Targeted Killings Law And Counter Terrorism Effectiveness

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Targeted Killings, Law and Counter-Terrorism Effectiveness

This book examines the permissibility and effectiveness of targeted killing in campaigns against terror. Targeted killing has become a primary counterterrorism measure used by several countries in their confrontation with lethal threats. The practice has been extensively used by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. Several studies have already explored the difficult balance between achieving security while maintaining the liberties and rights of a country’s civilians. This book goes a step further by seeking to examine whether maintaining those liberties by complying with legal standards and minimizing unintended deaths can be more effective for national security. Using targeted killing applied by Israel, in particular, as well as the United States during the first decade of the twenty-first century as case studies, this book explores that question and ultimately assesses whether compliance with legal standards can strengthen a state in its campaign against terrorism and thus provide stronger security. The book focuses on civilian-related criteria, hypothesizing that minimizing civilian casualties will maximize effectiveness in an asymmetric war setting. The conclusions are not limited to a specific tactic or theater, and if adopted might have far-reaching implications for how asymmetric warfare is strategized. This book will be of much interest to students of counter-terrorism, law, Middle Eastern studies, and security studies.
Ethics and Terrorism

This book provides a unique insight into the ethical issues and dilemmas facing practitioners and researchers of terrorism and counterterrorism. Ethics play a central if, largely, unrecognised role in most, if not all, issues relevant to terrorism and political violence. These are often most noticeable regarding counterterrorism controversies, while often virtually absent from discussions about academic research practice. At a minimum, ethical issues as they relate to terrorism have rarely been explicitly addressed in a direct or comprehensive manner. The chapters in this edited volume draws on the experience of both practitioners and researchers to explore how a regard to ethical issues might influence and determine research and practice in counter terrorism, and in our understanding of terrorism. Ethics and Terrorism recognizes that there are conflicting and often irreconcilable perspectives from which to view terrorism and terrorism research. In calling for greater attention to these issues, the goal is not to resolve problems, but to explore and clarify the assumptions and dilemmas that underpin our understanding of the personal, institutional and societal ethical boundaries and constraints around terrorism and responses to it. This book will be of value to practitioners and researchers, and to policy makers and the broader interested community. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence.
Targeted Killings

The war on terror is remaking conventional warfare. The protracted battle against a non-state organization, the demise of the confinement of hostilities to an identifiable battlefield, the extensive involvement of civilian combatants, and the development of new and more precise military technologies have all conspired to require a rethinking of the law and morality of war. Just war theory, as traditionally articulated, seems ill-suited to justify many of the practices of the war on terror. The raid against Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani compound was the highest profile example of this strategy, but the issues raised by this technique cast a far broader net: every week the U.S. military and CIA launch remotely piloted drones to track suspected terrorists in hopes of launching a missile strike against them. In addition to the public condemnation that these attacks have generated in some countries, the legal and moral basis for the use of this technique is problematic. Is the U.S. government correct that nations attacked by terrorists have the right to respond in self-defense by targeting specific terrorists for summary killing? Is there a limit to who can legitimately be placed on the list? There is also widespread disagreement about whether suspected terrorists should be considered combatants subject to the risk of lawful killing under the laws of war or civilians protected by international humanitarian law. Complicating the moral and legal calculus is the fact that innocent bystanders are often killed or injured in these attacks. This book addresses these issues. Featuring chapters by an unrivalled set of experts, it discusses all aspects of targeted killing, making it unmissable reading for anyone interested in the implications of this practice.