The Economist (Feb. 18th 2010) Assassinations "A time to kill"
The professional and presumably state-directed killing of a leading Palestinian has been exposed in embarrassing detail. Perhaps such methods have had their day.
USING subterfuge to entrap and kill adversaries, in locations far from any battlefield, has been a feature of conflict for the past 3,000 years or so—at least since Jael, one of the warrior heroines of ancient Israel, lured the enemy commander Sisera into her tent, lulled him to sleep with a refreshing drink of milk, and then used a tent peg to smash out his brains.
In modern times targeted killing is a more elaborate business, and many of the finer points—how the victim is stalked, how many people are involved—usually remain under wraps. But the plot to eliminate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas commander who was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on January 20th, has been laid bare in stark detail by the police in that country, not normally regarded as a model of open government.
Hamas instantly blamed Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, confirming that the dead man was a founder of the movement’s military wing. Israel had fingered him in particular for the abduction and killing of two soldiers in 1989. Mr Mabhouh’s brother claimed that he had been killed by an electrical appliance that was held to his head. The local police said he had been suffocated.
The gory details of his end were not made public in Dubai, but many of the events that led up to it were starkly exposed. Indeed any amateur student of espionage and its tradecraft can now consult YouTube, the video-sharing site, to see closed-circuit television footage of some of the 11 people (all travelling on European passports) who are said by the Dubai authorities to have joined in the plot. On February 15th the country’s police chief offered a blow-by-blow account of the plotters’ doings, elucidating the images.
The key agents were “Gail” and “Kevin” who supervised the hit, and “Peter” who was in charge of preparatory logistics. In the films their appearances changed frequently. Kevin acquires glasses and a full head of hair, after going to the loo. It is clear that the plotters were expecting Mr Mabhouh’s arrival. One spotter waited at the airport; he duly tipped off a couple of colleagues, stout figures in tennis gear, who wait at the hotel and take note of the victim’s room number, 230. The plotters book room 237, which they use as a base. In later footage Gail and Kevin are seen pacing the corridor nearby. Four men in baseball caps, one also wearing gloves, are seen getting into a lift to leave; they seem to be the ones who did the job.
In Israel the initial reaction to the killing was of telling smirks, plus leaks to the effect that the victim was buying arms from Iran. But this gave way to embarrassment as the Dubai authorities produced their evidence, and as protests came from countries—Britain, France, Germany and Ireland—whose passports had apparently been faked or abused; and from individuals whose identities were “borrowed”.
The Israeli security services have never voiced any moral doubts about targeted assassinations (whether in the neighbourhood or farther afield) but there was a concern that the latest killing might go down on a list of plots that have misfired in unforeseen ways. In 1997, for instance, Mossad agents tried to eliminate Khaled Meshal, a senior Hamas official, in Jordan (see article). Two agents posing as Canadians were caught trying to poison him and Israel, under threat that its agents would be executed, agreed to send an antidote. In 1973 Israeli agents murdered a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer in Norway, mistaking him for the leader of Black September, the group blamed for a massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
These bungles contrast with operations that Israeli spooks recall with defiant pride: the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, a top member of Hizbullah, in Damascus in 2008 (a particular coup since Syria is hostile territory for Israel); and the dispatch of Abu Jihad, a senior Palestinian official and founder of the Fatah movement, by a squad that swooped into Tunis in 1988.
The not-so-cold war
Israel has no monopoly on killing its foes far from home. European countries, including Britain (since the 1950s, anyway) claim to eschew such methods. But during the cold war both superpowers conspired eagerly to eliminate people they deemed undesirable. In America there was a rethink after a committee, under Senator Frank Church, disclosed that it was probing a web of plots to kill senior figures in countries like Congo, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Vietnam. This led to a series of presidential decisions—most famously order number 12,333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981—which barred assassinations.
The real force of such orders was to squelch rogue plots hatched in the lower levels of the security services; procedures still exist for the president, in consultation with congressional leaders, to authorise the killing of a perceived adversary. In 1998, three years before the 9/11 attacks, Bill Clinton mandated the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, after bombs at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Since the start of the “war on terror”, the boundaries in American thinking between legitimate military action and cold-blooded assassination have become fuzzier still. Among America’s foreign-policy pundits there were serious discussions, back in 2003, as to whether simply killing Saddam Hussein would be a humane alternative to waging war against Iraq. More recently, as the fronts in the battle with al-Qaeda have broadened from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Somalia and Yemen, so too has the scope of American actions to eliminate perceived foes. Last September, for example, American helicopters fired on a convoy of trucks in Somalia and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was blamed for an attack on an Israeli hotel in Kenya in 2002, and for the embassy bombs of 1998.
