The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[brickhistory]

Great.  A legal opinion.  One with which other lawyers disagree.  EDITED TO ADD:  read page 1194 "Justifying the Extrajudicial Killing of an American Citizen."  

Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process.  Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense.  And the SOB who got smoked deserved it.  Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial.  No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate.

Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys.  Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive.

Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset.

And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day?  After all, it's a judgement call.

Edited August 6, 2020 by brickhistory

[FLEA]

5 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Great.  A legal opinion.  One with which other lawyers disagree.

Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process.  Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense.  And the SOB who got smoked deserved it.  Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial.  No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate.

Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys.  Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive.

Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset.

And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day?  After all, it's a judgement call.

Its certainly a grey area. I like that you point out if this dude was carrying an AK in Syria when a 2 ship of A-10s rolled in, fuck him, he's a traitor. But its a bit different when you go to a country we aren't even recognized as having a presence in, surveil him for months while he isn't actually engaged in any fighting, and eventually decide your presidency is just easier if he goes away. 

I've heard a rumor that the first pilot that was asked to take the strike stepped out of the seat and they tried to article 15 him for disobeying a lawful order. It was dropped later on. 

[Sua Sponte]

13 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Great.  A legal opinion.  One with which other lawyers disagree.

Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process.  Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense.  And the SOB who got smoked deserved it.  Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial.  No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate.

Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys.  Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive.

Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset.

And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day?  After all, it's a judgement call.

Yeah, that's sorta how interpreting the law works. If you're wondering, an "opinion" is what the SCOTUS and every other court in the U.S. issues too. And I know for a fact you didn't read the article because the law professor doing the analysis agreed with you. The Trump Administration has let it be known that they interpreted the AMUF more broadly than previous administrations.

[brickhistory]

So, one hallowed POTUS actually executed an American on his say-so alone.

One has said they interpret the policy more broadly.

 

Actions vs. words, it would seem.

Again.

[Erthwerm]

6 hours ago, brawnie said:

A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.”

I've seen anti-intellectualism be popular for a long time before Trump. It would appear to me that you're just parroting buzzwords. Additionally, there are plenty of racists out there who aren't Trump supporters. But hey, if you want to let a comedian's act dictate your political leanings, by all means, go ahead. 

6 hours ago, brawnie said:

On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions.

I agree with you there. 

6 hours ago, brawnie said:

we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan.

I have friends who fought in Sadr City, Iraq during the surge. President Obama wanted to start giving more control to the Iraqi Army and they lost Sadr City to ISIS. Stuff like this happens in war. 

[otsap]

2 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

Yeah, that's sorta how interpreting the law works. If you're wondering, an "opinion" is what the SCOTUS and every other court in the U.S. issues too. And I know for a fact you didn't read the article because the law professor doing the analysis agreed with you. The Trump Administration has let it be known that they interpreted the AMUF more broadly than previous administrations.

Rule of thumb, when you start a sentence with "If you're wondering,...", and no one asked, strongly consider deleting it.  Really, I'm just hoping my sarcasm detector is inop and you weren't trying to sound that douchey.  But in the event you were serious, semantics cut both ways.  To wit: Brickhistory said "legal opinion," which includes your linked article, law review articles, some op-eds, etc.  You are referring to a "judicial opinion," a subset of legal opinions noted for setting precedent.

As a slight aside, I took National Security Law during law school from a professor who was the CIA's general counsel during Bush #2 and argued for the legality of Hellfire strikes and the drafted the definition of "unlawful combatant."  When asked by another student "how can you support those policies," he said, "that was my job."  He never elaborated on his true stance.  Just thought that was interesting.

[Sua Sponte]

49 minutes ago, otsap said:

Rule of thumb, when you start a sentence with "If you're wondering,...", and no one asked, strongly consider deleting it.  Really, I'm just hoping my sarcasm detector is inop and you weren't trying to sound that douchey.  But in the event you were serious, semantics cut both ways.  To wit: Brickhistory said "legal opinion," which includes your linked article, law review articles, some op-eds, etc.  You are referring to a "judicial opinion," a subset of legal opinions noted for setting precedent.

