It is interesting comparing this mornings posts. Ken's sober, philosophical reflection on all that has gone on since 9/11, Kevin's reflexive response to view events through a political lens, and Greg's operationally-minded quest for figuring out "who's next, and when will we get him?" My reaction contained elements of all three. Having friends that died in Afghanistan trying to...
Ken's post and the comments following it display an understanding that drones are particularly well suited to this mission because their longer loiter time makes them more discriminating and therefore more capable of proportional strikes than manned aircraft. As someone who has personal experience with the difficulties of discriminating between combatants and civilians while accurately delivering weapons from manned...
The UN Security Council's approval of the no-fly zone over Libya serves to answer the thorniest jus ad bellum questions, but there are also jus in bello questions that need to be answered. Most importantly, what kind of conflict is this? Before the UN became involved, the conflict was clearly a conflict "not of an international character" (NIAC) between...
Although the publicly available information indicates that there is cause for concern about how Private Manning is being treated, and an impressive array of legal academics and others have signed the Ackerman/Benkler letter condemning that treatment, there are two reasons why I hesitate to join them. My first reason for hesitancy is best illustrated by the letter's use of...
There has been a good deal of discussion both here between Kevin Heller and Cully Stimson and over at Lawfare by Jack Goldsmith, Gabor Rona and John Bellinger on the impact of the Administration's declaration on Additional Protocol I and it's possible effect on hearsay admissions in military commission hearings. While I agree with Jack and Kevin that it should not...
