saw in hindsight why what he did was wrong, but his penalty stood nonetheless. So should the accusations against those who target civilians, regardless of how they explain their actions afterwards.

The problem with debating the justification is that it will probably end up with 2 opposing opinions that are unable to be reconciled due to the opinions being subjective.
It is like art. There is no good or bad art: only art you like and art you don't like.
The best you can do with a differing personal opinion is say "I can understand why you think that." If they had targeted civilians then I would expect it to be considered a war crime.But you have not shown that civilians were targeted.

I think experience clearly demonstrates that one situation in which slippery slope arguments are perfectly applicable is the case of powers of enforcement. If you give someone the power to do something in order to acheive a specific aim, they are then faced with an overwhelming temptation to use it to accomplish anything they consider important. This is why checks and balances are essential.My examples are drawn from the UK, since I know it better, but I think they apply much more generally. Example 1: The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001) gave the British government the power to freeze assets of foreigners in the event that someone was seeking to harm the UK economy. At the time the bill was passed, there was a motion in the House of Lords to amend it, such that it specified this was only to be used against terrorism. The amendment failed - as Lord McIntosh assured us:

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The qualification that only unlawful or intentional actions against the UK's economic interest is unnecessary. There are extensive provisions to test that there are reasonable grounds for freezing orders through parliamentary scrutiny and appeal to an independent adjudicator through judicial review.

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He warned that the powers should not be restricted, since

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At the time when action had to be taken, it would not necessarily be possible to prove that terrorism was involved. That is why we seek these broader powers

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Of course, seven years later, these powers were used to freeze the assets of an Icelandic bank, without any pretention of any criminal intent. Why? Because the government wanted to do it and the power was there. Example 2: The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) gave public bodies rather extensive powers to spy on people, with the justification that this was necessary to prevent terrorism and serious organised crime. However, the powers are also used by certain local councils (with Poole being the most famous for doing so) for all manner of things. People have been surveilled to discover whether they clean up after their dogs; whether they're really sick or just bunking off work; whether they're watching TV without a licence and whether they're inappropriately using disabled parking badges. Example 3: Anti-social behavious orders were are measure first brought in back in 1998. The idea behind them was that it was a way of stopping people from threatening and anti-social behaviour, by essentially allowing the police to criminalise legal behaviour. For example, if someone is threatening and hassling somebody, they could be banned from going near their house.However, they have been used for a vast range of things that police and local councils consider annoying. Mobile soup kitchens were banned from feeding the homeless in Manchester; homeless people have been banned from begging in an 'earnest or humble way'; a girl was banned from spitting in public (and jailed when she broke her ASBO's terms; a woman who attempted suicide several times was banned from high bridges; an alcoholic was banned from entering pubs or carrying alcohol in public; a woman was banned from answering the door in her underwear or sunbathing naked in her own garden - this list could go on for quite a while.This post is far too long, but the upshot is that if you give someone powers to deal with a specific problem, they often will use it to deal with any problem they consider worth dealing with - even where it's clearly disproportionate.

I don't see a slippery slope there.It is simply stating facts that happen to be true.The evolving paradigm of Non-Nation State conflict conduct will by necessity ignore Nation State boundaries.But that is still irrelevant to the topic.

The case of the Icelandic Bank was related to protecting the British economy from a perceived threat.But your examples do not demonstrate slippery slope as much as legislative and judicial stupidity and very short term thinking.

Some of those examples are either not true or taken out of context.i.e.
Mobile soup kitchens were banned from feeding the homeless in Manchester...
Not true. a girl was banned from spitting in public and jailed when she broke her ASBO's terms...
"She became extremely upset in the courtroom and ended up throwing water over the Group 4 officer and spitting at a magistrate. She was remanded in custody and charged with new offences." an alcoholic was banned from entering pubs or carrying alcohol in public...
"At 15 she was expelled from school for repeated truancy and disruptiveness. But being home-schooled only increased the opportunities to hit the bottle. During her time as an alcoholic, Laura calculates that she was drinking about 150 units of alcohol a week." a woman was banned from answering the door in her underwear...
"The ASBO also banned her from making noise, shouting and swearing, holding drunken parties, abusing neighbours and letting pals use her garden as a toilet."Just sayin'...

Wow there sure are a lot of laws regarding the conduct of war. Here are a couple that might apply. Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (Lieber Code). 24 April 1863.

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Art. 68. Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object. The destruction of the enemy in modern war, and, indeed, modern war itself, are means to obtain that object of the belligerent which lies beyond the war.
Unnecessary or revengeful destruction of life is not lawful.

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Art. 148. The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.

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I realize that this refers to " any captor" but it also mentions rewards for assassination which would indicate people who have not been captured.Assassination

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to kill suddenly or secretively, especially a politically prominent person; murder premeditatedly and treacherously.

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The main problems with the drone program are that-The battlefield is expanded to incorporate the whole world.-There is no public review of any evidence against the 'suspected militant'. Therefore, there is no way to determine if these killings qualify as murder beyond excepting the determination of the people doing the killing. It is like asking a drunk if he thinks that he is too drunk to drive.The ACLU and CCR have brought a suit against the gov't on behalf of some slain US citizens. They claim that

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These killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts, according to the 17-page complaint, which noted that the practice has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including many hundreds of civilian bystanders, in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Sudan, and the Philippines since 2001.

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When a 16-year-old boy who has never been charged with a crime nor ever alleged to have committed a violent act is blown to pieces by U.S. missiles, alarm bells should go off, CCR senior attorney Pardiss Kebriaei noted Monday.

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From the same article;

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In a speech in March, Attorney-General Eric Holder offered a partial view of the administration’s legal position, which is reportedly spelled out in a longer memo that remains classified.

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I mean when your legal defence is a secret I have to ask WTF? This is the general legal defence for the drone program.

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‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’ are not one and the same when it comes to national security, Holder argued in perhaps the most legally controversial passage in his speech. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

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I understand that this case is about US citizens who enjoy a much higher value than foreign brown people. The dead bystanders rights hardly come into it. This is foul.I can not really argue if the whole thing is actually legal or not but I think there is a pretty strong case that it is wrong and shouldn't be happening. The drone program has an element of Soft Speak and black lists that is very disconcerting. We should be better than this. The US has surveillance drones the size of a pizza box that can hover silently outside your window for days and watch you brush your teeth. I mean step it up people. If you going to assassinate someone don't make a mess of it. I think that public outrage might at least force them to be more accurate.

In a way, that's a good thing. There's no escaping across borders any more. If the Austro-Hungarians had had drones, World War One might have been averted.

I suppose that I don't have a problem with killing a known terrorist who has been proven guilty in absentia. The foul part is claiming that all of the evidence is secret and dismissing the collateral damage as a necessary price to pay. Claiming that this innocent life is more important than that innocent life is an indefensible position.As soon as we eliminate all of the foreign tax havens then I can get behind eliminating the borders of US legal jurisdiction.

The goalposts seem to be sliding down a slippery slope.

I don't think so. I have always been talking about the innocent people that are getting killed. Even though there is some question about the right of the US gov't to execute belligerents hiding in a country that the US is not at war with, there is no legitimate defence for killing innocent people in a country that the US is not at war with.

In the OP, it was the innocent until proven guilty. Now it's collateral damage - not really the same thing.

Well yes ok in that sense but that was just a longer field goal attempt and we still dont know if it was good or not because all of the evidence, except for the dead people, is a secret. The goal posts haven't moved and there are still dead people who meet all the requirements of having been murdered.

Except the legal requirements needed for it to be murder.