As a slight aside, I took National Security Law during law school from a professor who was the CIA's general counsel during Bush #2 and argued for the legality of Hellfire strikes and the drafted the definition of "unlawful combatant."  When asked by another student "how can you support those policies," he said, "that was my job."  He never elaborated on his true stance.  Just thought that was interesting.

Rule of thumb, when you start a sentence with "rule of thumb," that's usually an opinion that no one really asked for to begin with. So, they're still people opining what they believe, albeit one that will shape legal precedence. Copy, an opinion. You find it interesting that a lawyer would represent someone and/or an organization where they wouldn't personally agree with the legal strategy? 

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, Erthwerm said:

I've seen anti-intellectualism be popular for a long time before Trump. It would appear to me that you're just parroting buzzwords. Additionally, there are plenty of racists out there who aren't Trump supporters. But hey, if you want to let a comedian's act dictate your political leanings, by all means, go ahead. 

I agree with you there. 

I have friends who fought in Sadr City, Iraq during the surge. President Obama wanted to start giving more control to the Iraqi Army and they lost Sadr City to ISIS. Stuff like this happens in war. 

So, I guess stay in Iraq forever to prevent ISIS or whomever from taking over?

[brickhistory]

59 minutes ago, otsap said:

Rule of thumb, when you start a sentence with "If you're wondering,...", and no one asked, strongly consider deleting it.  Really, I'm just hoping my sarcasm detector is inop and you weren't trying to sound that douchey.  But in the event you were serious, semantics cut both ways.  To wit: Brickhistory said "legal opinion," which includes your linked article, law review articles, some op-eds, etc.  You are referring to a "judicial opinion," a subset of legal opinions noted for setting precedent.

As a slight aside, I took National Security Law during law school from a professor who was the CIA's general counsel during Bush #2 and argued for the legality of Hellfire strikes and the drafted the definition of "unlawful combatant."  When asked by another student "how can you support those policies," he said, "that was my job."  He never elaborated on his true stance.  Just thought that was interesting.

Don't interrupt him, he's on a roll...

[Sua Sponte]

14 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Don't interrupt him, he's on a roll...

 

[nsplayr]

4 hours ago, FLEA said:

Its certainly a grey area. I like that you point out if this dude was carrying an AK in Syria when a 2 ship of A-10s rolled in, fuck him, he's a traitor. But its a bit different when you go to a country we aren't even recognized as having a presence in, surveil him for months while he isn't actually engaged in any fighting, and eventually decide your presidency is just easier if he goes away. 

I love how we keep going around the horn on this one!

Anwar al-Awlaki was an active combatant, was escorted by armed guards to meetings with other high-level AQAP operational commanders, and was both inspiring and directing attacks both in Yemen and abroad. The Yemeni government had approved overflight of Yemen as well as kinetic operation to target AQAP members.

This wasn't some secret-squirrel "poison him with a radioactive umbrella on the streets of London" operation. It was a military operation against a military target in an active combat theater in partnership with the local government. The only gray area was that he was a wanted U.S. citizen who had fled justice and the determination had to be made that he could not be captured, which would have been preferable.

His son was unintended CIVCAS on a seperate strike that targeted a building. Targeting buildings is always inherently dangerous for this exact reason, you don't know exactly what's inside. The targets of that building strike were legal targets.

All of this is available open source, however if your critiques of the process of SOF HVI manhunting come only from open source I would encourage you to read up more deeply on what you can and then trust that your fellow servicemembers in that particular line of work are just as professional as you are at flying the mission of your platform. I don't know fuck-all about OCA or SEAD or refueling, etc. beyond the surface-level expected of a fellow airman, and you won't find me critiquing those processes nearly as sharply as you will of ones I know more about. Except if you land a C-17 at the wrong airport, then all the spears are fair game 🍺

If I'm not being clear, it's pretty insulting that you think that we as professional officers/NCOs just go out and pull the trigger on a U.S. citizen based on the political whims of the President. That's not how this works...that's not how any of this works.

