So the President decides he wants to smite some guy halfway around the world. Since he is a military man, that’s cool. But he is also a political figure. President Ford banned political assassinations.
Who is in charge of enforcing that rule? Is there a requirement to notify or get authorization from Congress before such a thing? Secrecy and the need for speed would seem to argue against such a thing.
“Political assassination” is a narrower term than you think. For example, when Russia used nerve toxin on the former spies now living in Britain, that would be a political assassination.
It looks like the Administration is claiming that the killing was an act of self-defense. On the face of it, that strike me as a reasonable legal argument. However, legal /= prudent.
On the larger issue, short of requesting an AUMF from Congress, which Congress could them debate and vote on if it wished, Congress has a weak hand to play here. It could cut off funding, or invoke a debate on a resolution to withdraw troops from Iraq (which would have to be passed over a veto, noting that a similar resolution pertaining to Yemen has not gotten that level of support).
In terms of who polices these issues, it is a classic matter of the Executive and Legislative Branches duking it out. The courts generally stay out of these matters.
If it was Ford who banned political assassinations, then that’s just an executive order, which any subsequent President (or even Ford himself) could unilaterally change for whatever reason they saw fit. A President’s executive orders are not at all binding on future presidents.
If it was a law passed by Congress and then signed by Ford, then the order would have been an illegal one, and everyone in the chain of command would have had a duty to refuse to carry it out, and as with any law violated by the President, Congress would have the option of impeaching him over it.
The standard rules of war don’t necessarily apply in terrorist/guerilla operations, as the USA has found since Vietnam. The enemy is not in uniform, do not restrict themselves to specifically military targets, and there is not an established “front” on which hostilities occur. There’s not even a formal declaration of war. In these circumstances, where does military action end and assassination begin? This was a leader of the forces performing active hostile (lethal) actions against the USA and its allies, sometimes overtly claiming responsibility, sometimes hiding in the murk of war. The victim(s) were in a theatre where active action was taking place, this appeared to be a meeting for collaboration between two forces hostile to the USA. I would classify this as a military action, not an assassination.
This is incorrect. While combatants not in uniform – depending on the situation – are generally not eligible for certain protections provided to POWs under the Geneva Conventions, the fundamental laws of war (military necessity, unnecessary suffering, proportionality, and discrimination) apply equally to any armed conflict, including against terrorists.
I agree. Even though it was an incredibly reckless thing to do.
Sorry - about rules I meant that the other side’s combatants would not be in uniform, would not observe niceties about civilians, or allow medics access to wounded, take and treat prisoners properly, etc. There is a level of viciousness by terrorists that two professional armies squaring off tended not to display.
I don’t think this was reckless. The last thing the Iranians said in response to US threats over rocket attacks was essentially “ha, ha, there’s nothing you can do to us!”
They were wrong, obviously.
I hope that along with this comes increased drone protection for ships in the Gulf and straight, and heightened alerts at all bases. After all, if anything from the USA was an easy target it would have been hit before this. They will just become more suicidal, that’s the thing to watch out for.
A military action against an active member of a foreign military. That is the definition of an “Act of War”. I don’t think that the action was illegal, or that Congress needed to be consulted. I do believe that it was a rash decision that will have major repercussions in the coming days.
Yes, an active member of a foreign military, where “active” in this sense means “actively leading a force engaged in hostilities against the United States, coordinating attacks against US personnel and responsible for 17% of US deaths in Iraq”.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to shed a tear over this guy. I am just worried for all Americans, military and civilian, who happen to be in the way when Iran takes its revenge. There are many ways that this can go. Iran has many options available to them, including terrorist acts against Americans anywhere, or following through on their threat to close the Straits of Hormuz. Or, maybe Putin steps in as a “mediator” and talks Iran down from the brink, increasing his prestige as a “peacemaker”, while diminishing Trump’s. Or maybe we just get drawn into another quagmire. (Note my own skin in the game, I have a business trip to the Middle East scheduled for next month. I am a contractor who works for the US Navy, in a foreign military sales capacity).
Executive orders are directives written by the President to tell members of the executive branch how to act. They are enforced by the President, delegated to his various subordinates, but aren’t enforced by some other branch of government, at most sometimes the judiciary will enter a stay against acting under one. They also don’t bind the President himself at all, as he’s the one who issues them. Congress could always impeach the President if they wished, as impeachment doesn’t require any specific statute, order, or ruling to be violated, but this historically has been vanishingly unlikely.
Whether this even qualifies as an assassination under the various executive orders about assassination (Ford issued one, Carter strengthened it, Reagan reaffirmed it) is something that would probably need a legal analysis - generally the legal definition of a political assassination is something like a targetted killing of a non-combatant enemy for engaging in policies the US doesn’t like, not use of military force against a field commander engaged in hostile actions against the US.
From cite: Much of this EO would be changed or strengthened by Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12036 in 1978.
Yes, any EO lasts as long as the Executive deigns to enforce it. I’m not sure if a POTUS must actively cancel a predecessor’s EO or if they can merely ignore it. But without enforcement, it hangs.
Gen Soleimani and his party were obvious legitimate military targets. But as said upthread, legal isn’t always prudent. And this could be a wag-the-dog maneuver to distract from domestic woes. I fear escalating responses that will not end well.
In WWII, the US had intelligence that gave them the schedule of Admiral Yamamoto, architect of the Pearl Harbor sneak attack. So when they sent out planes to shoot down enemy planes, they included several specifically targeted to get his plane. And they succeeded, literally putting a bullet through his head.
But the USA kept this a secret for years (possibly fearing exposure of their intelligence source or Japanese retaliation against American POWs). Seems different in this case; the US quickly confirmed that this was their action. Probably would have been clear from the debris anyway. Or maybe it was a major part of the operation; making clear that the US was capable of killing enemies.