Jiihadi John Assasinated

[AFTT47]

[Minimalist]

Good riddance, if true.

No loss to humanity.

[vorlon13]

Wonder if he's being ravaged by 72 goats now ?

[Anomalocaris]

Why do you use the word "assassinated"?

[AFTT47]

Why do you use the word "assassinated"?

Because I don't see any other word as applicable. We targeted a specific individual who is not a particularly great military threat. Like I said, any fool can commit murder This guy did it in a particularly horrendous way - a way which can easily be argued is a crime against all humanity. But we killed him without a trial. I can see justifying that against a particularly important military combatant like the Japanese military commander we went after in WWII but Jihadi John was just a thug.

Like I said, I'm glad we did it. It just seems like a dangerous precedent though. What if one of us does something the U.S. government REALLY doesn't like? Should we be shot down without a trial? I guess that depends on what we did but the thought of that kind of summary judgement is troublesome to me and I'm not even one of those people who have a slavish devotion to law.

[Minimalist]

How many other ISIS fucks have been killed by drone strikes?  This guy is nothing special.  Just one less scumbag on the other side.

[AFTT47]

How many other ISIS fucks have been killed by drone strikes?  This guy is nothing special.  Just one less scumbag on the other side.

The others we killed were high-ranking leaders or possessed special skills like bomb-making abilities. They could be justified as military targets because of that. Jihadi John was nobody special outside of being a particularly abhorrent thug. He was nothing more than the equivalent of an enemy foot soldier who just happened to be a particularly noteworthy asshole.

[Minimalist]

[AFTT47]

Well there was no beating around the bush here. We deliberately targeted someone who was not a high-value military target.

[robvalue]

Assassinated is exactly the word I used when I heard this news. I know what you mean AFTT, I'm conflicted about this.

It's hard to make a proper judgement without all the information. Were they planning to take this guy out specifically and waiting for the chance? Were they just taking out ISIS guys and happened to hit him? Or did they see an opportunity to kill an annoying target and take it?

I have no idea, probably few people know the whole truth here; we get told what they want us to hear.

I agree that this guy is scum and the world is better off without him. But then that applies to many, many people, and it wouldn't justify killing them out of combat. I really don't know what the "rules" are here. Is the US officially at war to such a degree that killing any confirmed ISIS guys at any time is fair game? Even if they aren't actually posing a threat at the time you kill them? Calling this self defence seems like a stretch, it's more like revenge.

Part of me wants the whole of the civilised world to get together, hunt out every last one of these fuckers and rid the world of them for good. But the other part sees a load of broken, programmed people. Mental illness would normally explain the kind of behaviour we see from ISIS, but there's just too many of them for that to be credible. Surely for at least some of them, people who would otherwise have been normal people have been fucked with so badly that they are now ruthless killing machines.