Targeted Killing

Michael J Totten discusses the recent Obama administration decision to authorise the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American Muslim leader currently hiding in Yemen who has allegedly encouraged and planned terrorist attacks against Americans. It is, as Totten notes, an odd kind of thing for a supposedly liberal president to do, and the general lack of criticism might suggest a certain degree of hypocrisy on the part of those who were so keen to castigate Bush for Guantanamo - where, for all the water-boarding, no one as far as I'm aware was actually assassinated.

Anwar al-Awlaki, despite his extremist and odious views - praising, for instance, Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hasan - has not actually been indicted for any crime. But could there be occasions when a state would be justified in authorising the targeted killing of an individual? I wouldn't want to lay down any general rules, but I can think of one case in particular where the answer, for me, would be yes. I was reminded of it by this article:

Formed in 1987, the group is motivated by a complex mix of fundamentalist Christianity and allegiance to the traditions of the Acholi people of northern Uganda. Its leader, General Joseph Kony, aims to dislodge the Ugandan government headed by Yoweri Museveni and replace it with one led by northerners, who enjoyed privileged status during the first 20 years of Uganda’s independence. But when Museveni’s military drove the LRA out of the nation in 1994, the group initiated a period of brutal wandering. Uganda’s northern and western neighbours, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have each taken turns as bases for the rebels, who move in small, ultraviolent gangs that abduct villagers, drug them and force them to work and fight for the insurgency. The LRA prefers to kidnap children, who are taught the Acholi language and raised to revere Kony. (They learn that powerful magic protects Kony from the Ugandan military, and that he can appear and disappear at will.) An American diplomat in Bangui compared the group to the Manson family, but given that the LRA has killed 12,000 people, the comparison is self-evidently unfair to Manson.

A method of recruitment favoured by the Lord's Resistance Army is to force children to murder their parents or relatives. Those who displease them, if they're not killed outright, may have their ears and lips cut off. Sexual slavery is - it hardly needs saying - commonplace. Whole swathes of northern Uganda, the north-eastern Congo and the Central African Republic have been decimated by the LRA's extraordinary and ruthless cruelty. They were originally supported by the Sudanese, but that was at the time of the civil war, in supposed retaliation for Ugandan support for Southern Sudanese rebel groups. Now they just wander round terrorising local populations, as Joseph Kony tries to evade capture and trial by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The last time the LRA made the news (and then you'd have had to search for it) was when a massacre of over 300 was uncovered in the north-eastern Congo a couple of months ago.

The Ugandan army has been singularly unsuccessful to date in their efforts against the LRA. In the case of a movement led by a charismatic leader, much of whose power lies in his supposed invulnerability, how much better, rather than frontal assault, to target the man at the top. One rifle shot is all it takes. No, it wouldn't be the end, but it would certainly mark the beginning of the end. Other leaders might step up, but...they're not Kony.

Of course it'll take generations to deal with the legacy of hatred and brutality left behind, but you have to start somewhere.

In general I'd agree that state-sponsored targeted killing is a very bad idea...but there might be exceptions.

Comments

[Dom]

"...no one as far as I'm aware was actually assassinated."

It's widely suspected that three people were murdered: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368

Kony doesn't really fit the bill here. It would be easy to indict him for crimes. He can be captured and brought to court. In fact, as you point out, the ICC has a warrant against him, so even his capture is justified. The case against
Anwar al-Awlaki is just that his views are wretched. The administration wants to murder him because he can't be brought to an American court -- most would find him not-guilty.

I'm beginning to get an awful feeling about this age of Obama. The American press has been digging deeply to check on the status of each individual in Guantanamo as long as Bush was involved. But they shield their eyes now that Obama is in office.

I went through 8 years of that BusHitler nonsense. Now I find that the phrase "Obama regime" only gets the press out to decry the harsh seditious language.

[Mick H]

Wasn't aware of those three deaths - thanks for the link.

As far as Kony goes, yes, in theory he could be captured, but it's been quite a few years now, and he's still out there.

[Peter]

For an in-depth look at Kony and the LRA, see the book, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.

[clazy]

If you are already at war with some group, how could it be immoral/illegal to kill its leader? I would think that once war had been declared, diplomatic niceties cease to hold. Am I missing something?

[Mick H]

Well, Obama's administration have been playing down the "war on terror" rhetoric. Also, it's not clear if al-Awlaki is an al-Qaeda member. He's just someone who happens largely to agree with them.