Obama: I'm not 'particularly ideological'

[Kelvin Mace]

91. Right off I have a disagreement:

For example, Hitler was a civilian - he had a uniform but was not himself a member of the German armed forces. Are you really saying FDR would have been a war criminal if he ordered an attack that included Hitler as a target.

Both Hitler and FDR were military leaders, whether they wore a uniform or not. By law FDR was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces (as is EVERY president).

Military leaders are certainly fair game in a war. Trying to kill the other guy's leader is pretty much the default setting of war.

If you are trying to kill him and you kill civilians, that is an unfortunate consequence of war.

However, when you deliberately target civilians, or act with complete disregard for civilian casualties then you cross the line into war crimes. Using incendiaries, NBC agents, "bomblet munitions" etc, against civilian targets is morally and ethically wrong.

Now the elephant in the room is "traditional" military versus "unconventional" military operations, i.e. Regular army versus insurgent/terrorist/rebel elements. People seem to see a bright line as to what does, or does not, constitute a war crime when dealing with "regular" armies (yet still look the other way when those lines are crossed. Abu Ghraib was a war crime that reached all the way up to the White House, yet only a handful of peons were punished for war crimes).

Yet, when it comes to "unconventional" forces, rules go out the window along with the civilians caught in the crossfire.

That said, let me address your questions. My answers are based on ethical/moral criteria, not the law, as legal doctrine has already been twisted to "legalize" specific actions:

1. How many drone strikes does it take before a President commits a war crime? Included in this question, does it matter that a target is a US citizen? .

I will answer with a question: How many drones strikes may the leader of another nation launch against a fugitive criminal reported to be in your neighborhood before they commit a war crime?

If the house next door to you suddenly explodes, and kills your wife pulling into the garage and your children playing in the yard, does the fact that a "dangerous" criminal was stopped before he could commit another crime (up to and including murder) make a difference to how you view the strike? If a representative of the foreign government shows up and pays you $10,000 cash for each lost relation and pays for the repairs to your property, is it now OK? Does it matter to you if the target of the strike was a citizen of the country launching the attack?

2. Why would President Obama expose himself to war crimes scrutiny?

Because no political leader ever sees themselves as a war criminal while committing war crimes. And if you are on the "winning" side of a conflict, you NEVER face the consequences of the crimes you commit. Many Nazi and Japanese war criminals certainly took exception to be called war criminals. In any honest analysis of their actions the only difference between Adolph Eichmann and Henry Kissinger was Eichmann was on the losing side of a conflict whereas Kissinger wasn't.

Are you guilty of a war crime when your own lawyers and judges tell you your actions are legal? During the Iraq/Afghan War, "enhanced interrogations" and "drone strikes" were declared legal by lawyers, judges and politicians. Lawyers, judges and politicians who declared the actions of the Third Reich legal were sent to prison when their side lost.

3. Does the location of a terrorist matter if he/she is planning attacks against you. (not you personally but implied that it's a terrorist attack, meaning a deliberate attack against non-combatants for the purpose intimidate or coerce. Normally the attack target differs from the victim)

Does the location of anyone engaged in a criminal conspiracy matter to the victims? Not really. Your murder planned on the moon by a stranger is just as relevant to you as the murder planned by your spouse in the bed beside you while watching The Daily Show (Although to be fair, someone planning on murdering you while in bed with you is probably watching a lot of "true crime" porn on Court TV).

The only interest that arises from location is what the authorities plan to do about it when they act upon the conspiracy. I am all for any legal/military agency stopping your murder, provided they act is a responsible, legal and humane manner. I VERY much object to a drone strike in my living room when I am not involved in any plot against you, but which was ordered because someone who either didn't like me, or saw it as a way to make a few bucks, reported me as part of a "conspiracy" to kill you.

4. Does the Congressional Authorization For Military Force applicable Al Qaeda exclude any territory?

The AUMF is one of those cute little bits of law that lawyers love to argue about while OTHER people suffer. It was a way to declare war, without having to actually declare war. It was the legal justification to illegally invade another country. Congress abdicated its Constitutional oversight of the military and the president. A more truthful name for the "law" would be The Pontius Pilate Act of 2002. To discuss in a moral context what the AUMF does, or does not, permit, is null and void from the outset because the AUMF is a deeply immoral document drafted as legal cover for deeply immoral acts.

Even if you accept the AUMF as a moral law (and I cannot stress enough that this is simply NOT true) how does one determine if someone is a member of Al Qaeda? Do they carry membership cards? Bear distinctive tattoos? Have a secret handshake? Someone told someone, who told someone else, who told a CIA informant that Joe-Bob Kareem Smedly is the Waterboy Sans Portfolio of the Al Qaeda Local 172?

Do we accept a forth-hand source as a basis for an assassination, or do we demand more evidence, such as making the CIA informant double-pinky swear?

