Radical American Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki Killed

[Vympel]

Or, in short, internal US legal justifications must follow international law which consists of treaties the US has signed.

And the idiocy continues - so if they must, I guess that means they do, right? Fucking moron.

American internal justifications are based on international law.

Are they? How do you know that, given American internal justifications for the assassination are compeltely secret memos produced by the OLC, and no one in the public domain has ever read them, you clueless twat?

[Samuel]

And the idiocy continues - so if they must, I guess that means they do, right? Fucking moron.

Previously

The internal legal rationales of a nation state have no bearing, whatsoever, on questions of international law.

Wow, it looks like I responding to something entirely different. I'm saying they have bearing. Someday you will learn to read.
Edit:might as well spell this out here. Bearing means that internal legal memos would have to justify themselves in terms of international law for actions that come under the perview of international law.

Are they? How do you know that, given American internal justifications for the assassination are compeltely secret memos produced by the OLC, and no one in the public domain has ever read them, you clueless twat?

Because US domestic law does not in fact cover international issues? It is sort of a given. It is like asking how I know a legal brief concerning murder will us the word homicide.

Are you going to bother responding to the rest of the post that had content specifically destroying your position or are you going to continue your wall of ignorance?

[Vympel]

Wow, it looks like I responding to something entirely different. I'm saying they have bearing. Someday you will learn to read.

The fact that countries are bound by international treaties does not somehow magically translate into a countries internal justifications for its own conduct having bearing on whether a given action is legal in terms of international law, you silly fuck - which is the issue. Nice attempt to backpedal there.

Because US domestic law does not in fact cover international issues? It is sort of a given. It is like asking how I know a legal brief concerning murder will us the word homicide.

LOL, what the fuck? I love this - so to sum up - even though you have no idea what the USA's actual justifications for its conduct are, you are sure they're in accordance with international law because you can safely assume they'll mention international law.

What a brilliant argument you just deployed. Clearly, the legality of US actions under international law has been conclusively established, as previously asserted by you!

Do you not understand the simple concept that merely because the United States might cook up reasoning that its actions are in accordance with international law (reasoning you are not even fucking aware of) - that doesn't mean they actually are.

Are you going to bother responding to the rest of the post that had content specifically destroying your position

Which content was that? A series of unsubstantiated assertions by some random ignorant idiot that has nothing whatsoever to do with international law?

[Samuel]

The fact that countries are bound by international treaties does not somehow magically translate into a countries internal justifications for its own conduct having bearing on whether a given action is legal in terms of international law, you silly fuck - which is the issue. Nice attempt to backpedal there.

Once again:

The internal legal rationales of a nation state have no bearing, whatsoever, on questions of international law.

This is what I am responding to, not your imaginary version of me. The internal legal justifications have bearing because countries frame their justifications in terms of international law.

you are sure they're in accordance with international law because you can safely assume they'll mention international law.

Which I never claimed. Please read. It is a useful ability. I am saying internal justifications will be given in terms of international law.

Do you not understand the simple concept that merely because the United States might cook up reasoning that its actions are in accordance with international law (reasoning you are not even fucking aware of) - that doesn't mean they actually are.

Which I never claimed. I'm simply saying that we can use the justifications provided by the US government for their actions because they are written in terms of international law.

Which content was that? A series of unsubstantiated assertions by some random ignorant idiot that has nothing whatsoever to do with international law?

Legitimate military target is a concept from international law. It is defined by the Geneva Conventions. How you can say the decision about wheter an individual is a legitimate military target is not a question of international law...

[Vympel]

This is what I am responding to, not your imaginary version of me. The internal legal justifications have bearing because countries frame their justifications in terms of international law.

Which is an utterly meaningless statement of no probative value that has nothing to do with the topic. You are a dishonest backpeddler, nothing more.

Which I never claimed. Please read. It is a useful ability. I am saying internal justifications will be given in terms of international law.

Which is, again, an utterly meaningless statement of no probative value.

