So without any more ado, we'll take the main order of the day, which is presentation by Professor Fernando Song.
Many of you will know him by his work on humanitarian intervention.
He was one of the earliest and most influential scholars on this topic, and his work is really no noticeable.
Notable for its very,
very strongly and powerfully orientated conception of international law and international obligation around the idea of human rights.
And actually, just reading his his blurb for the website today, I mean, something I didn't know about you,
Fernando, which was that before your academic career, you had a career in the Argentine diplomatic service.
And in fact, Fernando has resigned his post in 1981 as a a in response to human rights abuses by the Argentine government.
So you can see that his engagement on these issues of human rights is both longstanding and also goes well beyond the scholarly.
Professor, to some, we're delighted to have you here today and we look forward to your presentation.
Thank you, David. It's a great honour for me to be at Oxford.
I love Oxford, who is phenomenal and I go to the most people.
I like it in the wings of that society the way that I really fantastic.
And if you wonder by my Oxford perfect English, just because I was born and raised and when I say something to many of them.
So I'd like to talk today about Target of Killing.
This are a piece that I want to present today as part of a of a of a volume, the Oxford University Press here.
The English of a branch is going to publish an article in February, in March,
I think a couple of months from now, and has all kinds of views about the subject.
All right. So everybody knows.
Everybody knows in May of 2011, a unit of SEALs, a special unit, American commandos and Navy SEALs followed killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
I am going to talk about that.
But first of all, first, I what I want to do today is to explore the general status, if you will, moral status of targeted killing.
I am not. I really am not. Even though I am I am a law professor.
I write I don't write a lot in law. I read mostly philosophy, world political philosophy.
So I am not going to explore the legal status of target of just the moral standing of it or a moral stance, the morality of it.
And in order to do so, what I want to do is to approach the subject in general and not just related to terrorists, but in general.
And that is what is targeted killing generally.
What is the smallest does generally how what is the best way to think about it?
I define it here just for our purposes as the extrajudicial, intentional killing by the state of unidentified person for a public purpose.
That's in the definition that no, no, something they should translate it just for political purposes.
But just a few words about it. Yes. Start judicial means.
What that means. It's not in killing of somebody by the state in implementation of a sentence, intentional killing by the state.
The state has to be a liberal state, but I don't discuss that. Okay.
Here I have other reasons. I'm not in the paper.
Why only states that are in some sense legitimate, are entitled, morally entitled to conduct this killings of unidentified person?
No, this is an important target. The targeted killing is of the name person is not enough to say that is intentional.
Intentional because you also kill intentionally soldiers in the battlefield.
Those are intentionally killed by a war, right? Seriously?
No, intentionally. In that sense. That's the intent to kill by the person is identified prior to the killing by name and the of
the and the killer the assassin basically zeroes in on the on the target for common purpose
here public purpose means is a very loose term means for reasons other than gain or I'm
going to come back to that but what that what I wanted to start though with your premise.
There are a number of assumptions here that are not that I don't explicate.
One assumption is that it sounds sounds obvious, but it bears repeating that we've won lectures about this really being repulsive topically,
and that is that the deliberate killing of another human being.
It's presumptively a deeply immoral act. The moral presumption has to be it is against this act.
This has to become clear and not accepting any premises that the strategic or or that's the principles of the state has within its arsenal.
This to killing persons in a conflict anywhere.
It's exactly the opposite presumption.
And when I say this, I say not just the doing your own citizens, but also giving foreigners, foreigners a right to life.
You know, just universal. I'm going to come back to that to that as well.
So my strategy is going to be as follows. I'm going to talk about targeted killing in peace time.
Some of these done forget about war on terror for us. We're going to get second world war just in peacetime talking about doing in wartime.
I the situation that the Geneva Conventions define as a war.
So there's a war on a third category and you will see why I would create a third category.
And that is the killing, targeted killing of terrorists, which I think my argument here is going to be that the justification is Sunni generally.
But I'm not I don't want to anticipate. So I want to start first with in peacetime.
So I might I suggest the Taliban started killing in peacetime.