Edit to add: All that said, I'm probably more skeptical than it might appear of the value of HVI hunting and airstrikes as a broadly-used tool in the foreign policy playbook, even as I continue to serve doing the same mission set today. There's a ton of nuance on what good policy looks like, but I'm just fed up with the hand wringing and armchair QBing of this particular strike years and years after the fact.

Edited August 6, 2020 by nsplayr

[FLEA]

36 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

I love how we keep going around the horn on this one!

Anwar al-Awlaki was an active combatant, was escorted by armed guards to meetings with other high-level AQAP operational commanders, and was both inspiring and directing attacks both in Yemen and abroad. The Yemeni government had approved overflight of Yemen as well as kinetic operation to target AQAP members.

This wasn't some secret-squirrel "poison him with a radioactive umbrella on the streets of London" operation. It was a military operation against a military target in an active combat theater in partnership with the local government. The only gray area was that he was a wanted U.S. citizen who had fled justice and the determination had to be made that he could not be captured, which would have been preferable.

His son was unintended CIVCAS on a seperate strike that targeted a building. Targeting buildings is always inherently dangerous for this exact reason, you don't know exactly what's inside. The targets of that building strike were legal targets.

All of this is available open source, however if your critiques of the process of SOF HVI manhunting come only from open source I would encourage you to read up more deeply on what you can and then trust that your fellow servicemembers in that particular line of work are just as professional as you are at flying the mission of your platform. I don't know fuck-all about OCA or SEAD or refueling, etc. beyond the surface-level expected of a fellow airman, and you won't find me critiquing those processes nearly as sharply as you will of ones I know more about. Except if you land a C-17 at the wrong airport, then all the spears are fair game 🍺

If I'm not being clear, it's pretty insulting that you think that we as professional officers/NCOs just go out and pull the trigger on a U.S. citizen based on the political whims of the President. That's not how this works...that's not how any of this works.

Edit to add: All that said, I'm probably more skeptical than it might appear of the value of HVI hunting and airstrikes as a broadly-used tool in the foreign policy playbook, even as I continue to serve doing the same mission set today. There's a ton of nuance on what good policy looks like, but I'm just fed up with the hand wringing and armchair QBing of this particular strike years and years after the fact.

Hey man, I was in the MQ-9 community when this went down. I'm familiar with the process and I don't have any heartburn over al-Awlaki dieing. It was a POTUS level decision. Whether or not he was a combatant wasn't important. The only question was whether it was right for the US to intentionally target a US citizen on foreign soil. 

That said,  no I don't trust that community to uphold the moral standard at every moment. Are they professional? Often times yes. They also have a lot of bad apples. I won't put them on a glass pedestal. (Talking more about the supported units here, and not the MQ-9 operators themselves, who also have bad apples btw, but a different variety.)

My only point to the comment above was there is certainly a lot of grey area to interpret that strike and whether it was moral/ethical or not. Do we consider the "militias" in Portland armed combatants? If one of those militia members takes a plane to France, can I execute him now? We opened a basket of worms with that one. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by FLEA

[brickhistory]

And yet somebody did it.  And an entire chain of command knew it, literally from POTUS down to trigger-puller.

Tough if you don't like being reminded that a US President ordered the deliberate execution of a US citizen without benefit of trial.

It's kinda a thing we get the right to for being an American.  I'm not willing to forget it or let it go.

Because otherwise, it will be done again as a precedent has been set and no one was too upset.

[FLEA]

1 minute ago, brickhistory said:

And yet somebody did it.  And an entire chain of command knew it, literally from POTUS down to trigger-puller.