Which I never claimed. I'm simply saying that we can use the justifications provided by the US government for their actions because they are written in terms of international law.

No, you fucking can't. Because, once more you don't know what they are so as to be able to independently assess their legal merit by reference to the law they purport to appeal to - if any.

Legitimate military target is a concept from international law. It is defined by the Geneva Conventions. How you can say

Spare me your inane strawmen. The argument that "legitimate military target" in the Geneva Conventions apply to blowing up a propagandist in Yemen, far from any actual battlefield, is obviously nonsense, and none of the entirely unsubstantiated assertions presented as to Awlaki's being a threat change that fact.

[Samuel]

Which is an utterly meaningless statement of no probative value that has nothing to do with the topic. You are a dishonest backpeddler, nothing more.

The US is perfectly capable of self-justifying, but that doesn't make the legal rationales they give any less true.

Your full of shit.

The argument that "legitimate military target" in the Geneva Conventions apply to blowing up a propagandist in Yemen, far from any actual battlefield, is obviously nonsense, and none of the entirely unsubstantiated assertions presented as to Awlaki's being a threat change that fact.

Argument from personal incredulity is not, nor has ever been a logically coherant responce.

[Vympel]

Your full of shit.

What an incisive rebuttal! Lets repeat, since you're too fucking stupid to understand:-

once more you don't know what they are so as to be able to independently assess their legal merit by reference to the law they purport to appeal to - if any.

Argument from personal incredulity is not

What I just did. All the rationale I needed is right there as to why you and your ilk are completely full of shit.

[Samuel]

Which I never claimed.

My first post on the subject:

The US is perfectly capable of self-justifying, but that doesn't make the legal rationales they give any less true. You are dismissing a source because you don't like the author. To dismiss it, you must show the reasons it gives are wrong. This is, once again, basic logic you seem to not understand.

I was saying that US justifications are acceptable as evidence, not that I was using US justifications as evidence.

I have repeated this multiple times.

What I just did. All the rationale I needed is right there as to why you and your ilk are completely full of shit.

No it isn't. Once again, logical argumentation. Must I remind you that the failure of one argument does not mean all arguments from the same source are wrong? You have failed, at any point to come up with a coherant rebutal to the information I posted.

Personal favorite:

apply to blowing up a propagandist in Yemen, far from any actual battlefield,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Insurgency_in_Yemen
The Shia Insurgency in Yemen[36][37] is a civil war in Northern Yemen.[38] It began in June 2004 when dissident cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, head of the Shia Zaidiyyah sect, launched an uprising against the Yemeni government. Most of the fighting has taken place in Sa'dah Governorate in northwestern Yemen although some of the fighting spread to neighbouring governorates Hajjah, 'Amran, al-Jawf and the Saudi province of Jizan.

[Vympel]

Which I never claimed.

I was saying that US justifications are acceptable as evidence, not that I was using US justifications as evidence.

I have repeated this multiple times.

Which is simply backpedalling. Let's note, once more, that you asserted the assassination of Awlaki was legal under "international law". No credible rationale in this regard has been presented.

No it isn't. Once again, logical argumentation. Must I remind you that the failure of one argument does not mean all arguments from the same source are wrong? You have failed, at any point to come up with a coherant rebutal to the information I posted.

The information you posted is nothing but a series of assertions (and one hilarious instance of circular logic*) predicated of a false premise. They have no merit whatsoever.

The Shia Insurgency in Yemen

Does not somehow magically translate into credibly placing a propagandist on a battlefield to be killed as a 'legitimate military target'. It is entirely irrelevant to the point.

* "He was actively fighting as a combatant for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. His presence on the drone strike list was a direct consequence of that fact."

Can be translated into:- He was placed on the drone strike list because he was a combatant for Al Qaeda and he was a combatant for Al Qaeda because he was placed on the drone strike list.

[Andrew J.]

Can be translated into:- He was placed on the drone strike list because he was a combatant for Al Qaeda and he was a combatant for Al Qaeda because he was placed on the drone strike list.