On February 3rd Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, told Congress that American forces might sometimes seek permission to kill a citizen of the United States, if he was a terrorist. This followed a report that Barack Obama had authorised an attack on Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American imam, in Yemen.
The operation in Somalia earned Mr Obama a rebuke in the Harvard law faculty, where he first shone as a progressive young legal scholar. Such actions were counterproductive and of dubious legitimacy, a columnist in the Harvard Law Record argued. But defenders of the right to kill selectively cite the shooting down of Japan’s Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the second world war, which was quite a cold-blooded business—though he was clearly an enemy combatant.
In truth, the factor that has changed the tactics of the American administration is less legal than mechanical: the advent of drones that can be directed with lethal accuracy (most of the time) from offices in Virginia. The best-known target was Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who was blown up at his home in Waziristan last August. A study by the New America Foundation, a think-thank, points out that CIA drone attacks have become far more frequent since Mr Obama took office, with more strikes being ordered in his first ten months than in George Bush’s last three years.
In a world where Western voters demand maximum results for minimum expenditure of blood and treasure, assassination by machine has an obvious appeal to political leaders. Although they cost more “enemy” lives (including civilian ones) than old-time stabbing or poisoning, they also arouse less controversy. But for how long? Legal watchdogs say it makes unlawful killing more likely by dehumanising the process; and Pakistani officials, even those committed to fighting the Taliban, say the ruthless use of drones is alienating local people.
Whether death is by computer or by more old-fashioned methods, the antecedents and details of assassination are easier to hide in rough, remote locations than in rich, westernised ones. And even in wild places, awkward facts can come out—as they obviously did in Dubai.
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Saw this article in the Economist and thought it went nicely with a recent WSJ article about the Dubai operation. I can certainly understand the reluctance of the average Christian to advocate for a policy of what feels uncomfortably like cold-blooded murder, but let me try to make the case:
ReplyDelete1. In some instances, assassination can prevent a much larger loss of life, whether by preempting an attack (in the case of Hamas, for instance) or by a decapitation strike intended to create regime change (the argument for assassinating Saddam vs. invading Iraq). Obviously, in neither of these cases is the ideal outcome guaranteed, but I don't see as many philosophical difficulties with the effort.
2. The argument for our current de facto U.S. assassination policy (death by drone) is more troublesome. While we have incinerated several HVT's, the Hellfire is a pretty indiscriminate weapon, which means that we are culpable for what we can euphemistically refer to as "collateral damage". This method is also very dependent upon timely, accurate intel, which is in much shorter supply than we might hope.
Having thought quite a bit about this issue, I suggest the following framework:
- Assassination should generally only be used against irregulars (i.e. no heads of state or national intelligence assets)
- It should only be used when a determination has been made that the target poses an imminent future threat to life and limb (i.e. no revenge killings)
- The method selected should always err on the side of fewer innocent casualties, while taking into account the safety of your own assets (i.e. no car bombs when you can shoot, no shooting when you can poison, etc.)
I know assassination seems repugnant at first glance, but it often proves more just than the alternatives.........
I’ll begin with stating the basic premises of the Just War Tradition because it is the most legitimate framework for Christians in thinking about all forms of government coercion, whether considering policing, capital punishment, intelligence/paramilitary activities, or military force. The only honorable, though I think misguided, alternative is Christological pacifism, which generally refers to the affirmation of absolute non-violence as a way of life, regardless of consequence, in response to Christ’s teachings primarily in the Sermon on the Mount. It is important to distinguish this sort of pacifism from liberal pacifism which promotes the belief that pursuing non-violence politically will ultimately make the world a more peaceful place, The former understands that pursuing pacifism as a political project would likely make the world more violent, but believes Jesus calls his Church to embrace it anyway (e.g. see the work of Stanley Hauerwas), the latter believes political pacifism would generally make the world less violent, which is a ridiculous claim.
