Cross posting: Post No. 2,003 - US revenge

This is an extract from the original post on my main blog at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2021/08/post-no-2003-us-revenge.html.

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The USA has killed someone it says was a planner in the group responsible for the terrible violent extremist (I refuse to give them the satisfaction of being named, nor of being referred to using the t-ism word) attack in Kabul a few days ago. The US military has not said the person was directly connected to that attack, and does not "know of" civilian casualties.

OK, so let's look at this.

Firstly, it will probably play well with those US voters who have a simplistic Newtonian world view - and, amongst that group of people, the person killed will probably be dehumanised. 

That dehumanisation will NOT apply to those directly involved. Military people know what is involved in killing, and most find it traumatic - as portrayed, for instance, in the film "Eye in the Sky". You may well disagree with their worldview - I do - but don't assume they're all inhuman robots (although they do have a concerning mostly small-ish element of unprofessional [drunk], sadistic [animal killing], misogynistic, LGBT-phobic people who should be kicked out and face civilian charges - and that is without getting into any alleged war crimes - and who are the reason I do NOT want our military "representing" us overseas, and part of my concerns when they are deployed within Australia in peacetime). 

There are a few points to look at more broadly though: 

• Was the killing justifiable under international - not expedient US - law?
  This requires consideration of the quality of the evidence of culpability, including where it came from. If you watch the film I linked to above, you will see that this occurs, but I'm not a lawyer and, even if I was, do not have access to the evidence, so I do not know how competent that consideration was.
  The question is: do I trust the US intelligence-military-political complex?
  The answer is: despite the considerable improvements US intelligence and military HAVE made to many systems, no - especially not the politicians;
  
  
• Consideration of evidence when imposing a sentence also requires consideration of reasons for leniency. To do that, you need to know the person's backstory.
  I suspect those involved in this decision in the US military probably did know a reasonable amount about the person's backstory, but in the US intelligence-military-political complex that would be outweighed by US political interests ("how will voters perceive this - as an act making the world safer for US people and organisations to dominate? Yes? No problems").
  There have been people in the US military who are aware of the impact of such actions on recruitment by violent extremists - a bit of common sense that has been mocked in some films, but is quite true and relevant here: how many people will be recruited by that VE organisation as a direct result of this attack?
  
  
• This is also where the issue of civilian casualties arises.
  Apart from the injustice of those deaths, such deaths will increase VE recruitment - a fact likely known to the US intelligence-military-political complex, but not given as much weight by the political sector of that complex as others.
  It is worth keeping in mind that attempting to break civilian morale by an aerial bombing campaign is rarely (if ever) successful - although destroying military targets such as oil supplies, tactically significant bridges, etc can potentially be effective.
  
  
• The effect on members of VE organisations also needs to be considered.
  If they believe in martyrdom, killing someone will result in other people in the organisation feeling admiration for the new martyr, and possibly result in them feeling inspired.
  One of the advantages of capturing people alive and putting them on trial is that it denies them and their followers of that stupid notion. It can potentially show how flawed and human the VE actually is - and this would have been one of the advantages had the key VE (I won't name the person) behind the terrible 9/11 VE attacks been caught alive (especially if it had happened early in the invasion of Afghanistan ... sadly, once they were being hidden in Pakistan, that option was increasingly unlikely).

The USA's drone killing is not, in my opinion, likely to stop the spread of violence.