Awlaki was a combatant for Al Qaeda because he exercised a continuous combat function, you blithering idiot.

[Samuel]

Which is simply backpedalling.

It is a reply to an entirely different statement.

Let's note, once more, that you asserted the assassination of Awlaki was legal under "international law". No credible rationale in this regard has been presented.

I presented evidence. You refused to read it.

The information you posted is nothing but a series of assertions (and one hilarious instance of circular logic*) predicated of a false premise. They have no merit whatsoever.

And your responce has been to ignore this.

Does not somehow magically translate into credibly placing a propagandist on a battlefield to be killed as a 'legitimate military target'. It is entirely irrelevant to the point.

Previously

apply to blowing up a propagandist in Yemen, far from any actual battlefield,

You claimed Yemen was far from an actual battlefield. You were wrong.

In fact I previously posted this:

Had he not gone to Yemen to join up with that paramilitary belligerent force and instead gone to some country that was not in the middle of an Islamist-backed civil war,

So no, you didn't bother reading anything I have posted you dishonest son of a bitch.

The rest of the information I posted goes into why he was a valid military target, but you didn't bother reading that either. To reiterate, again:

He was acting as an officer of the paramilitary insurgent group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This is not at issue. His association with Al Qaeda was directly confirmed by al-Awlaki in various jihad propaganda and media. His role in operational planning has been the subject of considerable investigation by the US, and the evidence was sufficiently overwhelming that the UN Security Council placed him on the sanctions list of Al Qaeda operatives created under Resolution 1267.

[Vympel]

It is a reply to an entirely different statement.

No, its what I said it is. You were embarassed by your ignorance and so have decided to strip all context from the discussion so you can pretend you were just saying completely useless twaddle that has nothing to do with anything.

I presented

Assertions.

And your responce has been to ignore this.

Yes, that's what you do with that sort of pap.

You claimed Yemen was far from an actual battlefield. You were wrong.

The existence of an insurgency in Yemen does not magically turn any given location in the entire country into a battlefield on which it is permissible to kill anyone however related thereto.

In fact I previously posted this:

So no, you didn't bother reading anything I have posted you dishonest son of a bitch.

There's nothing dishonest about ignoring a plainly irrelevant attempt to blame the dead for their own fate.

The rest of the information I posted goes into why he was a valid military target, but you didn't bother reading that either. To reiterate

He was acting as an officer of the paramilitary insurgent group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This is not at issue. His association with Al Qaeda was directly confirmed by al-Awlaki in various jihad propaganda and media. His role in operational planning has been the subject of considerable investigation by the US

Assertions that US made "considerable investigations" are not evidence, and mean precisely zero.

and the evidence was sufficiently overwhelming that the UN Security Council placed him on the sanctions list of Al Qaeda operatives created under Resolution 1267.

The sanctions list created under Resolution 1267 only demonstrates that he was considered an associate of Al Qaeda. Nothing more. This does not make him a combatant, nor does anything under Resolution 1267 authorise his killing.

[Bakustra]

Al-Qaeda is considered to be an anti-Shi'a group, and the head of AQAP declared "war" on the Shi'a rebels. In fact, at least one Yemeni governor appears to have used al-Qaeda as a mercenary force Using a Shi'a uprising in Yemen as an example of a "battlefield" where al-Qaeda can be hunted down suggests scenarios wherein people can be killed just for being in a tangentially related warzone at best, assuming that these reports are exaggerated or false or obsolete. If they are not, then we are, by what you are saying, intervening simultaneously on both the Yemeni government's side and the side of the rebels. Utter insanity.

Of course, that is if we accept the possibility of declaring war on a non-national group.

[Vympel]

If they are not, then we are, by what you are saying, intervening simultaneously on both the Yemeni government's side and the side of the rebels. Utter insanity.

That sort of absurdity is a natural result of cooking up your own rationalizations for why something is justified after you've already decided that it is.

[Samuel]

No, its what I said it is.

So your responce to what I said is "no it isn't". What are you, four?

