Summations Only

Out of interest - Who assesses the anticipated military advantage?

That seems a bit blase. If whoever-the-current-Osama-Bin-Laden-is runs into a school for sanctuary is it really OK to just blow the shit out the school and then blame him for the consequences of that?I wouldn't pull the trigger (or whatever) that blows the school up. Would you?

Would you blow up the school in question in that situation?

They are also probably going to do so in a rather gung-ho way based on a pretty simplistic view of who are the goodies and who are the baddies. If past experience is anything to go by... Well OK. A drone isn't as bad as 10,000 marines. But this lesser of two evils approach still leaves quite a lot to be desired. It seems...frankly a bit "defeatist" I spose is the word. Whether it has any practical effect or not I think somebody should at least be pointing out where the moral high ground is here. Even if nobody can rightfully claim it we should at least try and identify where it is. But shouldn't we try and stop the psychotic acting out his psychotic ways rather than simply thank our lucky stars he's merely slittiing people's throats rather than machine-gunning his way through the population?

Look when attacks are made on civilian targets because terrorists are present the civilian casualties aren’t accidents. It isn’t negligence. It’s calculated in the sense that the outcome is pretty much a forgone conclusion and the civilian casualties are deemed acceptable.Now you may think it morally justifiable. Or you may think it morally repugnant. Are the deaths and maimings of a school full of kids worth the killing of a terrorist who may or may not go on to kill many many others? It’s a difficult question with no easy answers. Personally I wouldn’t do it. But if the terrorist in question then went on to kill thousands I’d also have to live with that.The problem I have is with the seeming disregard for the moral question this poses. There seems all too often to be a rather blas and self-righteous We are the goodies and our actions are always justified approach taken by the US military to such situations. And it is this, as much as the end results, in my view that inspires the sort of hatred that inspires the terrorists of the future.

And you didn’t even show a picture of Tony Blair embracing Gaddaffi.They should warn us that whether someone is officially labelled as a terrorist or a freedom fighter at any given time is largely a matter of political expedience.

Legality aside - Is it right.....?

OK. Let's follow the logic of that. Let’s consider a mirror-image situation.The Iranian government decides to label a US citizen as a terrorist. The person in question has been responsible for a number of attacks in which Iranian civilians have been killed. Whether you agree that the label of terrorist is accurate or not there can be little doubt in the sincerity of the belief that if this person continues to exist further Iranian civilian casualties will occur as a result.So the Iranian government sends in a drone. The attack is on US soil and involves the apartment block in which the intended target lives. The attack kills the intended target. It also kills a number of other people in the apartment block including some kids, a pregnant woman and an old couple. Numerous others lose limbs or are otherwise horrifically injured.When asked about the attack the Iranian government says that whilst the civilian casualties are regrettable they are a price worth paying for ending the life of the intended target whose future actions would undoubtably have resulted in more Iranian deaths. they say the action was militarily justified.Was the drone attack justified in your view? Is it, in your view, morally different from the sort of attacks being advocated as justified and necessary here?

You are pointing at the status quo. If you think the present situation is as high as the moral ground can pragmatically get I would suggest you have taken pragmatism to a level that is indistiguishable from defeatism....But aside from this rather overly-accepting approach your heart seems to be in the right place.

Exactly. Which is why we need to separate the legal question from the moral question here. Legally the attacks under discussion are not ‘murder’ because the law says they aren’t murder.But the term ‘murder’ is also used in a less technical and very emotive sense to describe killings which are deemed to be morally unjustified and reprehensible. Some of the attacks under discussion may fit that description. Some may not. It will vary from specific case to specific case.But one thing I am sure of — If Iran (or whoever) implemented a drone attack on US soil that killed a number of US civilians the Western media would have absolutely no qualms at all about applying the term murder and murderers to those deaths and the people that were responsible for them.

Then change the details such that it is. Because they don't trust the US government not to be complicit in some way with his actions. A TV reporter getting people's reactions to the event stops you on the street and asks you what your reaction is to the murder of innocent US citizens.Do you object to her use of the term "murder"....?

Unfortunately those who support terrorist attacks (such as 9/11) say much the same thing....

Exactly. Again. So when we ask if the US government is guilty of murder, the legal answer is "No" and the moral answer is....... Far more ambiguous.I have little doubt that the US military has undertaken activities that have resulted in deaths which would be very difficult to justify by any reasonable moral standard. Not every attack. But some could well qualify as "murder" in that sense. Well it is and it isn't. It shows that whether we choose to apply the term "murder" outside of a strictly legal context says as much about our own biases and allegiances as it does anything else. My example applies wherever the affected nation doesn't feel that the nation in which the terrorist resides will take the necessary action to stop him terrorising their citizens. If in my example the US citizen in question was deemed by Irani intelligence to be covertly working with the CIA they are hardly likely to trust the US authorities to take the action they think necessary are they?

The US citizen being targeted is deemed by Irani intelligence to be working with the CIA. Hence they have no trust at all in the US authorities doing anything but they can't officially say that. No. They've simply taken out a "terrorist" on US soil. You might. But I expect you, along with the rest of us, would be far more concerned about the victims if they were US citizens than you would esoteric discussions about what does or doesn't strictly qualify as "murder".

That is practically tautological.How about advocating less destructive options.....