The Mother of All Targeted Killings

Despite the widespread euphoria over the mother of all targeted killings, the attack on Osama bin Laden, the United States now faces an even greater philosophical and legal challenge surrounding government-sponsored assassinations. Not everyone in the world was especially pleased with the killing, of course, but that’s not the issue; no government, and especially not the United States, can hope to please the international community all the time. But the Navy Seals’ very success will increase some pressure on the resident to seek to replicate it. Osama bin Laden’s conduct was so patently loathsome that it’s easy to see why the US would seek his death. Even those who may not like the concept of targeted killing might look the other way in this instance. Other cases may not be so easy.

This question of general acceptance is not only “political.” Unlike domestic law, international law does not depend on written statute. Even United Nations decrees rely not on the authority to make law, but on treaty-made agreements on what constitutes acceptable international behavior. If international law allows targeted killing, that is to say that the nations that make up the “international community” says it does.

In other words, President Obama finds himself squeezed between American popular opinion and international legal opinion. Obama’s approval ratings shot up last week following the killing of bin Laden, and he needs that approval to manage his agenda here. Some Republicans may have moaned on Facebook and elsewhere that Obama was taking credit for something he did not do, but most people associated the success with the president. Things may not be going as well in Afghanistan as Obama might wish, but if he can keep picking off bad guys he may feel better about things. Problem is that to do so might run him as afoul of international law as President Bush was when he invaded Iraq.