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[James Manning <jmm AT sublogic.com>]

> Why the hell are we using jets to kill individual people?

This isn't really the point of the thread, but FWIW there's a lot of
"overkill" scenarios that happen because of the current "rules" (IIRC,
Geneva convention, but it may be something else, like the presidential
order that Bush may have rescinded, I forget) that disallow
assassinations.  The way to get around this is to not send in the one
sniper (with a 50 cal bullet to make it extra fun) but to consider
"it" to be a military target and attack it as such.  If the individual
target happens to die, the mission was a success.

Geneva conventions have lots of positive humanitarian influences, at
least when followed (treatment of POW's, parachuting ejected pilots,
etc).  Unfortunately, the "not an assassination" attack is an exploit
of a loophole, one incredibly difficult to close, that's clearly in
violation of the spirit of the rule.

But that's a slippery slope.  Do we say "this rule is killing
children" because of the usage of the loophole and do away with the
rule altogether?

I dunno, I guess I should google around, maybe the anti-assassination
thing was only a historical presidential thing no longer in effect and
the A-10 overkill attacks were just military choices and snipers were
an option as well.  Maybe the overkill just chalked up as success +
additional psychological damage on survivors.  After all, in war your
best result isn't to kill an enemy, but to critically wound them.

I'm hoping for some informed and enlightening responses :)  I just
wish I had one of my own to contribute :)

-- 
James Manning <http://www.sublogic.com/james/>
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