Well, the first reaction I mean, it has to be wrong. All is well.
Right? That's where we should stop.
If we are allowed to send a mission one on the part of Britain or the United States sending a mission to Iran to kill Ahmadinejad,
distasteful as he may be, is wrong. It's just something that is wrong, right?
However, a blanket prohibition against it may be quick.
Imagine, for example, the morality, if you will, of killing Hitler in 1939.
Not during the war. Right before the war. You know, let's assume that epistemic problems are solved.
We know, you know, that this man is going to invade Poland and that is going to.
Let's assume that you are you have enough information to know that this is
going to cost untold suffering in blood and treasure to millions of persons,
including innocent persons. And you also know that killing this person will not will actually abort the war, will actually prevent the war.
I suggest that that may be justified. May be justified.
The other example that I give in the book is suppose that you know that somebody is about to unleash a genocide against its own people.
I understand. You know, it's not that, you know, I don't want any epistemic objection.
I'm saying, how do you know? Well,
let's assume that you know and you know that somebody is about to unleash a genocidal actions when they kill half a million people in some country.
And you cannot and the terrorists are to invade.
For example, the country now invading will cause lots of deaths of of the deaths of the
combatants and the deaths of the of the collateral of this of the civilians.
Right. And so, therefore, I suggest that in May and again, with great caution, those kills may be justified.
Just consider two things, two factors.
One is that both in the case of prevention of aggression, the Hitler hypothetical, or in the case of prevention of genocide,
let's say that Pol Pot hypothetical, assuming that by killing sending a sniper to kill the man will actually prevent the disaster.
Assuming that right. Why would that be worse than actually invading to stop the massacre or invading to stop the aggression?
Think about it. If you if you invade and lots of innocent people are going to die, you want to prevent the aggression of the genocide,
but you're going to cost, of course, all these horrible things, the war cost, right?
Moreover, if you kill the person, you limit the victims to one, and moreover, you limit the victims to the person who's culpable in the first place.
Right. So at least it seems to me that if we value human life, the value of the human life, it seems to me that it is at least arguable,
arguable that it is permissible in those extreme circumstance and only underscore very extreme circumstances to actually kill somebody doing peace.
Them not having both examples is still peacetime.
We're talking physiologically now. We're talking getting qualified before.
Or if he actually perpetrated the genocide. Okay.
So the conditions I put forth for these very strict conditions, I must say the killing increased, I must say, many innocent lives.
I'm not talking about five or ten, many a large number of that asking as they occurred during an aggression or a war.
Right. Or a genocide. Secondly, must have adjust course.
Let me explain that, because this is unclear.
I think that it seems to me that the first reaction will you say the course is to save the innocent life?
That's the cost. That is to put your life will be that the cost to save the innocent lives.
But it is possible to perpetrate a targeted killing that saves innocent life and yet still is murder.
How is that? And imagine, again, several.
What we also like is also that's a good question to the to the bad guys.
So the motive is that people know that if even they stole it in 1939, Churchill would react, will plunge Britain into war.
He knows that. So therefore, he goes and just sends a sniper to kill a church and he kills Churchill.
He knows that now. Now Britain is going to, let's say, soon the Britain will not go to war after Churchill is assassinated, unfitness as well.
I spoke to someone says that you have to save the lives of lots of millions of life.
It was now the allies are not are not interposing themselves into my purpose as well.
That's murder, even if it saves lives.
So that second requirement has to be something like the states that conduct the killing must not be on the wrong side of a war,
of just war, must not have the just got an unjust cost. That is better food than having a just got the target must be culpable of.
All right.
So I think the matter of culpability is is also thorny culpability may mean a moral culpability or may mean causal culpability for causal causality,
causally opposing the threat.
But generally speaking, I think the person that is the target must be somebody who is culpable of creating the threat of the many lives of the deaths.
That was part of the first condition. I'll come back to that later.
And finally, there are no non-lethal alternatives available to the life that I discussed briefly in in the piece are diplomacy.
I mean, if you can have that well-studied, if you can actually issue a credible threat to avoid the violence, then you should try that.