ReplyDeleteThe Just War Tradition (JWT) can be separated into two parts: jus ad bellum (justice toward war) and jus in bello (justice in war). Justice toward war refers to just cause (self-defense, possibly also defense of an ally or intervention in genocide), just intent (restoration of a peaceful and just order for allies and enemies alike; vengeance and conquest are never legitimate intentions), last resort (all other means of resolution are reasonably exhausted), and lawful declaration/proper authority (only legitimate/recognized governments can employ military force). Justice in war consists of non-combatant immunity (persons not participating in the conflict are immune from attack and measures ought to be taken to protect them from violence), limited objectives (based on the premise that the restoration of a peaceful and just order is the goal, totalizing objectives such as unconditional surrender and utter destruction of the enemy’s economic and political institutions are illegitimate), and limited means (no more force is authorized than that which is required for self-defense and the restoration of a peaceful and just order).
I am sure that many who read these criteria will immediately ask some very relevant questions, such as: what about attacks by non-state actors? what about insurgencies where enemy combatants are not readily identifiable and large portions of the population are complicit in their activities? what about governments that protect terrorist groups who conduct attacks around the globe? There are many more. I won’t address these questions here, but my challenge to everyone is to not discard nearly 17 centuries of reflection by Christians on the just use of force simply because it appears we live in a time where the landscape of the international system seems to be experiencing significant upheaval, thus making the above criteria difficult to apply.
This is part of the reason I selected an article on assassinations by means of extremely mobile and efficient military/paramilitary/intelligence personnel. What do we do with this? First, an evaluation must be made as to whether or not an assassination would serve the desired goal (e.g. reduce capabilities of the organization whose leader was targeted, prevent further violence). But we cannot stop with assessing their utility. Second, we need to consider whether, with regard to the JWT, assassination should be designated as murder (clearly prohibited by Christian ethics) or legitimate force. By the way, if an assassination is murder, the individual soldier or operative who executed it is much less responsible than the “strategic manager(s)” who chose the objective and gave the order.
Phil, addressing one of your points, is it possible that for certain groups (like Hamas or Hezbollah) consisting of “true believers” decapitation by assassination would often serve to “rally the troops”? Especially when they provide substantial social services to those around them. Even if it would incite heightened mobilization, I don’t see this necessarily as sufficient grounds not to assassinate, but it is a factor.
ReplyDeleteSecond, use of drones, as you mentioned, is often too indiscrimminate. The problem of expected “collateral damage” in concert with the uncertainty (to varying degrees) of the intelligence on which the use of drones is based makes “death by drone” an all-too-often illegitimate use of force.
I appreciate much of your assassination framework, particularly the following points:
-It should only be used when a determination has been made that the target poses an imminent future threat to life and limb (i.e. no revenge killings) - The method selected should always err on the side of fewer innocent casualties, while taking into account the safety of your own assets (i.e. no car bombs when you can shoot, no shooting when you can poison, etc.)
I would advocate for the development of strict protocols for designating the target as posing an “imminent future threat” with emphasis on the word “imminent” because if this is not the case, other means of prevention/intervention ought to be exhausted first. Additionally, with respect to non-combatant immunity, I appreciate that you call for the use of the most precise instrument of force possible to achieve the objective in order to reduce the danger to those near the target. I do think you neglected a very important point, however. I think an attempt should be made to take the target into custody before any attempts of assassination. I realize that the the logistics of this would be extremely difficult. But, attempting custodial arrest would make assassination a last resort, it would allow for possible acquisition of intel, and if the target were then tried by military tribunal (or civilian criminal court depending on circumstance) there would be more accountability for the actions taken against the target because the intel and evidence against him would have to be produced in a legal proceeding. Based on the account given in the article, and the proximity of the Mossad agents to the target (Mr. Mabhouh) while in the hotel, it seems apprehension without killing would have been possible.
Phil, have you, or has anyone seen reports showing if U.S. government sponsored assassinations have risen since the 911 attacks, or even, what the statistical trajectory of this practice is over the past several decades? Part of the problem of measuring is definitional I suppose (i.e. not every murder or just killing is an assassination). The dictionary lists three elements of assassination: the killing is secretive and sudden and the target has some political significance.