There's nothing dishonest about ignoring a plainly irrelevant attempt to blame the dead for their own fate.

Yes, the idea that the US targeted a Al-Queda operative legally is irrelevant

The sanctions list created under Resolution 1267 only demonstrates that he was considered an associate of Al Qaeda. Nothing more. This does not make him a combatant, nor does anything under Resolution 1267 authorise his killing.

No, that would be the other 20 paragraphs you refuse to read. The ones you declare are "blaming the dead".

Using a Shi'a uprising in Yemen as an example of a "battlefield" where al-Qaeda can be hunted down suggests scenarios wherein people can be killed just for being in a tangentially related warzone at best, assuming that these reports are exaggerated or false or obsolete. If they are not, then we are, by what you are saying, intervening simultaneously on both the Yemeni government's side and the side of the rebels. Utter insanity.

I'm not using it to claim that. Vympel claimed:

apply to blowing up a propagandist in Yemen, far from any actual battlefield,

The uprising was the first hit I got off google. I used it to show he is wrong. I'm not using it to discuss legality.

The reason I did this is because it was previously mentioned that Yemen is undergoing civil war (in my posts- twice!) and Vympel claimed to have read them.

Or to put it compactly
Vympel claims to have read my posts
Posts contain reference to civil war
Vympel doesn't know existence of civil war
Therefore
Vympel didn't read my posts and is lying

Of course, that is if we accept the possibility of declaring war on a non-national group.

How about you adress your points to Master of Ossus, who is arguing this in the old thread? The one you inexplicably left. I'm only here because Vympel ignored my repeated polite request to take a look at the other thread.

[Bakustra]

Thanks for not understanding my objection, or not getting what an aside is.

Let me lay this out for you. You used the Shi'a uprising as an example of Yemen being a battlefield. This could be seen as being dishonest, since what Vympel was implying, (that's one of those things that humans do, in case you're an apologeticsbot model focused on the USA) is that al-Awlaki was far from a battlefield where the US could reasonably claim to be engaging al-Qaedam, again with my disclaimer. Instead, you're apparently being sincerely dumb.

But, at best, al-Qaeda was neutral in that conflict, and in fact may have been actively belligerent against the rebel forces. So either the battlefield means "any conflict ever", in which case it's time to use the Maoist insurgency in India to blow the fuck out of any contributors to al-Qaeda magazines in Kerala or Madras or wherever, or it means that the US was engaged in support of rebel forces in Yemen, while simultaneously claiming to be helping Yemen against al-Qaeda, which is actual insanity.

Vympel dismisses the Yemen civil war as irrelevant because it is irrelevant to the question of al-Qaeda. It's no more relevant than the Maoist insurgency I mentioned. So why bring it up? Well, according to you, it's because rather than discuss anything, you prefer to try and make your opponents look bad, which handily explains why you dismiss anything Glenn Greenwald writes.

[Vympel]

So your responce to what I said is "no it isn't". What are you, four?

Actually it was, "no it isn't, and this is why."

And given your idea of a response is simply "Your full of shit" you really shouldn't be whining.

Yes, the idea that an Al-Queda operative is to blame for his own fate is irrelevant

Fixed it for you.

No, that would be the other 20 paragraphs you refuse to read. The ones you declare are "blaming the dead".

No, dumbass. I declared only what you quoted, above my particular reply, blaming the dead. Otherwise, I've still read all of your nonsense, and it remains just that.

I'm not using it to claim that.

Yes you were, dipshit. I'm noting this is a constant feature of your posts - you get your idiocy rebutted, so you simply pretend you were talking about something completely different that goes nowhere to progressing the actual topic that is being discussed, but is instead merely constructed to try and make your opponent look 'technically' wrong - a cheap attempt at point scoring.

But for those who aren't drooling fucking nincompoops, when someone disputes that Yemen can be considered a battlefield where the argument has been made that Awlaki was a "legitimate military target", that is the context in which that statement is being made. Saying "but there is an insurgency in Yemen!" is not a valid retort, its the mewling of a giant fucking baby.