Tough if you don't like being reminded that a US President ordered the deliberate execution of a US citizen without benefit of trial.

It's kinda a thing we get the right to for being an American.  I'm not willing to forget it or let it go.

Because otherwise, it will be done again as a precedent has been set and no one was too upset.

I think there is a valid argument that if someone joins the armed forces of a foreign military the US is at war with, they forfeit their rights to citizenship. I don't think you can have a reasonable expectation that Benedict Arnold could ride into battle in his German battle tank in Trier and we can't do shit about it. However we are still debating whether its even reasonable to be "at war" with an "idea" (war on terrorism), hence classifying that dude as a combatant gets really tricky. 

The reality is, up until the 21st century no one seriously regarded terrorist as military problems outside of the force protection concerns. They were law enforcement problems and terrorist were regarded as criminals, not combatants. However when we set out to dismantle al Queda there was a realization that there isn't enough federal power in law enforcement to do that. I blame Bush and Obama for this quagmire. 

Obama's obsession with RPA's though is particularly interesting to me because there are a lot of parallels to that and JFK's obsession with US Army SF. I wonder if the MQ-9 schoolhouse one day is going to be named the "Barrack Obama Remotely Piloted Aircraft School." 

[brickhistory]

Valid.

Again, if the dead terrorist was killed in combat, I'm all for it.  

However, we even tried those traitors in our past - both uniformed and civilian - in a court of law since they were American citizens and entitled to due process no matter their heinous crimes.  Just as this terrorist was.  Unfortunately, he was an American citizen.  That buys him, you, me, any American a higher level of protection no matter how much he deserved killing.

Those past traitors were tried either upon capture during or after hostilities or at least in absentia.  But they got a trial.

To turn the table, and perhaps serve as a logical place for the mods to move this to the political/next President thread, would those ok with a President ordering the specific execution of an American, no matter how deserving of the penalty, without benefit of a trial be ok if it were Trump giving the order?

It's happened at least once.  I am very sure that future Presidents will use that lever of power again.

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

Hey man, I was in the MQ-9 community when this went down. I'm familiar with the process and I don't have any heartburn over al-Awlaki dieing. It was a POTUS level decision. Whether or not he was a combatant wasn't important. The only question was whether it was right for the US to intentionally target a US citizen on foreign soil. 

That said,  no I don't trust that community to uphold the moral standard at every moment. Are they professional? Often times yes. They also have a lot of bad apples. I won't put them on a glass pedestal. (Talking more about the supported units here, and not the MQ-9 operators themselves, who also have bad apples btw, but a different variety.)

My only point to the comment above was there is certainly a lot of grey area to interpret that strike and whether it was moral/ethical or not. Do we consider the "militias" in Portland armed combatants? If one of those militia members takes a plane to France, can I execute him now? We opened a basket of worms with that one. 

Do you have heartburn with his 16-year-old son being killed in a separate strike two weeks later?  Also an American citizen, and this time not even accused of anything.

[FLEA]

27 minutes ago, pawnman said:

Do you have heartburn with his 16-year-old son being killed in a separate strike two weeks later?  Also an American citizen, and this time not even accused of anything.

A tragedy for sure. His son wasn't targeted and wasn't known to be in the cafe when it was struck. Been mentioned multiple times. CIVCAS happens. If you think he is the only American or minor we've accidentally killed in an airstrike you would be mistaken. 

al-Awlaki's 8 year old American citizen daughter died in a raid authorized by President Trump in 2017. Shit happens man. War is ugly. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by FLEA

[Sua Sponte]

2 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Valid.

Again, if the dead terrorist was killed in combat, I'm all for it.  

However, we even tried those traitors in our past - both uniformed and civilian - in a court of law since they were American citizens and entitled to due process no matter their heinous crimes.  Just as this terrorist was.  Unfortunately, he was an American citizen.  That buys him, you, me, any American a higher level of protection no matter how much he deserved killing.

