Targeted Killing Research Paper

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Targeted Killing: Self-Defense, Preemption, and the War on Terrorism
By Thomas B. Hunter April 29, 2005 Introduction This essay will endeavor to examine the concept of ‘targeted killing’ in the international war against terrorism by assessing the norms states employ in justifying the offensive use of force in countering the threats posed by individuals involved in terrorist activity against the state. Specifically, due to the asymmetric nature of terrorism, the unique nature of responses required to defeat it, and the lack of any binding international laws governing the practice of targeted killing, this is an option that is increasingly attractive to states confronted with a terrorist threat. This paper will not seek to address the more controversial moral and ethical implications of this type of policy or its consequences. Defining and Explaining Targeted Killing Discussions pertaining to a national-level policy of premeditated killing of suspected or known terrorists have historically been hampered by the lack of an effective and agreed upon definition of this type of policy. Such terms as ‘extrajudicial killing’, extrajudicial punishment’, ‘selective targeting’, ‘assassination policy’, and even ‘long-range hot pursuit’ have been used to describe this very specific type of activity.1 While some of these terms have merit, others serve only to complicate the discussion. For purposes of this discussion, the author adopts the term ‘targeted killing’ for the following reasons. First and foremost, this type of offensive counterterrorism action frequently elicits emotional and personal reactions in the public at large2, which can result in more pejorative designations, effectively hindering rational and unbiased discussion of the topic. Second, as will be discussed in the following section, targeted killing is not equivalent to assassination (a term frequently and mistakenly applied to targeted

Bibliography: Adkins, Roy, Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle (Great Britain: Little, Brown, 2004) Asher, Michael, Get Rommel: The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler’s Greatest General (London: The Orion Publishing Group Ltd., 2004) Bennett, Geoffrey, The Battle of Trafalgar (Great Britain: Pen & Sword Military Classics, 2004) Buckley, Mary, and Fawn, Rick, Global Responses to Terrorism (London: Routledge, 2003) Clausewitz, Carl von, On War (Great Britain: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997) Conboy, Kenneth, Shadow War: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos (USA: Paladin Press, 1995) Connor, Ken, Ghost Force: The Secret History of the SAS (London: Cassell, 1998) Corbin, Jane, The Base: Al-Qaida and the Changing Face of Global Terror (Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, 2003) Daftary, Farhad, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma’ilis (London: I.B. 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O’Sullivan (ed.), Noel, Terrorism, Ideology, and Revolution: The Origins of Political Violence (Colorado, USA: Westview Press, 1986) Pillar, Paul R., Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2001) Pugliese, David, Canada’s Secret Commandos (Canada: Esprit de Corps, 2002) Rowan, Brian, Behind the Lines: The Story of the IRA and Loyalist Ceasefires (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press Limited, 1995) Ryan, Mike, Special Operations in Iraq (Great Britain: Pen and Sword Military, 2004) Stevenson, William, 90 Minutes at Entebbe (USA: Bantam Books, 1976) Turner, Stansfield, Terrorism & Democracy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991) Wilkinson, Paul, Terrorism: British Perspectives (England: Dartmouth Publishing Company Limited, 1993) Endnotes 1 See Gal Luft, “The Logic of Israel’s Targeted Killing,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003, Volume X, Number 1. 2 Ibid. 3 David Tucker, “Counterterrorism and the Perils of Preemption Problems and Command and Control,” in Betty Glad and Chris Dolan (eds.), Striking First: The Preventative War Doctrine and the Reshaping of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2004), pgs. 75-89. 4 Thomas Franck, Recourse to Force: State Action Against Threats and Armed Attacks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pgs. 97-108. 5 Eric Hammel, Six Days in June: How Israel Won the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (New York: ibooks, inc., 1992), pgs.165-171. 6 The evidence which led Israel to war included reconnaissance of enemy positions, observations of troop buildups, belligerent talk from enemy leaders (most notably Egyptian president Gamal Nasser), and other obvious indicators. Perhaps most important and provocative among these, however, was the closure of the Straits of Tiran, which effectively blockading the politically important Israeli port of Eilat – one of the reasons Israel went to war with Egypt in 1956. See Hammel, pgs. 33-37 and 40-42. 7 UN Security Council Resolution 487 (1981). http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/418/74/IMG/NR041874.pdf?OpenElement 8 A/RES/37/18, November 18, 1982, http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/37/a37r018.htm 9 http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm 10 Franck, pg. 96. 