[Elfdart]

I see now that John Wilkes Obama has just assassinated Awlaki's 16-year-old son. Good thing the Hitman-in-Chief whacked Abdulrahman al-Awlaki when he was so young. It saves the taxpayers the cost of using a predator drone on any Awlaki grandkids.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This is absurd. It's not like the US is claiming some new power which is unprecedented in international law. Indeed, the US went to significant lengths in this particular case to conform its actions with international law. The US is not "establishing" some new rule--it is only operating within the clear bounds of existing rules.

The problem is not international law dipshit (but for an analysis of US actions with respect to international law, I will direct youhere), the problem is our domestic law, and the precedent not just the killing of al-Awlaki and the other individuals sets. You are missing the forest through the trees. Irrespective of whether or not the killing of al-Awlaki was legal in itself (something given the circumstances I will concede), the secret list he was on, and the way in which that secret list is compiled is most certainly illegal. The legal precedent that creating a secret list containing US nationals who are to be assassinated without due process is dangerous and doing so most certainly violates the US constitution. Shooting someone who is shooting you is one thing. Deciding a priori to kill them is another.

When you have such a list, what is exactly is stopping abuse? The honesty of the executive branch and the honest forthrightness of our Valiant Soldiers and the CIA who does the killing?

[Thanas]

Thanas, you're full of shit. The fight of the US, and Yemen, and Uganda, and to an extent Pakistan, and others I've forgotten against Al-Quaeda is NOT nation state war. It is not a matter of civilian law enforcement, no matter how much Bill Clinton's staff tried to portray it back in the 1990s. It's a strange conflict against a transnational, terrorist group with military capability.

Which makes it any special from other fights against transnational, terrorist groups with military capability which are still dealt with police forces outside of active battlegrounds?

US and international law rulings have decided that ANY and ALL Al-Quaeda personnel are legitimate targets. They don't have to be trigger-pullers, if they are AQ members they are dead men walking. Period dot, full stop.

Source?

In Awlaki's case, the USG went to IMO extraordinary lengths to verify their target and minimize non-affiliated civilian casualties after an unsuccessful capture attempt by Yemeni forces! MarshallPurnell lays it out in terms even you can understand. The horse is dead; why do you keep beating it?

No, he doesn't, especially as I see no evidence a snatch/grap operation could not have succeeded. I've seen no evidence whatsoever that he was actively fighting the usa. At best he was a propagandist.

[MarshalPurnell]

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is an insurgent group which has carried out armed attacks against the Yemeni government, and which controls significant territory in Yemen. This means that the struggle between the Yemeni Government and AQAP (as well as the many other tribal insurgent groups in Yemen) meets the criteria for a "armed conflict not of an international nature" put forward by the ICRC at the 1949 Geneva Convention negotiations.

1. ' Introductory sentence -- Field of application of the Article '

A. ' Cases of armed conflict. ' What is meant by "armed conflict not of an international character"? The expression is so general, so vague, that many of the delegations feared that it might be taken to cover any act committed by force of arms -- any form of anarchy, rebellion, or even plain banditry. For example, if a handful of individuals were to rise in rebellion against the State and attack a police station, would that suffice to bring into being an armed conflict within the meaning of the Article? In order to reply to questions of this sort, it was suggested that the term "conflict" should be defined or -- and this would come to the same thing -- that a list should be given of a certain number of conditions on which the application of the Convention would depend. The idea was finally abandoned, and wisely so. Nevertheless, these different conditions, although in no way obligatory, constitute convenient criteria, and we therefore think it well to give a list drawn from the various amendments discussed; they are as follows (13):

[p.36] (1) That the Party in revolt against the de jure Government possesses an
organized military force, an authority responsible for its acts,
acting within a determinate territory and having the means of
respecting and ensuring respect for the Convention.

(2) That the legal Government is obliged to have recourse to the regular
military forces against insurgents organized as military and in
possession of a part of the national territory.