Now, notice that in order to issue a credible threat, the third has to be credible.
So that would be lying or bluffing really,
because otherwise it would be in fact unleashing the catastrophe if the person does not yield to the threat or capturing the real.
So if the snipers can capture Hitler, I said to kill, people are going to capture him.
That is morally preferable. Always. I'll come back to capture the issue of capture when I discuss terrorist because it
applies in the case of bin Laden in the cases that are very much in our minds today.
So these are the various notice how strict the conditions are.
Only only avoiding a catastrophe like an aggression of genocide justifies killing somebody in peacetime.
That is not enough. You have to have the you have to be on the right side of the conflict, only that the pits you against the villain.
The target must be a villain, the culpable person.
For example, you are not allowed to kill the family of of of of the person who is threatening terrorism, even if that will stop the threat.
Right.
So my position differs from the position of many philosophers who actually think that avoiding the threat, saying the is the only thing that matters.
If that were true, you would kill the children. You know why don't kill the children.
If you thought of killing the children of some dictator will actually make anything of glass and not carry out his murderous intentions.
Then I think that that is for me, the have to focus on the villain.
Right. On the person who's responsible. Alright.
So this is in the history of militias in peacetime.
I don't know what the rules are. I speak for 40 minutes. Then we have a discussion later.
Okay. Now let's move on to war. Stories of killing war.
Some some authors, not notably Francis Lieber are not be a new chapter leader was a German guy that was hired by Abraham Lincoln to write the loss of.
He thought that he was forbidden in the battlefield to kill just the killing to say, we are going to focus on Colonel Sanders now.
We want to kill someone we don't like Sanders. And if you saw that he said that that's outrageous.
That the soldiers fight for the honour of our homeland.
Dating someone send out a lot of criminals. But I think that has to be a level.
It's. I mean, I know what he's doing. Something has to be wrong, because if it is, let me remind you something.
I'm sure this audience knows very well that unfortunately in war they licenses the prohibitions against killing.
Others are significantly relaxed. But we cannot kill other people during war under circumstances specified by the laws of war.
It is morally, legally, morally permitted to kill other people.
But so I suggest that the permission, some restrictions of the laws of war apply.
So, for example, when the needs of troops are in Afghanistan fighting terrorists on the battlefield,
right, then it doesn't matter that the enemies are, you know, where you enforce.
It doesn't matter what they are a of the army.
But actually they can be named. Somebody supposed to come in and says, look at Colonel Sanders.
They are he's actually decimating our troops and with a machine gun,
go and take him out if it's primary to kill him without saying that is politically insane.
So it seems to me that his position doesn't go, it doesn't wash.
They're now off the battlefield is a little bit more complicated.
So both are. Colonel Sanders goes to sleep.
Can we kill him in the barracks? Right when he's asleep, sleeping in the barracks?
Well, the laws of war say, yes, the Geneva Convention is allowed to do that.
The brought in with the Maleficent Book of Charlie that if he seems to be that he believes that the more common lobby does not allow.
I think I follow others. I disagree a little bit with Davis here that if Colonel Sanders is sleeping in the barracks,
restoring his energies for the battle, then it is better to go from there like the general conventions permit.
Recall the Colonel Sanders is unjust enemy.
He's fighting an unjust war. The permission of our to kill our own provisions.
Well, look, for my purposes of the side that has a just cause.
And this ends. I follow Judge McMahon, who very convincingly argued about that, argued that it doesn't apply to all sides.
So when the unjust enemy kills our guys, either in the barracks or anywhere in the battlefield, this is an unjustified killing.
But if you go off to Gitmo, that's up to me, I think.
But I want to make my case. I want to make sure that, you know, when when the state that carries out the target of killing has to adjust.
Cos I think that to me that's important. So what about the political leaders during war time?
What about if if fighting a war, can we, could we could the United States have gone,
for example, just to change example a little bit during the Iraq war, assuming controversially,
that the war was justified, which many people think it was not, but assuming that it was something like that,
could the United States have gone to a to Baghdad and killed Saddam Hussein?