Those past traitors were tried either upon capture during or after hostilities or at least in absentia.  But they got a trial.

To turn the table, and perhaps serve as a logical place for the mods to move this to the political/next President thread, would those ok with a President ordering the specific execution of an American, no matter how deserving of the penalty, without benefit of a trial be ok if it were Trump giving the order?

It's happened at least once.  I am very sure that future Presidents will use that lever of power again.

I never thought this would happen, but I agree with Brick. Just because the Obama Administration determined capturing al-Awlaki “infeasible” doesn’t negate his right to due process as an American citizen. This looks especially bad since the U.S. has suspected terrorists, who aren’t U.S. Citizens, in GITMO since 2001 we’re currently trying to give due process to. A U.S. Citizen doesn’t lose their Constitutional rights just because they’re hard to capture and bring to trial.

“It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation’s commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.” - Justice O’Connor

Edited August 7, 2020 by Sua Sponte

[nsplayr]

I’m curious what y’all wanted to see in this case re: due process. Awlaki openly admitted to doing the things he was accused of. Do you think a trial where he was not present and where he almost 100% certainly would have been found guilty would have helped him or anyone else when he bought a hellfire afterwords? Even if you are sentenced to death, that’s not how the system works. Fun fact, I don’t support the death penalty but am still ok with killing enemies on the battlefield, which is what I considered Awlaki to be.

He could have surrendered at any time and been given a trial (at GITMO probably although I support trying and jailing terrorists actually on proper US territory).

I also get that it’s tricky to define what’s the “battlefield” now but IDK man, I and many others sure did a bunch of deploying to the region and flying over said country for it not to have been a battlefield 🧐 U.S. boots were on that ground in offensive operations in concert with the local government in addition to all the airpower present.

The slippery slope is when you can declare anyone hostile and anywhere a battlefield; copy. If President Trump, who I don’t support, were faced with the same situation and made the same call that Obama did, I’d back him knowing the details of this specific case.

[hindsight2020]

 

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

A tragedy for sure. His son wasn't targeted and wasn't known to be in the cafe when it was struck. Been mentioned multiple times. CIVCAS happens. If you think he is the only American or minor we've accidentally killed in an airstrike you would be mistaken. 

al-Awlaki's 8 year old American citizen daughter died in a raid authorized by President Trump in 2017. Shit happens man. War is ugly. 

Yeah right. Might as well stuff Al-Awlaki's kin in a Piper Saratoga and call 'em the Kennedys. Bad luck everywhere you go. That's some RPA whitewashing straight outta ACSC courseware. 😄 

[dream big]

15 hours ago, brawnie said:

I have quite a few. And I know that all it takes is for you to quote the one thing you disagree with for you to feel like I’m entirely wrong, but I encourage you to suppress that notion and respond in kind.

It’s given my friends the courage to unabashedly post QAnon videos without a second thought. It’s allowed for people I once respected to just say “do your own research” and “fake news” about things that are scientifically proven, such as vaccines, global warming, or even eugenics. It’s allowed my friends that I grew up with in the South to feel comfortable saying “Why shouldn’t I be able to tell a black person I’m proud of the fact that I’m white?” The culture of discourse over the last 3 years has markedly worsened. People don’t feel like they have to back up anything. “The president doesn’t, why should I?“

A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.” On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions. I have a gay brother in law that was assaulted for the first time while out with his partner. It makes me feel like I live in a less unified country.

On top of that, we have made no effort to improve our economy for the future, we have no significant effort to build infrastructure for me to live in in for the next 50 years, we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone, we’ve started an irrational trade war with China that we are going to lose based on poor planning - my family owns a soybean farm and have absolutely loved the last few years (sarcasm) - we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan. Foreign policy is now just say “America First,” forget the “haters,” and disregard the last 30-40 years of geopolitics.
 