(3) (a) That the de jure Government has recognized the insurgents as
belligerents; or
(b) That it has claimed for itself the rights of a belligerent; or
(c) That it has accorded the insurgents recognition as belligerents
for the purposes only of the present Convention; or
(d) That the dispute has been admitted to the agenda of the Security
Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations as being a
threat to international peace, a breach of the peace, or an act
of aggression.

(4) (a) That the insurgents have an organization purporting to have the
characteristics of a State.
(b) That the insurgent civil authority exercises de facto authority
over the population within a determinate portion of the national
territory.
(c) That the armed forces act under the direction of an organized
authority and are prepared to observe the ordinary laws of war.
(d) That the insurgent civil authority agrees to be bound by the
provisions of the Convention.

The participation of the United States as an auxiliary military force assisting the Yemeni government against the insurgents is not a question that arises under international law. The Yemeni government has requested American aid in the hostilities and that is that. There are no grounds under international law to challenge that in the face of the approval of the Yemeni government. And al-Awlaki's membership in AQAP is completely unquestionable, to the point that the UNSC has recognized and deemed him as such, thanks in large part to his own public statements- not that either are traditionally required to establish proof of belligerency. Thanas' argument that he was not taking a direct part in combat and was therefore immune to being engaged as a combatant assumes that al-Awlaki was not contributing directly to the military efforts of AQAP and that personnel of a belligerent force not exercising direct combat functions are the equivalent of civilians in being given immunity to direct enemy action. On the first part we have al-Awlaki's own statements that he was participating in war, and that the Yemeni government's operations against AQAP included an effort to capture him that was resisted successfully; and for the second there has never been an exemption for logistics personnel, or other kinds of support personnel, save those enumerated by the Geneva Conventions such as chaplains and medical corpsmen, whose immunity is lost when they participate in "offensive" actions.

If, as his own videos imply, al-Awlaki was responsible for recruiting "students" and encouraging them to follow in the footsteps of Nidal Hassan and Umar Abdulmattallab, and if Abdulmattallab's confession that al-Awlaki was present at an AQAP training camp is taken, there is certainly plenty of reason to believe he had some operational role in AQAP terrorist operations even if at the minor level of recruitment and ideological preparation. That would be more than sufficient to mark him as a direct contributor to the offensive operations of AQAP even without any other such electronic or human intelligence as may be possessed by the US or which was demonstrated in his trial in Yemen. And as the failure of the Yemeni commando operation to seize him demonstrated, a "snatch and grab" operation was not a simple affair, assuming the US even had any uncommitted special forces teams available and the resources in-country to support them. If such an operation included unsustainable risk or could not happen within the limited window of opportunity before al-Awlaki escaped, then killing him was perfectly acceptable under the criteria laid out by the Department of Justice memo.

[Samuel]

This is absurd. It's not like the US is claiming some new power which is unprecedented in international law. Indeed, the US went to significant lengths in this particular case to conform its actions with international law. The US is not "establishing" some new rule--it is only operating within the clear bounds of existing rules.

The problem is not international law dipshit (but for an analysis of US actions with respect to international law, I will direct youhere), the problem is our domestic law, and the precedent not just the killing of al-Awlaki and the other individuals sets. You are missing the forest through the trees. Irrespective of whether or not the killing of al-Awlaki was legal in itself (something given the circumstances I will concede), the secret list he was on, and the way in which that secret list is compiled is most certainly illegal. The legal precedent that creating a secret list containing US nationals who are to be assassinated without due process is dangerous and doing so most certainly violates the US constitution. Shooting someone who is shooting you is one thing. Deciding a priori to kill them is another.

When you have such a list, what is exactly is stopping abuse? The honesty of the executive branch and the honest forthrightness of our Valiant Soldiers and the CIA who does the killing?

