Cras wrote:
Mr Kissyfur wrote:
It's a slippery slope of an argument, but effectively ISIS is no different to a state that we're at war with. There's no difference, morally, between bombing ISIS "troops" or bombing the soldiers of a state we're at war with. There's also little conceptual difference between bombing even specific ISIS members or bombing Saddam's palace during Gulf War 2.0 or Hitler's bunker or whatever.
Well, except that ISIS isn't a state,
Hey, you see those words up there wot I wrote? I didn't say they were a state. But
in effect, it's no different is it. A state is basically a grouping of individuals with a leadership and common purpose which acts on behalf of those within it. ISIS is no different to that, Treaty of Westphalia notwithstanding, so why is it morally ok to bomb Liechtenstein if they threaten us but not ISIS. Legality is a different issue – see below.
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and these folks were actually British citizens
Which makes no odds – so were/are a number of soldiers in any number of foreign armies.
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I'd personally like to know that sufficient evidential processing was carried out before I get taken out by one of the RAF's finest killbots when I'm next supping margaritas in an Egyptian beach resort.
Well yes, and I’d like to make sure that when we’re bombing bunkers in North Korea during WW3 that we’ve made sure those are bunkers and not residential buildings. What’s your point? This is just about identifying targets correctly, which is an issue whenever force is used.
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Morally I have no real concerns with these chaps being bumped off. What I would like to know is what makes it a lawful act, absent of an actual state of war existing.
Ah, therein lies a different question. The lawfulness of this particular action in international law comes from the imminent threat thing, which I think is a bit cobblers in this instance. I would say that, legally, there was no basis for this action, but there should have been scope for there to be so. The only reason there isn’t a legal basis for it that the UK can really rely on is that ISIS haven’t actually taken over a whole country and got themselves to the stage of statehood yet.