<http://www.nypost.com/> clip_image001Updated: Sat., May. 7, 2011, 10:14 AM Why not kill Khadafy? By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON Last Updated: 10:14 AM, May 7, 2011 Posted: 9:46 PM, May 6, 2011 The welcome end of Osama bin Laden at the hands of helicopter- borne US military commandos raises a number of issues. Privately, Americans are probably relieved that this psychopathic mass murderer wasn't captured. If he had been taken alive, we might be revisiting the controversy surrounding the Obama administration's failed efforts to try in a civilian federal court bin Laden's subordinate, Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- the master planner behind 9/11. But what, exactly, are the moral, legal or practical rules in going after terrorist leaders or the savage dictators of rogue regimes? We went into a foreign country to kill, not capture, bin Laden. Was that killing permissible since a firefight preceded it, or because he was a terrorist rather than a head of state? Furor surrounded the waterboarding of KSM that purportedly resulted in valuable intelligence about future terrorist operations. But why was that considered immoral and illegal when we routinely act as judge, jury and executioner of suspected terrorists via predator-drone attacks? KSM, a confessed killer, was one of just three detainees waterboarded. In contrast, we've executed well over 1,500 suspected terrorists by Predators. President Obama has ordered four times as many drone attacks in the last two years as former President Bush did in eight. Are those killings more constitutionally suspect than Bush's treatment of the three terrorists at Guantanamo? Last week, NATO planes deliberately targeted Moammar Khadafy's family compound and residence in Tripoli, purportedly killing his youngest son. A surviving son not long ago bought a doctorate from the London School of Economics and wined and dined Western intellectuals and oil executives. When do dictators' sons devolve from darlings to demons? America had just days earlier sent two predator drones to Libya -- no doubt to help the British and French focus their attacks on the Khadafy family. Are such targeted airborne assassinations the type of killings expressly forbidden by US law? Or are they permissible on the grounds that enemy dictators are military commanders -- and their fortified homes are thus legitimate wartime targets? Could we then legally, morally or practically drop a team in Tripoli to kill Khadafy in the manner that we killed bin Laden? First, it seems OK to assassinate a terrorist kingpin either by air attack or commando raid. But legal and moral problems arise if he's captured, detained, waterboarded or tried in a military tribunal. A quick death seems to end almost all legal discussions and controversies. Second, there is also no problem in assassinating a foreign dictator as long as the mission meets two criteria: We must be engaged in some sort of conventional battle with his forces, and we have to kill him through aerial bombing. For some reason, vaporization by a bomb seems to raise fewer ethical issues than execution by a sniper's bullet. Third, targeted assassinations are better done under liberal presidents, who are more likely to be seen as humanitarians who only reluctantly order such killings. The Bush antiterrorism protocols -- tribunals, renditions, Predator assassinations, Gitmo -- were decried as illegal and immoral. Yet such furor vanished when Obama embraced or expanded them all. The effort to preemptively remove the mass-murdering Saddam Hussein to foster democracy was seen by many as morally wrong -- and yet preemptively bombing Khadafy to foster democracy is now considered morally justified. Fourth, success seems to end moral ambiguity in much the same way failure invites it. Had we landed in the wrong Pakistani compound, legal and ethical issues would've been raised. If we keep killing members of the Khadafy family without hitting Khadafy himself, at some point the denial of targeted assassination will seem empty. Assassinations apparently have to work on the first or second try to be deemed moral and legal. In recent years, America has been in a number of undeclared wars against terrorists, insurgents and authoritarian dictators whom we sought to kill, capture or put on trial. It is about time that we clarified the rules that determine their fates. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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