Good points Nate. To start, the idea of creation of martyrs is worth thinking about. I would argue that entities such as Hamas and Hezbollah are organizationally complex enough that they are only quasi-popular movements. Really, the extent to which the populations they claim to represent are angered by their assassination only reflects pre-existing grievances, not specific to the death itself. In other words, Palestinians are motivated by the assassination of Hamas leadership only if they are already inclined towards the cause that Hamas champions. I don't think you create converts to the radical cause simply by targeting radical leaders, unless you use indiscriminate force in your assassination attempts (which is why I propose a sliding scale in my framework).
ReplyDeleteThe more thorny problem you bring up is that of detention v. assassination. On the face of it, it would seem more prudent to capture rather than kill, for all the reasons you mentioned. However, that position needs a pre-existing legal and intelligence framework that sadly is not even close to existence. The problem with taking a criminal justice approach is that we lack the tools to deal efficiently with subjects once they are captured, for a variety of reasons. The Westphalian system unfortunately does a terrible job at addressing what to do with non-state actors (as you know), and therefore piracy law (for lack of a better term) for the last several centuries has basically been "hang 'em from the yardarm". This obviously lacks the nuance you desire, but we can see why the situation today is what it is.
For that reason, I think assassination has several advantages over capture:
1. Capture often places more of your assets in greater danger. A snatch operation requires exponentially more exposure for the team carrying it out, and also an escape with an unwilling subject in potentially hostile territory. There is a good chance the team will have to fight its way out, leaving chaos in their wake.
2. Capture can also create martyrs. In fact, I would argue that a Western prison is a particularly advantageous place for a militant leader, offering three hots and a cot, safety, and a platform to rally the troops. Any abuses suffered by the leader while in custody cause ongoing consternation not only among his adherents, but also in the Western world. Assassinations may be denounced, but they are quickly forgotten by all but the most dedicated to the cause, while detention festers indefinitely.
3. Assassination is a deterrent. Fear of the Mossad around the corner greatly curtails the activities of Hamas. If all they had to fear was incarceration, they could operate with impunity, knowing that the worst that could happen would be a (likely temporary) stay in an Israeli prison. Picking off the leadership undermines the organization's day-to-day operations and morale, and causes them to move slowly lest rash action lead to exposure and death.
To answer your last query, it is my understanding that drone attacks are way up under the current administration, although they probably wouldn't use the "A word"..............
I found an interesting strategic framework for some of these questions in a book called “Faith and Force: A Christian Debate About War” where a two tier scale is used simultaneously to assess when a law enforcement/intelligence approach vs. a paramilitary/military approach is more appropriate for targeting terrorists.
ReplyDeleteScale1:State Violence // Civilian Violence
Terrorist Group Violence (should be centered)
Scale2:War / Military / All / Terror / Violent
Terrorism Terrorism Crime Crime
Use the scales horizontally and vertically in relation to one another ("Terrorist Group Violence" should be exactly in the middle of the Scale 1). What the authors propose is quite straight forward: an appropriate counter-terrorism strategy accounts for the nature of the organization and the nature of the violent act. The more the nature of the organization corresponds with, or is linked to, states or their proxies further left on Scale 1, the more likely it is that military capabilities are legitimate in dismantling it. But a second level of analysis ought to occur before that determination is made. Scale 2 assesses whether the nature of the act corresponds more with an act of war, a violent crime, or one of the categories in between. Of course, determining the proper category of Scale 2 largely depends on Scale 1.
I would then add the intervening variable from your framework of “future imminent attack” to help bring the appropriate approach into focus. My point is that I’m not necessarily advocating a law enforcement approach. I am saying that not all terrorism is the same and without rigorous intelligence indicating an imminent attack from a particular type of terrorist group, assassination is unjust.
As to your point of a non-existent legal framework for dealing with enemy combatants from non-state actors, you make an excellent case. I guess all I can say is the project of developing this legal framework ought to be vigorously pursued. Although true, I don’t accept that because capture would likely “cause ongoing consternation not only among his adherents, but also in the Western world”, the U.S. government should choose assassination over capture when the latter has not been attempted and there aren’t extreme overriding circumstances demanding immediate use of lethal force. Again, without a legal framework to regularize the process once capture has occurred, the problems with this strategy are great. Your point about deterrence and operatives having to fight their way out of hostile territory “leaving chaos in their wake” needs further thought on my part.
Ultimately, I believe that if the U.S. government is willing to assassinate someone, it should be just as willing to capture and incarcerate them for life if possible, as a first choice. I know you’ve thought about this a lot and we’ve talked about it several times. I’m not all the way there, but if the U.S. government continues to proceed with “irregular” assassinations, especially by means of unmanned drones, I would want them to adhere to your framework.