If that would have ended, the war would have saved lots of end of the war.
Is it just not justified? Well, I think there is a sense that they are the commanders in chief of that unjust aggressor.
So killing Hitler in the Second World War was justified, not on some weird grounds of assassination,
but on the loss of killing enemies, fleeing the loss of war,
because, in fact, Hitler and Saddam Hussein are the commander in chief,
where I would say commander in chief of the armies that are fighting the unjust war.
So you can kill them are not out of culpability or anything like that.
You can kill any enemy soldier. The only justification being to increase the chance of victory as well as says and so forth.
Now I in the paper I talk about honour operations in doing war.
I was fearful. For example, the Second World War was the killing.
I was fear was the minister, the brilliant young minister of armaments of Hitler's.
He was a civilian architect. Minister, if I'm wrong, it is pretty.
So I think that if if he was sufficiently involved in the war effort to be justified under because of the policy during a war, during a war.
But random officials unrelated to war are the much more does.
I mean, I don't think you could justify killing the German undersecretary of public parks at the time just because he's not.
Part of the sect of Germans that were the enemy who are vulnerable to kill.
So I think that in war, as you can see, things are much more permissive, but there are restrictions.
For example, some of the foreign minister to suppose I said that when Colonel Sanders is sleeping in the barracks,
you can we're not going to have him with him. What about Donald Sanders implication?
Well, you're at war zones. None of the barracks was his back in his in his country, just having dinner with his family.
And you send a sniper disguised as a waiter and his services like poisoned fruit?
I think, you know, you killed him. You know, what about that? You like that?
Well, Danielle Statman says if you can feel him in the barracks, you can him the invitation as well.
And I will. Great hesitation. So I draw the line somewhere.
I think I don't think I think that killing in the barracks, reluctantly, I would say, is justified.
Well, killing him on vacation, reluctantly, they say it's not justified.
And the reason is that he has removed himself from the war machine at that point.
He's truly in his civilian capacity and he sees the permissibility in general.
What is Trump's terrorism already? We shall interpret it as narrowly as possible and with great reluctance.
I think that the geographical location matters.
So I think that to give an example to that, I think it is justified, if it is justified to kill the Taliban at all in the war,
if it is assumed that it is right in that war for naval killing while kids are fleeing their barracks the day before the of something like that,
to kill him is justified. But if he is back in Kabul with his family, I don't think they are going to send a mission to kill him.
You know, in the interview,
I have mentioned that there is that the distinction is where his very genuine statement says not true and he goes ahead is as a field in any war.
If you are a boy, you like killing anyone. These people and I don't go that far.
All right. Okay. So that leads us to the the the topic of terrorism.
And I think it is important to start with these other forms in peacetime, in wartime, in order to tackle terrorism.
But I want to start with something that some people talk about this on the book, and that is what is a terrorist?
I am going to suggest a definition. It is not common in the literature.
In the literature. The definition of a terrorist are very complicated, very convoluted, very controversial.
The reason why it is complicated is that this is that the term is not neutral.
I mean, nobody says I'm a proud terrorist. You know, terrorism terrorist, to be a terrorist is a derogatory term.
It's something that carries the reason to go to condemnatory condemnation.
But that makes it difficult. So most people accept that and say, well, look, there are two elements.
The first, we have to be killing people with the illegal or immoral means that we, for example, kill innocent.
And then also they say the terrorist has to have a political purpose.
It doesn't matter what it is, but it has to be supposed to be some of the mafia or something like that, someone who has a private purpose.
Right. In the literature, you have that definition to those two requirements.
I modified that definition of someone. Let me explain.
I believe that I define this. By the way, this is a verbal issue if you're going to fight anything you want.
I am going to propose this even though I know it's just a verbal issue.
I define a terrorist as somebody that has the characteristics, does not identify himself as a combatant.
That's one. Number two, uses immoral means to fight in killing of innocents.
And number three, and this is the new element that introduced he does this, he kills immorally in the pursuit of an unjust political cost.
So in my international law class, I usually ask my students, you'll see what I mean.
