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Targeted Killing -- Self Protection Or Assassinations? TruthNews Commentary, August 28, 2001 Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Edward S. Walker, in a recent editorial for the Washington Post, accused the Bush administration of tacit complicity in Israel's targeted killings of terrorists. In particular, Walker, who served as one of President Clinton's ambassadors to Israel, says that Vice President Dick Cheney, by saying that "there's some justification in their trying to protect themselves by preempting," has given the green light to what Walker and most Arab countries call assassinations. Walker, who entitles his editorial "No Exceptions For Israel," argues against Israel's policy of targeted killings by implying that killing a terrorist in a military attack is an execution carried out without due process. Walker compares the Israeli actions to "extrajudicial" killings that occurred in Arab countries in which Walker served as a diplomat. Walker says that he objected strenuously to those killings and goes on to condemn the Bush administration for not objecting to the Israeli actions. What Walker fails to appreciate, however, is that the Israel's targeted killings of terrorists are not executions for crimes committed, but rather acts carried out in wartime to protect its citizens. What the news media typically labels as the Mideast "conflict" or "uprising" is, in fact, a war. The Palestinians' actions, should, for the most part, be classified as war crimes, since the Palestinians have primarily focused on blowing up and shooting innocent civilians. The Israelis, however, have abided by the "rules of war" and limited their military responses to the combatants. War, by definition, is people killing other people. It's ugly and uncivilized, but Israel did not choose to fight this war. The war was forced on Israel by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Last year, Israel offered the Palestinians a state in Gaza and most of the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem. But Arafat refused the offer by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and started a war. Israel has been very restrained in its response, due in part to international pressure and in part because Israel does not want to maintain an occupying military force in the disputed territories. But Israel has acted to protect its citizens and foreign visitors from the Palestinians' random acts of terror. In war, killing enemy combatants is legitimate and necessary. Terrorists and terrorist leaders are the combatants. Israel does not kill the terrorists to punish them for their crimes but rather in order to prevent them from carrying out further acts of terrorism. Since Arafat refuses to restrain the terrorism, Israel is left with little option. So I would ask Ambassador Walker, what would you have Israel do? Carpet bomb Ramallah as the U.S. and Britain bombed Dresden in WWII? Firebomb Jericho as the U.S. firebombed Tokyo? Nuke Gaza like America nuked Hiroshima? All of those WWII actions, though militarily necessary to save American lives, resulted in thousands of civilian casualties. Israel is, in fact, saving civilian lives by using precision weapons to kill the terrorists while avoiding civilian deaths. The U.S. was far less precise in its strikes against Osama Bin Laden, when inaccurate cruise missiles and inadequate intelligence resulted in civilian deaths but no significant impact on the terrorist operation. When the CIA and Peruvian Air Force shot down a plane load of American missionaries that they mistook for drug smugglers, there was much less reason to carry out an "assassination," since the CIA could not argue that lives were in imminent danger from drug smugglers. The reason the Arab world calls the Israeli policy "assassination" is that they hate Israel. The reason Walker and the western news media call it assassination is partly because they've bought into the anti-Israel propaganda, and partly because the very precision and success of the Israeli strikes resembles an assassin's strike. But an Israeli helicopter missile fired at a terrorist is very different from an assassination. By committing terrorism, the terrorist has made himself a combatant and therefore a legitimate target. By hiding in a PLO-controlled area, the terrorist has put himself beyond arrest and due process. By plotting further acts of terrorism, the terrorist has put himself in a position where he must be stopped. By surrounding himself with innocents, the terrorist tries to put Israel in the dilemma of either killing innocents in order to get to him, or to let him go free to murder more Israelis and foreign visitors. However, because of good intelligence and precision weapons, the Israelis have been able to strike at the terrorists with reasonable success while avoiding civilian casualties. The precision of the strike does not make it an assassination either. During WWII, American fighter planes shot down the plane carrying Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, the mastermind behind Pearl Harbor. This was not an assassination, even though the shoot down was based on intelligence obtained from intercepted naval communications, so the pilots knew exactly who they were killing. Nor was it revenge for Pearl Harbor. It was simply that by killing the leader of the Japanese navy, Japan's naval effort would be crippled. The U.S. has bombed the residence of Muammar Khadafy in 1986 and the residences of Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf War. Our intelligence was not as good as the Israelis, so we did not succeed in killing these thugs. But if we had, the State Department would have been dancing in the street. In1966, mass-murderer Charles Whitman began randomly shooting people from the University of Texas library tower. He killed 15 and wounded 31 before the police killed him. The police did not kill Whitman to punish him but to stop him from killing anyone else. Would Ambassador Walker demand that he be given "due process," and call the Austin police action an "extrajudicial killing"? The western world has developed over the last 2000 years certain principles by which we judge whether a war is justifiable. These principles, called the "Just War" theory, were first advanced in the 4th century by Augustine and later codified by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. Ambassador Walker has accused Israel of killing Palestinians unlawfully, so let us evaluate Israel's actions in terms of the criteria that have evolved regarding just war. As stated by Thomas, in order for a war to be just, three things are necessary:
In addition to the principles laid down by Thomas Aquinas, other Just War criteria have evolved which apply more to the conduct of the war.
State Department spokesman James Boucher, not a great supporter of Israel, has been pressed repeatedly about Israel's use of American weapons in carrying out these strikes. The U.S. sells weapons to foreign governments with strings attached - essentially the foreign government agrees to not use the weapon to carry out aggression or kill civilians. Boucher has repeatedly condemned Israel's targeted killings as being "inflammatory." However, on the legal question, Boucher inevitably responds, "no determination has been made." In other words, it's not illegal, but Boucher doesn't think it's the right path to peace. Even the Bill Clinton state department, Walker's former master, did not find the killings illegal. In fact, Walker was the Assistant Secretary for the Middle East in the State Department under Clinton when Israel began the targeted killing of terrorists. Walker kept quiet then while working for the Democrats, but now that he's out and the Republicans are in, Walker feels a moral obligation to speak up. But this is not a matter of allowing an "exception for Israel" to carry out killings, but rather distinguishing an act of necessity in war from a criminal act. If Walker can't tell the difference, it's a good thing he's not an ambassador anymore.
© 2001 TruthNews. All Rights Reserved. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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