The larger problem with this discussion is that certainty is impossible to come by in the shadows where this game gets played out. The best we can do are guidelines, but even they may encounter situations where they are useless. That is the problem I have with blanket denunciations of many tools in our toolbox by those who have no concept of what it means to fight the daily fight against people who mean us harm. For instance: When I talk about "imminent danger", might that encompass not only the strike team, but also their supply chain, handlers, intel apparatus, etc? The problem of dealing with irregulars is that their primary reason for existence is to commit violent acts (especially those organizations that have no legitimate political arm). This being the case, it becomes very difficult to draw a direct line from certain individuals to specific actions, at least prior to the event (and in the case of suicide operations, the point is moot). Hamas is an especially difficult case, because there is so much bleed between their political apparatus and their operational group, as opposed to, for example, Sinn Fein and the IRA.
ReplyDeleteIn order to incarcerate these people under our Western tradition, the burden of proof would often be impossible to meet. I know that you are as familiar (and probably frustrated) as I am with admissibility rules, and you can imagine that the manner in which evidence might be collected against these guys would get laughed out of any courtroom in the civilized world. Add to that problem the issue of compromising intel sources during discovery/trial, and you can see the hornet's nest we are poking at here. Obviously these are very practical retorts to a very philosophical problem, but you can see why we get tied up in knots.
Nathan,
ReplyDeleteI'm eager to jump in on these discussion in a few weeks.
Phil, you said, "When I talk about "imminent danger", might that encompass not only the strike team, but also their supply chain, handlers, intel apparatus, etc?" The answer is yes. However, thefurther one is from the "strike team" the less there is an immediate
ReplyDeletedemand for lethal force. For instance, in grad school I researched Hezbollah's funding sources, focusing on its global criminal enterprises, especially narcotics trafficking. Interdiction and apprehension ought to be the order of the day when targeting these
financing activities. If intel points to transactions involving delivery of hundreds of light weapons, then interdiction and apprehension is sought, but expectation of lethal force is higher. If the transaction involves Hezbollah obtaining some sort of short rangemissile with a nuclear warhead,"imminence" is fully satisfied and disruption involving lethal force moves to the top of the list.
As to the problem of actually taking a suspected terrorist to trial, I'll have to take some liberty to speak without much concrete knowledge. I am familiar with criminal law, admissibility rules, burden proof, etc. and I know that intel on HVTs would often come no where near these standards. I also realize that in a full public hearing, intel would be compromised. A criminal proceeding, while appropriate in response to the Oklahoma City bombing, is likely not viable if an arrest is made of a member of a terrorist group with international reach, multiple attacks under its belt, and hundreds or maybe thousands of operatives. Although mostly ignorant of past precendent (and current practice), I propose instead holding private,classified hearings conducted by military officials. Whatever the standards are now for giving the green light for assassination could also be the framework/burden of proof for prosecution. Chairmen and
ranking members of congressional intel committees, each chamber's leadership and their approved staff would have access to the hearings and would be expected to provide oversight, as would select persons from the Department of Justice. If convicted, the defendent would be incarcerated in the U.S. in max security. Every system is imperfect,
but there must be some burden that must be met in order to apprehend or kill someone when the situation is defined outside of the criminal justice system or military combat.
The above are just guidelines, and the settings for such activities are mostly in the shadows. And it is very likely that I will never participate directly in targeting a terrorist group. I'm not even a police officer anymore. Yet questions still arise that are worth
asking. One question is, what kind of corporate responsibility do I have as a Christian in the U.S. for the way in which the U.S. government targets terrorists and the way in which I benefit from that activity (because I know I do)? The United States is a political
community, not the Church, and so will only pursuse the ways of justice in limited ways, yet we should attempt to expand those limits whenever possible. Saying that, essentially, Christian ethics prohibits doing evil so that good may come. And it compels Christians to accept that it is better to die than to kill unjustly. Combining these precepts, Christian
ethics allows and even requires, at times, killing justly in order to do good. This discussion of guidelines (many of which I embrace from your framework) is simply my best attempt at not losing sight of this. Christians are called to be faithful in all spheres of life, not simply pragmatic. I'm trying to see what that means even in the extremes. Thanks for working through that with me.