America has slashed long term plans when it comes to Global Warming, which is a thing. In the last week we saw sea temps that were 10 degrees F above baseline near the poles. There is no plan to deal with rising wealth inequality in America - and that directly affects everyone. Tax cuts haven’t enabled me or my friends to create significant wealth, instead enabling us to earn pennies less when productivity has increased orders of magnitude. Our economy is almost entirely services based and only getting worse, and Trumps best publicized bet at fixing it is bring back coal mining. Ygbsm. Good luck with our airline jobs when they get automated. My nieces and nephews have no ability to actually earn money or move out of their house when they graduate college anymore due to lack of job prospects. I think I recently read a statistic that more people 18-34 are living with their parents than with a partner for the first time in history. America is trying isolationism in 2020, which sounds cool on paper - only care about yourself - but doesn’t work when China and Russia are laying seeds for productive alliances in Africa, Asia, and South America over the next 100 years. Our foreign policy vision is terrible, and it will affect the future of America if we try to maintain this course. We need fundamental national strategy change if we want to maintain our statuses as a superpower.

In 2008-2016 we did make some progress as society and in the world, in my opinion. Only about 2 people here have actually talked about what they liked in this presidency, whereas everyone else (I’m pretty sure you included) just says that I’m wrong and won’t answer my initial question. I still don’t understand what policies the majority of Republicans push for that have been enacted in the last few years, and I’d love to hear them.

I tried reading your post with an open mind... but you lost me at “all racists are Trump supporters.”  Most ignorant and naive comment for the month goes to you. (Albeit it was your “friend” who said it but you clearly support such a notion.) Congratulations.  

As a brown/south Asian guy, I went to HS post 9/11.  I faced my fair share of racism.   I don’t hate them, they were ignorant teenagers.  But when I look back at many of them, they turned out to be some of the most staunch/vocal SJW democrats. So I know your “all racists are Trump supporters” is utter BS.

Trump is a polarizing figure, but it is dudes like you that create more Trump supporters.  I didn’t like the guy at the beginning of his campaign but it is pompous folks like you that actually drew me too him.  So keep it up!! 

 

[di1630]

Brawnie sounds a lot like a guy I knew...liberal SJW who railed on racist filled America even though as a growing up middle class minority, he was provided a free academy education, paid to fly jets, promoted to top ranks and even after all that, was a victim of white Americans and selfish conservatives.

Victimhood mentality sucks.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[arg]

I'm not a Trump lover or hater. When he started his campaign every "Career politician" hated him, GOP and Dems. That's when I sat up and took notice. There must have been a reason for that and I believe it's coming to light. He rolled into DC, kicked over their ant farm and started shaking the tree, and a lot of nuts are falling off that tree.

[FLEA]

7 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

 

Yeah right. Might as well stuff Al-Awlaki's kin in a Piper Saratoga and call 'em the Kennedys. Bad luck everywhere you go. That's some RPA whitewashing straight outta ACSC courseware. 😄 

It's not whitewashing at all. All I care about is if the strike authority used discrimination and proportionality. In the case of the son, proportionality was applied but discrimination wasn't sufficient due to an inappropriate PID of the correct target. This is a totally plausible situation as PIDs are at their core a probability based assessment that the target is who you think it is. Totally plausible that the son was mis ID'd. Is it tragic? Yes. Is it sad? Yes. Is it a war crime? No, because the threshold only requires that there needs to be an earnest attempt to apply those criteria and from what I know of the Enterprise im sure that took place. We also have to recognize this dude's family was heavily ingrained into AQ and it shouldn't be a surprise to us that his kids are going to be found with their fathers friends and family members who were like minded and that puts them in circles that are high risk. 

For the strike against al-Awlaki himself, I personally found it to be wrong. The government did not have a strong enough argument to authorize a prejudicial murder of a US citizen without due process. 

[Erthwerm]

19 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

So, I guess stay in Iraq forever to prevent ISIS or whomever from taking over?

That's the point I'm making. We can't stay in the Middle East forever. Stuff like this happens and we just have to get over it.