Month: July 2018

thefutureoneandall:

voxette-vk:

theunitofcaring:

I don’t think people should be executed for ‘producing propaganda for al-Qaeda’ but the most striking thing to me about the debate over whether Kareem should be executed is the number of people who – like me – don’t speak or read any Arabic – and are just taking the word of random other people who also don’t speak Arabic that his journalism constitutes ‘propaganda for al-Qaeda’. Kareem says he just reports on atrocities committed by American forces. I haven’t seen anyone counter that by saying ‘no, here’s a translation of a broadcast in which he says something false’. 

I haven’t actually seen anyone clarify whether they consider ‘reporting on American atrocities’ to be ‘al-Qaeda propaganda’ all by itself, even if every word is true.

If you were concerned about learning that the summary execution of a U.S. citizen never charged with any crime was ordered by the U.S. government, and then you learned that the government says he’s producing ‘al-Qaeda propaganda’, and then you went ‘oh okay’, and you didn’t even ask to see any of the propaganda, then I think you have some very scary information about yourself.

I know that this is a trivial nitpick of a very serious issue (which I have previously linked to coverage of), but this seems like a misuse of the word “executed”.

It seems to me that execution implies that the party doing the executing has physical control over the person being executed. That is, that the person is a prisoner.

I would call this an “assassination” or just a “killing”.

I think this is a worthwhile nitpick, because it’s also central to the lack of a trial. The failure to prosecute Kareem is not necessarily “because there’s no evidence”, but rather “because prosecution wouldn’t give us any legal right to take this action”.

Assuming that someone managed to convict Kareem (in absentia, presumably) of treason, it almost certainly wouldn’t legalize drone strikes against him. The Eighth Amendment suit over a cruel and unusual method would probably be an easy win, and no one would want to open the door to drone striking convicts already in prison.

So: the failure to try Kareem boils down to having no reason to try Kareem – he’s not being executed regardless. What’s happening is either a killing in war, a killing of an enemy combatant, or an extrajudicial assassination, depending on who you ask.