M. Kenyon said:
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what my two cents will add to this conversation at this point, but here they are: I've been thinking about this for several days now while reading Nathan and Phil's exchange. Until now, the grim realities of assassinations and the "love wins" philosophy of christianity seemed irreconcilable. But I began to imagine hypothetical assassinations as acts of war and somehow it seemed more palatable.
I say "hypothetical assassinations" because my imagined scenario for a palatable assassination is very specific. I realize there are several obvious differences between war and assassination, but I am assuming we should not support assassination for mere political reasons. Assassination should be a last-resort mechanism for eliminating targets capable and willing to carryout (or order) widespread acts of violence against a group of innocent people (even more than capable and willing, we should only operate in circumstances in which we have reliable and possibly corroborated intelligence indicating a threat is imminent). In this scenario, the act feels less like murder and more like warfare, or at least preeminent warfare. It's not motivated by anger or greed or revenge and it's not perpetrated on a personal level for personal reasons. The motivation here is protection of the masses and it's carried out by the government. Isn't this more like single casualty war?
Further, I believe that our posture in response to these assassinations, as a Christian, is just as important as questioning whether or not we should support them in the first place. The appropriate posture is one of sadness. We should feel sad as we realize a life (created by the God we are trying to honor) had to be taken in order to protect more lives. Feeling victorious because an "enemy" is down is the wrong response. It's at the point that we begin to feel these things, victorious or glad or even angry (at the target) that these acts become personal and then we are forced to question our motivation. But if we approach it with the right posture we are more likely to use it as a last resort option to be used only in the absence of equally effective alternatives.
Among many, a major challenge we are having in this discussion is one of semantics. The article was about assassination, but should a rocket attack on a facility believed to house weapons and various leaders from a terrorist group be considered assassination or war? Matt, you stated that you condemn assassination for “mere political reasons”. But assassination by definition is a covert killing that has political significance. This is probably why assassination is a term that feels like it should be outside of the realm of Christian ethics. Phil seemed to push the discussion in the direction of “assassinations” that are of more strategic and/or tactical import. If a killing targets the leader(s) of a terrorist group known to committ mass violence and which shows continued signs of pursuing further attacks, ought this be considered assassination? I’m not sure it should. The killing would be for “political reasons” and security reasons but not “mere political reasons”. Phil also mentioned that some terrorist groups have actual political arms (or some political parties have actual terrorist arms). Killing a leader in these circumstances (depending on that leader’s capacities) might better be considered assassination than the example I just gave.
ReplyDeleteMatt, you also emphasized the issues of imminent threat and corroboration of intel. This is the crux of the matter. Any killing by a government agent that is not for the legitimate provision of security (e.g. stopping an active shooter, preventing imminent violent attack) is murder. Because of the nature of modern threats, it is not possible to observe long processes of military mobilization that give clear indication of imminent attack. Mobilization for terrorist groups unfolds in secret through highly mobile global networks, thus making reliable intel of utmost importance if “imminent threat” is to be determined prior to attack.
Finally, you spoke of motive. I remember Phil addressed this somewhat in his framework by prohibiting assassinations premised solely on vengeance. To affirm what you are getting at here, I recall that St. Augustine addressed this issue. He emphasized that the real casualties of warfare are not the deaths of men who will soon die anyway, but they are instead the malice in men’s hearts toward those they were sent to fight and kill. There is much context here which I’m omitting of course, but it speaks to the idea that to hate our enemies is an evil in and of itself (and is an affront to Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount). I appreciate your assertion that the “right posture” toward killing will move us toward making it a last resort. I have one question to follow-up though, not necessarily to be taken up here. We all used the pronoun “we” throughout this discussion to refer at various times to “Christians”, “the Church”, “Americans”, or “the U.S. Government”. To what extent ought we (Christians or the Church) call Americans or government leaders or government agents of security to embrace the “right posture” or motive toward killing enemies (or finding solutions to any number of other extremely difficult situations) without first inviting them to be Christians and to be in full communion with Christ’s Church? I most certainly believe agents of justice exist outside of the Church, but I have wondered recently if, for instance, we (Christians or the Church) should ask the FBI to have similar virtues that we ask of the Church. I have not developed this line of thought very much and know that it is probably riddled with much internal incoherence, but questions of who is the “we” hit me different than in the past, and I am trying to work through them.