5. Can clothes that don't look like modern US military uniforms determined to be uniforms?

This seems to be one of those legalistic questions which attempts to determine between conventional and unconventional military operations, or military versus criminal operations. It seems to me that once you have to ask it, you have already lost control of the situation and should not be making life or death decisions based on such subjective opinions.

6. How do you engage terrorists who will not comply with the laws of armed conflict?

Ceasing to act illegally yourself will generally do it, or at least it is a start. Terrorists do not simply spring into existence from Zeus' forehead, fully grown and royally pissed off. They are generally the products of YEARS of legalized oppression at the hands of various imperial governments, their proxies and/or policies.

The American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee didn't just happen one day in 1973 for shits and giggles, it was predicated by the Wounded Knee Massacre 83 year earlier, and was built upon daily, injustice by injustice, indignity by indignity.

The Taliban didn't just decide to come into existence like a bunch of Twilight fangirls setting up a webring to trade fanfic; it came into being as the successor to mujahideen, which came into being to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s.

Apparently, the Soviets hadn't learned from the British the folly of invading Afghanistan 100 years before (to be fair, the British still haven't learned that lesson 120 years later).

Who provided financial and military support to the mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviet invaders?

Why, the U.S. government.

We gave money, weapons and training to a group of people who, according to the Soviets, engaged in terrorist actions against Soviet troops (Later, members of these U.S. taxpayer-funded social clubs and their descendants would go on to cause grief for the Russians in Chechnya).

In CIA circles, nasty tactics used against the enemy that are then used against you are called "blowback".

7. Was it a war crime for FDR and/or Churchill to order the bombing German Industry?

Again, answering a question with a question: Was it a war crime to kill partisans and members of the "underground resistance"? The answer to that question is, yes it was, since people were tried, convicted and executed for exactly those actions. If the Axis had won, medals would have been handed out for killing "traitors and saboteurs" and Allied officials would have been on trial for "war crimes" such as "terror bombing" (a term coined by us, by the way) and other tactics the winner gets to decide are "crimes".

American history so far has declared that "war crimes" are what the "other side" does. Since we have won (on paper at least) all the conflicts so far, we have never committed any war crimes that required the kind of accountability that we have inflicted on other governments. In essence, "might makes right".

The fallacy of your question is that it presumes an adversarial rank and file (you don't see AQSL blowing themselves up) viewing murder-suicide as a bad thing done as a response to being pissed off. Successful indoctrination that murder-suicides results in an eternity of bliss in paradise doesn't require to require the individual to be angry?

Not quite sure what you are saying here. Please clarify.

If you are saying that terrorism occurs because one group of people promises paradise and seventy virgins, then you must also accept that we indoctrinate our soldiers with similar religious nonsense. "Kill them all and let God sort them out" is a concept I have heard voiced by American soldiers in the past (Vietnam) and recently (Iraq/Afghanistan).

The historical recipe for terrorism is to put people in an oppressive, untenable position, deny them any say in their situation, inflict indignity upon injustice, and remove all hope of things ever getting better, and voila, terrorism.

I speak from some familial experience having family on my mother's side from Ireland. While I have no family members involved in terrorism (and do not condone violence except in the strictest terms of self-defense and even then with least violence possible), I have followed the politics there all my life.

I find it sad that Britain could give Hong Kong back to the Chinese, but will not TO THIS DAY give Ireland back to the Irish. Things are much calmer today than they were 30 years ago, but change ONLY happened when Britain started to TALK to the IRA, and when it gave Irish Catholics more say in the government in Northern Ireland. Once people were negotiated with, rather than dictated to, progress was made.

If you are implying that the response to terrorism is a sincere apology, you need to find a different buyer. If I've misread you implication, feel free to clarify. And feel free to address what I really asked.

If peace is your aspiration, then a sincere apology should probably be on the table. Don't take my word for it, ask the British government and the IRA.

However, my point was much simpler than an apology. If we expect people to stop planning to kill us and ours, then we should probably stop killing them and theirs. If we don't want people planting bombs in our buildings, then we should probably refrain from dropping bombs on theirs.

Somebody has to be the adult first and stop the killing and start the talking. Killing is simple, peace is hard.

If we want peace in the world, we should STOP selling weapons all over the planet. We should STOP propping up dictators. We should STOP invading other countries simply to further our own greed.

If we cannot restore life to those from whom it was unjustly taken, we shouldn't be dealing out death to those we THINK deserve it.

Remember that the people spoken of as "patriots" and the "Founding Fathers of a great nation" in our history books were, in fact, invaders who stole the land from the people already living here, and who enslaved an entire race for profit for 250 years, then continued to exploit and mistreat the same race for the next 150 years (and counting).

We murder and mistreat people different from ourselves, then we are shocked, SHOCKED, that they fight back.