11 A review of the historical literature reveals many discussions and instances of senior military officers refusing to consider the targeted killing of their counterparts in battle. For example, according to one interesting anecdote, the following exchange took place between the Duke of Wellington and a nearby English artilleryman. Upon seeing French general Napoleon Bonaparte across the field of battle, the artilleryman exclaimed, “There’s Bonaparte, sir. I think I can reach him. May I fire?” The Duke, aghast at the suggestion, replied, “No, no. Generals commanding armies have something else to do than shoot at one another.” See Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), p. 472. 12 Whether Admiral Lord Nelson was intentionally singled out as a target prior to during the battle of Trafalgar is a matter of ongoing debate, though it appears that he may have been targeted once identified by the enemy. According to one account, found in the memoirs of a French sharpshooter who claimed to have fired the fatal shot, “On the poop (deck) of the English vessel was an officer covered with orders and with only one arm. From what I had heard of Nelson, I had no doubt that it was he.” See Geoffrey Bennett, The Battle of Trafalgar (Great Britain: Pen & Sword Military Classics, 2004), p.206. The author could find no credible evidence that the French had given orders for the purposeful killing of Nelson prior to the engagement and his death appears to have been the legitimate outcome of open warfare at sea. It should also be noted that at least one modern study of Trafalgar concluded that Nelson was killed by a stray or ricocheted bullet. See Roy Adkins, Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle (Great Britain: Little, Brown, 2004), pg. 206. 13 For an excellent accounting of Operation Crusader, the failed British attempt to kill Rommel, see Michael Asher, Get Rommel: The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler’s Greatest General (London: The Orion Publishing Group Ltd., 2004). 14 For a detailed accounting of this operation, the author recommends Callum MacDonald, The Killing of SS Obergurppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich (London: Macmillan, 1990). 15 Mike Ryan, Special Operations in Iraq (Great Britain: Pen & Sword Military, 2004), pgs. 42-46. 16 There is some debate as to whether President Roosevelt himself approved the ambush, though at least two authors have cited messages obtained during their research that appear to verify this claim. It is clear, however, that senior U.S. military commanders approved this mission, to include Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet. See Carroll V. Glines, Attack on Yamamoto (New York: Orion Books, 1990), pgs. 1-12. 17 See Article 37 as found in the ‘Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1 Adopted on 8 June 1977 by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armed Conflicts’. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm 18 See http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1202273,00.html and http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-04/24/content_325957.htm 19 The incident referred to here occurred on April 5, 1986 when terrorists detonated a two-kilogram improvised explosive device (IED). The resulting blast and fire killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman and was subsequently cited as the tripwire that brought about Operation El Dorado Canyon. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1653848.stm 20 http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/09/20/libya.sanctions/ 21 See, for example, Major Ralph J. Jodice III, USAF, “El Dorado Canyon: Strategic Strike, National Objectives,” Command and Staff College, 1990; and Walter Boyne, “El Dorado Canyon”, Air Force: Journal of the Air Force Association, March 1999, Vol. 82, No. 3. 22 See, for example, Murray Clark Havens, et al, The Politics of Assassination (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1970), pgs. 2-6. 23 Hyams, Edward, Killing No Murder: A Study of Assassination as a Political Means (Great Britain: Panther Modern Society, 1970), pp. 39-46. 24 Despite the modern acceptance that the term ‘assassin’ was derived from the Ismaili sect as cited previously, the author would like to note that there is considerable modern debate as to the legitimacy of assigning the heritage of the term ‘assassin’ to the Ismaili sect. The primary argument against this is well summarized by Farhad Daftary in The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma’ilis (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994). In this work, Daftary attributes the misnomer to a convoluted progression of misunderstanding and mistranslation. According to Daftary, “The western tradition of calling the Nizari Ismailis by the name of Assassins can be traced to the Crusaders and their Latin chroniclers as well as other occidental observers…the name, or more appropriately misnomer, Assassin, which was originally derived under obscure circumstances from variants of the word hashish, the Arabic name for a narcotic product, and which later became the common occidental term for designating the Nizari Ismailis, soon acquired a new meaning in European languages; it was adopted as a common noun meaning murderer.” While a complete understanding of this new look into the origins of the term assassin is beyond the scope of this paper, the author wishes to acknowledge the ongoing debate as to the proper assignation of the term. 25 The author acknowledges here that the caveat of asymmetrical warfare, versus conventional warfare, is essential. In large part, historic kingdoms and states were largely threatened only by parties of roughly equal size and makeup (this is to say, more simply, the primary method of warfare has been state versus state rather than today’s more ambiguous threats from individuals and small groups). Therefore, the concept of self-defense was one thought of primarily in those terms (see the cited example of Israel prior to the Six Day War). It is for this reason, clearly, that the concept of targeted killing has only recently entered the lexicon and arena of academic and political discussion. 