This is the same argument Simon Jester made. I'm pretty sure there have been responces to this in the thread.

page 2

The "strike list" is explicitly predicated on members of the list being legitimate military targets, which is how it gets around the Executive Order barring assassination as a tool of policy. Al-Awlaki got on the list by going to Yemen, joining a paramilitary force fighting against an American ally, and openly advertising his allegiance and contributions. Had he not made himself into a legitimate target he would not be on the strike list. His presence in Yemen as an enemy combatant rendered an indictment pointless as there would be no means to deliver it or to have him detained by normal police processes.

Does this answer your question?

[Samuel]

Thanks for not understanding my objection, or not getting what an aside is.

Let me lay this out for you. You used the Shi'a uprising as an example of Yemen being a battlefield. This could be seen as being dishonest, since what Vympel was implying, (that's one of those things that humans do, in case you're an apologeticsbot model focused on the USA) is that al-Awlaki was far from a battlefield where the US could reasonably claim to be engaging al-Qaedam, again with my disclaimer. Instead, you're apparently being sincerely dumb.

But, at best, al-Qaeda was neutral in that conflict, and in fact may have been actively belligerent against the rebel forces. So either the battlefield means "any conflict ever", in which case it's time to use the Maoist insurgency in India to blow the fuck out of any contributors to al-Qaeda magazines in Kerala or Madras or wherever, or it means that the US was engaged in support of rebel forces in Yemen, while simultaneously claiming to be helping Yemen against al-Qaeda, which is actual insanity.

Vympel dismisses the Yemen civil war as irrelevant because it is irrelevant to the question of al-Qaeda. It's no more relevant than the Maoist insurgency I mentioned. So why bring it up? Well, according to you, it's because rather than discuss anything, you prefer to try and make your opponents look bad, which handily explains why you dismiss anything Glenn Greenwald writes.

Once again:

apply to blowing up a propagandist in Yemen, far from any actual battlefield,

I'm also curious you bring this up to attack me instead of the entire thread devoted to the subject. The words "running like a coward" come to mind. Don't worry though- Thanas has gratefully decided to place you back in the shark pond.

As for Vympel's arguments...

Actually it was, "no it isn't, and this is why."

What he claims is content

No, its what I said it is. You were embarassed by your ignorance and so have decided to strip all context from the discussion so you can pretend you were just saying completely useless twaddle that has nothing to do with anything.

Vympel does not actually say why. He claims it was context... which he never gives. Lets look at it shall we?

Indeed, if you had actually read what I said rather than ignoring it, you would've seen that I specifically addressed the complete speciousness of appealing to the USA's own internal justifications* for why its allowed to do something (for which any number of unscrupulous hacks whose mission is to justify unchecked executive power are available) as somehow being relevant to questions of "international law".

*Not, of course, that we even know what these justifications are. Though there are many people who would seek to justify American's behavior in the world, the actual justifications that were made up by government officials - after the order to kill Alwaki had already been made (always a good sign!) - by way of memo, remain secret (save for anonymous leaks). Given the sort of absurd legal nonsense the Bush administration routinely engaged to justify its own illegalities was also kept secret (OLC memos, aka "secret law") this is unsurprising. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Vympel]

Once again, I will pretend I was talking about something completely different that goes nowhere to progressing the actual topic that is being discussed, but is instead merely constructed to try and make my opponent look 'technically' wrong - a cheap attempt at point scoring.

To repeat, for those who aren't drooling fucking nincompoops, when someone disputes that Yemen can be considered a battlefield where the argument has been made that Awlaki was a "legitimate military target", that is the context in which that statement is being made. Saying "but there is an insurgency in Yemen!" is not a valid retort, its the mewling of a giant fucking baby.

Vympel does not actually say why. He claims it was context... which he never gives. Lets look at it shall we?

You really are a stupid bastard. I pointed out exactly what the context was. I've even repeated it.

[Vympel]

This is the same argument Simon Jester made. I'm pretty sure there have been responces to this in the thread.

...

Does this answer your question?

Why don't you explain how it answers Alyrium's question, you worthless moron? I'm starting to wonder if you have anything meaningful to say apart from parrotting random other posters without rhyme or reason.