Articles by Victor Davis Hanson

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Rules for Killing Rogues
Victor Davis Hanson – National Review, 9 May 2011

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? How waterboarding of only three suspected terrorists at Guantanamo is any worse than when we routinely act as judge, jury, and executioner of suspected terrorists through Predator drone attacks? Bizarrely, killing targets rather than detaining them seems to incite less moral outrage under a liberal president seen as a humanitarian who only reluctantly order such killings–and that such assassinations, when considered a success, seem to end moral ambiguity in much the same way as failure invites it.

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