26 The specific prohibition on assassination is found in Executive Order 12333, Parts 2.11 and 2.12. The verbatim text demonstrates the clear guidance: “2.11 Prohibition on assassination. No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination. 2.12 Indirect participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this order.” Notable, for purposes of this discussion, is the lack of any definition of assassination in EO 12333, which, it could be argued, leaves the legal guidance vague enough to make targeted killing a viable tool of statecraft. See http://www.cia.gov/cia/information/eo12333.html 27 In 1970, the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations released its report entitled “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.” This report concluded that the U.S. was involved in the killings of foreign political leaders, and took part in plans for further such killings. Individuals cited as actual or potential targets included Cuban President Fidel Castro, Dominican leader Rafael Trujillo, and South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. See Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Amsterdam: Fredonia Books, 2001). This document can also be found online in numerous locations, including http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/contents.htm. 28 The author was able to discover at least one U.S. military paper which recommended that selective assassination should be further studied as a possible option for the U.S. government. See ‘Selective Assassination as an Instrument of National Policy’, (Washington: Loompanics Unlimited, 1990). The author of this study was described as a U.S. Air Force captain, though his name and the ultimate purpose of this study remain unknown. It is the author’s opinion that this study was the result of an academic program, possibly undertaken at one of the national war colleges. 29 Richard Sale, “Israel to Kill in U.S., Allied Nations,” UPI.com, http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030115-035849-6156r 30 CNN.com, “Source: Israel to end targeted killings”, February 4, 2005. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/03/mideast/ 31 Striking First 32 The full text of this speech can be found at the official White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov). See specifically http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html 33 Walter Pincus, “U.S. Strike Kills Six in al Qaeda,” Washington Post, pg. A1, November 6, 2002. This article can also be found online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A5126-2002Nov4¬Found=true 34 Department of Defense News Briefing, November 4, 2004. http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t11042002_t1104sd.html 35 The USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer, was heavily damaged during an al-Qaida suicide boat attack on October 12, 2000 I n the Yemeni port of Aden. The attack killed 17 American sailors and injured 39. 36 For a detailed accounting of the Loughall incident, see Mark Urban, Big Boys Rules (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1993), pgs. 224-237. 37 In fact, it may be argued that a police or military force that fails to interdict such an individual would be delinquent in its duties. Such was the case in the 1983 terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon, in which 243 U.S. personnel were killed. 38 For further discussions on the role of religion in modern terrorism, see Mark Juergensmeyer’s article “The Religious Roots of Contemporary Terrorism,” (pgs. 185-193) and Bernard Lewis “Roots of Muslim Rage,” (pgs. 194-201) in Charles W. Kegley, Jr. (ed.) The New Global Terrorism (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003). 39 Due to the clandestine nature of many targeted killings, the actual perpetrators of the attack often does not claim direct credit. Thus, the author endeavored to determine the author of the attack in the cases cited in Appendix A, through press reporting and the available literature. 40 The missile that killed Dudayev was reportedly fired after Dudayev’s location was pinpointed during a satellite phone call. Russian signals intelligence (SIGINT) reportedly intercepted the phone call and passed the coordinates to a Russian missile unit some kilometers away, which then engaged the target. See Michal Fiszer, Jerzy Gruszczynski, “Bolt from the blue: Russian land-based precision-strike missiles,” Journal of Electronic Defense; March 01, 2003 41 See, for example, Seymour Hersh, “King’s Ransom,” New Yorker, October 22, 2000, and Richard J. Newman, “The Little Predator that Could”, Air Force: The Journal of the Air Force Association, March 2002, Vol. 85, No. 3.