You know I read about this story this morning, and it actually contained Mojtaba Ahmadi's official title which I can't remember right now but it certainly wasn't "cyberwarfare czar". That makes him sound like some fuckin' cocaine-fueled warlord demanding ransoms out of a cave, and not a government official.
An ombudsman, in Canada at least, is an independent official appointed to oversee and investigate the provincial government based on feedback from the public. Every province has their own ombudsman.
I think the idea behind the "czar" title is that the official has more authority to change the underlying organization and it lets the government pretend it's not a giant bureaucracy.
Wow, super trenchant analysis. They don't even know if it was Mossad, but glad you could chime in. And nice job ignoring the regional context. Because you know, who keeps Hezbollah afloat in Lebanon, and is helping to destabilize their northern (Syria vis a vis the Revolutionary Guard helping out Hezbollah fighters aligned with the Assad govt) and southern (Egypt vis a via aid for the Muslim brotherhood) borders?
Not a Zionist, and not claiming the US or Israel is 'good', but your post _sucks_.
Top thread comment is a blank anti-Israel comment with no arguments. Congrats guys, you've officially turned HN into a mix of r/politics and r/worldnews.
I would like examples of Obama authorizing the assassination of journalists/activists/etc., and not someone who's been called the "bin Laden of the Internet". Its much easier to be outraged about extrajudicial killings when the target isn't linked to Al Qaeda.
I thought that for a military bombing weapon, the drones have very good statistics for civilian causalities? (If they should be used to target the people they are targeting is another question.)
(Also, terrorists that know they have a target painted on top of their head are not the responsible part, if kids they spend time with die?)
About Pakistani statistics:
Note that Pakistani politicians approving of drones (an unofficial deal [about drones, with USA] was leaked iirc?) are targeted for murder. So public condemnations are not worth much there.
Anyway, afaik Pakistan do lots of cross border terror attacks on Afghanistan and India, then lie consistently. Pakistani claims about this subject just aren't trustworthy.
Remember that 'the bin Laden of the internet' was not operationally involved in any terrorism. His role in Al Qaeda was more like, let's say, Bill Ayer's relationship to the Weather Underground.
As an official government functionary of a country with which Congress had declared war, I imagine there would be scant legal difficulty in finding him guilty of treason in absentia. But absent that, no, I would not find it alright to target Goebbels if he were an American citizen.
Forget about email snooping or IRS targeting, I think as a citizen the first thing I should demand of my government is not to be killed without due process.
It's seriously disturbing that the President has an extra-judicial kill list on which he can place US citizens.
>> As an [active participant] of a country with which Congress had declared war [it is ok to kill a target]
Ok, so your problem is just that alQ is a non-country organization (after the Taliban fell, at least).
There is no party to make a formal declaration of war against, and police is not applicable, so the US population should stop complaining and accept terror attacks...
Right, I got your position.
I think you are arguing dishonestly and know your position is impractical.
The point with doing this "terror" thing is to influence a more or less democratic country by scaring the voters. If a group succeeds with that the politicians will do anything to stop the terror, because they won't get reelected otherwise.
Now, point is -- there will be damn good support of most everything, law book out the window etc, because if the terrorists aren't stopped the voters go apeshit again at the next big attack. (You will get maybe even torture and assassinations of terrorists in neutral counties.)
Again: Most any president, in any democratic country, will do anything -- in order to stop terror groups from scaring the voters.
This reaction on terror is probably built into the democratic system. You don't have to like it, of course.
(No, arguing for a stiff upper lip among the population doesn't help with committed terror groups. If the population doesn't react, the terror groups up their attacks to get the reaction they aim for. )
But I think you knew all that and just looked for a reason to condemn.
Edit: Rewrote for clarity, so I have something to copy/paste next time.
Again: Your point is that you are principally against killing US citizens in organisations that do violence against USA -- as long as the organisations aren't countries which you can declare war against.
One word: Weird. You say a country should never defend itself with military against violent citizens which become e.g. Somali warlords, join Pakistani tribal warfare clans or terrorist groups? (Not even the heavily armed US police can handle all threats smaller than country size.)
Anyway, my argument was that there are arguably even worse reactions to extreme terror from US and other democracies. This is probably built into the democratic system -- scare voters enough and countries will react badly. You don't have to like it.
But I think you understood that.
Edit: If you really don't understand -- you argue for a position by morality. I argue it is irrelevant, both for practical reasons and because of how democracies react to terror. Being Swedish I'm fed up with decisions based only on idealist wishful thinking, so I'm sorry if I sound irritated.
I don't mean to irritate you -- I find it interesting you're Swedish -- I assumed you were an American (very American of me, I know.)
I'm not a pie in the sky idealist. I consider myself fairly pragmatic, but I expect the President to abide by laws, and I expect my citizenship to afford me protections.
I haven't shed a tear over al-Awlaki, I assure you. But either he should have been adjudicated as an enemy combatant or judicially stripped of his citizenship or tried for treason in absentia.
It seems to me like your endorsing a rule of men rather than a rule of law. The problem with that is that it seems well and good when you've Julius and Augustus running the show, but when Nero and Caligula show up it's not so easy to go back.
If I should put it simpler, in terms that is easy for you:
You accept military solutions for combatants (combatants or in e.g. logistics) in conflicts with states.
There are often no simple categories as either countries or individuals. There is a big grey area, just consider deniability (e.g. should Hezbollah be seen as another branch of the Iranian rep guard? A proxy? Does anyone know, except maybe the Hezbollah boss?). So there will be cases where military solutions are relevant, even when it strictly aren't any countries involved (at least officially).
In the Middle East, this is especially obvious with more or less clans controlling countries.
For another example, Pakistan grows and deploys terrorist groups as if they were special forces (while vehemently denying it).
So the problem here is you building a moral standpoint of a simplified world view -- X wasn't in a declared war, so it is murder. It just isn't that simple, says 5 minutes of thought.
I get what you say, e.g. the NSA is not a practical problem as long as there isn't a McCarthy and economic depression scenario. Then you would literally risk a 1984 scenario.
Point is, your distinction re "real" war definition with countries is not working.
(The Taliban, for instance, is more or less a real guerrilla army with state backing. Almost all larger terror groups get unofficial state support from somewhere.)
Countries can be seen (and typically behave) as unusually big clans that do clan warfare. That the states wrote specific legal protections for themselves, compared to smaller clans, doesn't make them fundamentally different.
I predict that the chucklehead faction on HN will be torn between two responses: "these are lies" and "this isn't news these programs have been in place forever everybody knows about it".
Meanwhile the libertarians and liberals will fight over "this is just the inevitable consequence of the monopoly on violence that the state represents" and "clearly this means the government must have killed Aaron Swartz and Steve Jobs and that it's only a matter of time before the murder-squads come after you."
While the act may induce terror, it's just confusing to lump it in with attacks against civilians. Attacks against military or para-military or chain of command elements are different because people can choose not to join up or to engage in those professions.
Intelligence agencies have been sending "messages" to one another for decades. It's a known hazard of the job.
It could be grounds for either. Whether an act is grounds for war doesn't necessarily mean that the country is in a position to strike back. If Israel did this, Iran probably couldn't afford to strike back militarily without incurring the full wrath of Israel's military. They'd also have to be extremely lucky to not have the US get involved as well.
And just in time, too, for a good chance at rapprochement - the Salafists and Israel's conservative faction may see face-to-face on foreign policy for once.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10...