So so about 9/11, why why do you say, general, what do you think about the attack of so many horrible, immoral illegal murderers?
Let's give them a very good life. I you that.
But why? Because they killed all these innocent people.
Which, of course, the killer was innocent people. All right, now. Well, somewhere like when I looked like he was alive, right?
So somebody says, oh, I read the criticisms.
Now all these critics are right. I should not have killed all these people in the Twin Towers in New York.
That was wrong. So I want I want to aim at the White House, the Pentagon and all military targets.
I want you to conduct my my war against the United States and the West in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
I just want to talk to them so I can message you like that. Your brother?
No, of course not. That is not true. That the reason why they were wrong is just that they were killing innocents.
There has to be something else.
So I suggest that the cause that they are pursuing, that this person who does not define himself as a combatant and who kills him immoral,
kills innocents for a cause that cause also to be unjust, to be called a terrorist,
someone who does not intend to kill himself as a combatant, uses immoral means killing of innocent.
But for a just cause is something different.
Maybe a freedom fighter who is also a war criminal? Take the machine.
The Second World War, the mocking blew up like kindergartens, you know.
You know, Second World War, right field children in schools and things like that in the resistance against the Germans.
I believe that that's a crime killing innocents,
but I would not call them terrorists in my definition because they were pursuing a just cause in the pursuit of which they committed war crimes.
So if somebody conversely pursues does not identify himself as a combat right, it pursues an unjust cause, but uses moral means,
then I'll call the person made an unjust end use of the term or something like killing depends upon opponent is an unjust enemy deserving of defeat.
We have to fight them.
My students are right about that, but in my definition it's not a terrorist because the requirement of use immoral means is a financial requirement.
What a terrorist is, is just again, as I say, it's a verbal decision that I made.
But I think it serves the function of distinguishing between terrorists and so-called freedom fighters,
because it's a big discussion of one person's terrorist as another person.
I think my religion helps to say, at least when you have a freedom fighter,
that is somebody who will if it was the first two conditions, but now the last one, he fights for a just cause.
A different analysis is needed. And that's all I'm going to say.
I'm not going to say it's justified obviously don't just I'm a different analysis
from the one I propose here is needed the one that has to deal with the just cost.
Okay. So we have now then we know then what is a terrorist now?
What is the of the conditions and the conditions first before plunging into it?
I like to say of mention what are both in the West commentators the literature on terrorism.
How to deal with terrorism is is a such you know, vast and they're basically in two camps, one camp that I call the law enforcement camp.
According to the law enforcement camp, terrorism is like any other crime and the liberal state should deal with it.
Confronted with the tools of law enforcement, that is detection, apprehension, prosecution, conviction.
Even though terrorism is a particularly grievous crime because of its extent and its ubiquitousness still,
and the state can resort to new techniques to increase the sentences,
it could increase the US, for example,
the Germans and the Italians did in the seventies facing these terrorist groups that they had or the United Kingdom.
The respect in Iraq that are examples it start of law enforcement techniques.
This position is extremely strong I think because it actually not only for the obvious
reasons that actually is most respectful of the rights of the person that you are pursuing,
but also because it is a much more standard duty for the liberal liberal state itself, for prostitution, of democracy, for freedoms in a long time.
There's a lot written about that, how actually departing from the traditional strictures about killing people,
the state killing states killing people,
the departing of that is bad not just for the people person was given for us, for us citizens in a liberal state.
So that's the law enforcement,
the just war the other Canada the just Walker maintains that terrorism is such that the only way to to confront it is to resort to the tools of war.
Make it this has a double dimension the what is the first consequence of that decision?
For example, the formulation of the use of war that the United States government received after 911.
They said that you can just wage war against the terrorists, period, use whatever words.
And then Supreme Court has endorsed that. The United States, while striking out other aspects of policy of the U.S. government.
The first the thing that is normal is the other. The rumours that the first consequence of saying that you are not just trying to find criminals,
the terrorists who committed crimes, but trying to wage war against them, is that permission to kill them?
