If I Can Choose Only One, I'd Rather Be Feared Than Loved

Jay Homnick makes no apologies -- moral or legal -- for eliminating the number three man in Al Qaeda, Hamza Rabia, killed by a missile fired from an unmanned "drone" U.S. aircraft, in The American Spectator:

The real War on Terror may be kicking in now. Now we have to get individual al Qaeda members who may be lurking in attics and cellars anywhere and everywhere. At this point the logic of war between the United States of America and a private-sector gang involves bestowing upon them a sort of honorary sovereignty. They are the government-in-exile of the sovereign nation of al Qaeda and every one of them is an ambassador. Their home, in whatever host country, is a piece of enemy territory. The principle of embassy status and diplomatic immunity is applied in reverse.

Look, they came here and bombed us with their Air Force. Does it really matter that their fleet was acquired through piracy of commercial air craft? In the same way, we view Hamza Rabia's house in Pakistan as occupying a legal status distinct from the rest of that ally country. His house is an al Qaeda embassy with discrete sovereignty and as long as we don't mess Pakistani lawns too badly with shrapnel and body parts, we reserve the right to act on our declaration of war. Or better said, on our engaging of their declaration of war.

If this sounds like a creative new principle of international law, indeed that it just what is intended. It is an approach that responds to the new postmodern reality of war so mobile that it can strike anywhere despite its lack of a sovereign author or even sponsor. We cannot be forced to observe classic restrictions such as borders when the enemy is neither defined nor fettered by same.

(via NIF)