That is the first thought was this is a consequence of the categorisation of the conference is to say it's not that this person has committed a crime,
horrible crime. It's simply they are they they perform an act of war.
They made war against us. And now we are at war against them and we're going to kill them on sight.
So for this new target of killing is the function equivalent of killing in war.
When you talk to anybody, even very liberal, people always say, well, they feel something about World War II war with us.
This is the same as and he was saying I in about just whatever in Pakistan over there is a
saying that if he had been a soldier in fighting in the in the battlefield they at war.
Right. They are it's a different kind of war, like a war we can kill him because he's an enemy combatant.
In fact, he's an unlawful enemy combatant because and because he he does not identify himself as a member.
Well, I say a number of things in the piece. I want to make it clear to you, I think this position is a mistake.
The just war position, the reserves is simply put, that if somebody has a right not to be killed with the appropriate process,
somebody has a right to life, let's say even the worst. You cannot.
They raise that right by a simple unilateral declaration.
If somebody has the right to life not to be killed in this way,
you cannot simply the states cannot simply say we are not at war with those persons
and therefore authorise itself to kill them on sight to see why this is so.
Think about this. Suppose now the government has a list of the only one who belongs to the Mafia.
The Mafia, I think committing crimes. Very serious crimes.
Murder in all kinds of the things the mafia, like prostitution of with just killings and things like that.
It was like in Chicago in 1933. Well, now the government says we declare war against the mafia.
So they don't have ongoing, you know, killing persons.
They don't know. It is because I believe the mafia. Think about, for example, sexual predator paedophiles who these are practically repulsive people.
Right. Why doesn't the way if we are going to be,
why wouldn't the government compiled a list of sexual predators and declare war against them as they go around killing them on site?
That is not acceptable. Take it to anybody. Why will this be different?
Well, well. Everybody knows the crimes they committed. Well, now everybody knows the idea does not work either.
Suppose somebody in a public square in the middle of London.
I showed. That doesn't doesn't happened here. Right.
But also from here, I was saying death to the west and kills 30 people, innocent people in Trafalgar Square.
Now, the person contrary to others who kill themselves, also, he doesn't kill himself.
He just please the police in search of him. And they got him.
They're right. He's in a. Now they're more like 250 witnesses to this crime that he committed.
Everybody knows he committed the crime. Why wouldn't the police then shoot him?
Now, I might say you might say, well, you know, nobody would be very sorry they shot him.
But that's not the issue. There's just not to get. Well, you should get happy.
Like in the movies when the good guys get the bad guys is what are the strictures?
Are we complying with the scripture that we're bishops against state killing?
I would take it they would not accept that, but that what they should do is to say freeze them,
you know, in the movies, you know, and capture him if if, if, if, if they can.
So therefore. How so?
I reject the just the word for that reason. However, the just war crowd has a point with respect to the nature of the threat and
has a point with respect to the relative difficulty of the law enforcement,
law enforcement, the principles to deal with terrorism.
So I think that this suggests a sui generis approach.
The sui generis approach. I anticipate we saw the two paradigms in peacetime on a war, too, right?
My my suggestion for the justification of the legitimacy of the killing of terrorists falls between the two.
But is also you're going to see to the peace time, right.
So and so in a wartime setting that doesn't apply the conditions apply that apply the Geneva Conventions in a peacetime setting,
which is a difficult case.
The killing is necessary to foil a terrorist plot to prevent the death of innocent persons is the same as the peace, the in peacetime, the invasion.
Except that it doesn't is not Astrid.
It doesn't require massive deaths of hundreds of thousands of persons.
As I said, it should require for the peace.
It's enough that the killing is necessary to foil a terrorist plot.
The terror is culpable. So the same as before.
You cannot kill the family of the terrorist.
The terrorist. The state just has a just cause. In the sense I mentioned before, if the state is does not have a just cause,
the entire killing will not be acceptable and there are no non-lethal intent.
So exactly as before in peacetime,
except that the first condition is relaxed and the killing is not necessary to avoid a war or a genocide, both to foil a terrorist plot.
So it is a sui generis in the state. The state only needs to show to make it lawful, that it's necessary to follow terrorist plot.
Okay, I have 5 minutes. I want to discuss some of the objections to all of this.
But there are two kinds of objections that are general objections to target of killing.
One is what I call the epistemic objection.
The state has to determine all these things.
Now, think about this, for example. A killing is necessary is a necessity, a requirement.
I don't adopt imminence. Some people for payment, for example, suggest imminence, but necessity because I'm an enforcer.
But that's a that's a very big assessment that the state has to make.
You know, we learned when bin Laden was retired, I don't know.
Do you know that bin Laden has actually retired already? I have no idea.
I mean, was he I mean, I if I had to guess, I would say I know that he was onto something bad.
But do you know? No. I know if he was for what he was up to, maybe he was not into.
So even in his case, how difficult it is, they have to all to know that the person is the person that actually created the risk and that he missed.
Mr. I did. And I don't think mistakes are not uncommon in these operations.
They often kill the wrong person. The state has to be sure that is a just cause, right?
There are no lethal alternatives. With respect. Just to finish my 40 minutes, I have a lot of Osama bin Laden.
I, i assuming he's giving the benefit of the doubt to president obama on the first conditions.
My problem is with capture.
If you read the accounts, it is unclear at the very least whether Osama bin Laden was completely unarmed, if he was unarmed.
My contention is that the officer, the person who killed him, I've been diligent because he will have the upper hand captured.
Right now, the policy of administration says, well, it is very preferable to capture him.
A person is not is not a preferred thing for killing somebody.
But you can capture you have no risk to others and persons I discussed that was in
the paper is my it is not simply preferable like the administration says right so.
So in the case of bin Laden.
If he was reaching for a gun, then reluctant to conclude that the killing was justified,
if he was an arms race, his hands, if he or not Vietnamese, if it was an arm, then the killing is not.
So the. It does epistemic objections do objections want to call it is an interesting philosophical problem.
The political virtue of objection. What does that mean?
That means that even if everything else is just satisfied, we don't want to be the persons who pulled the trigger.
Just there's a distinction between the following two assertions.
It is a good thing that bin Laden is dead. And it is a good thing that I killed him.
No. It's called the problem of agent relativity, the discomfort, Tom Nagel and others.
Extremely complicated philosophical problem. But the gist of it is there is something problematic about the liberal state,
which is supposed to reflect the feelings of sensitive human citizens who are being more sensitive, killing people.
The liberal right there is something for a moral something and it sometimes has to be done that doesn't have to do with the values of the person,
but with our goodness. So there is a presumption also, again, I'm wrong that the liberal state should not be in the business of killing.
I think it is objectionable if the President gave secret orders to kill him, if he got him dead or alive.
That is immoral. I mean, I think more even to do that if somebody is unarmed.
You have actually to. To refrain from killing him, he's not gonna come.
So just to conclude, this is my conclusion.
This is one of the topics we know.
Those of you who have read my book, I don't think you would say that I am soft on the question of war, on the question of terrorism.
I have supported the war in Iraq and is a great, great cost to my career.
I am fine with it. Nothing happened. Right.
And as many know on this issue, I didn't know where I was going to come out.
I suspect that I will come out in favour of the killing of of people like bin Laden.
But the more I thought about it, the less likely that seemed to be what the claims,
the mainstream claims are made for this the legitimacy of being a terrorist.
And I realise these people are followed by everything that the law allows me to see.
The problem here is my own experience with Argentina. In the 1970s I wasn't in government.
Okay, different government is not Obama. They know that. But there's a big difference if it is a liberal democracy.
I called the fascist group, but they follow that the same thing they said.
And it is true that the terrorists in Argentina, circa 1976 were very violent and vicious and they were threatening the really horrible people.
Urban guerrilla.
The Contras are guerilla and this right wing military junta took over the civil war, began these people, and they started feeling the little side.
But of course they killed them and the families and the friends and everybody else.
And to show what happens when you get that kind of power.
So I don't argue that I don't want my government to be able to declare war on individuals and start killing them.
VICIOUS But those are the rules. Maybe that's.