I want to ask Timothy Kudo if there was anything else he knew about the men digging by the side of the road that indicated to him that they were planting a bomb. Because if not, he's just a murderer. By the description in that article, he did not have nearly enough information to decide that those men should die.
America was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". Timothy Kudo was acting as judge and jury for these men and found them guilty with almost no evidence. There are numerous reasons why someone might be digging next to the road at night.
It's only by chance that he happened to be right. He uses the phrase "good shoot, bad result", but if that is the standard he's using for "good shoot", I wonder how many of his kills were "bad shoot, good result".
And it's ridiculous to isolate the responsibility for this kind of action to the soldiers. This is on everyone who accept this as okay--the voters who vote for warmongering politicians, the politicians who start wars and create decision policies that say a shot like this is okay, the officers who give the orders, and the troops on the ground that follow them.
The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is generally not used in warfare. This isn't an American thing; it's long been part of the customary / traditional rules governing lawful conflict.
To provide an easy to understand example why; you would not have to have a legal proceeding to determine that someone wearing a grey uniform with an iron cross on it was in fact a German soldier during WWI. Visual recognition, even from a distance (of the kind that would cause serious cross-examination in a domestic court), is sufficient to make the call that he is an enemy combatant.
Soldiers are absolutely empowered to act as judge, juror, and executioner, and are given significant latitude in determining who is and is not a lawful combatant.
It is worth noting that this Marine officer was acting under not just US rules of engagement, but also NATO ROEs. Those ROEs would have been vetted by the lawyers of all the NATO members, who already abide by some of the most historically rigorous applications of the laws of war.
As for whether Kudo knew anything else about the men digging on the side of the road. The answer is probably not. But, he also knew a lot about the cultural context in which they were operating, and leveraged that to make an informed judgment call about how to proceed. Regardless of whether you personally think that was moral or not, the fact is that it was legally permissible under internationally agreed upon laws of warfare.
> The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is generally not used in warfare. This isn't an American thing; it's long been part of the customary / traditional rules governing lawful conflict.
You don't get to just stop doing the right thing because a war started. Customs/traditions aren't an excuse for murder.
> To provide an easy to understand example why; you would not have to have a legal proceeding to determine that someone wearing a grey uniform with an iron cross on it was in fact a German soldier during WWI. Visual recognition, even from a distance (of the kind that would cause serious cross-examination in a domestic court), is sufficient to make the call that he is an enemy combatant.
Surely you can see how this is much clearer than people digging next to a road.
> It is worth noting that this Marine officer was acting under not just US rules of engagement, but also NATO ROEs. Those ROEs would have been vetted by the lawyers of all the NATO members, who already abide by some of the most historically rigorous applications of the laws of war.
And Nazis were "just taking orders". What's your point? Just because the authorities say it's okay to murder someone doesn't mean it's okay to murder someone.
> Regardless of whether you personally think that was moral or not, the fact is that it was legally permissible under internationally agreed upon laws of warfare.
And it shouldn't be.
Your defense of Kudo's actions is basically: "Law made by Western powers says that what Western powers do is okay, so it's okay!" Fuck that noise. This is just murder.
If you're killing someone, you'd better have a damn good reason, and you'd better be damn sure you're right. Kudo wasn't, but he killed those men anyway.
America was founded on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". Timothy Kudo was acting as judge and jury for these men and found them guilty with almost no evidence. There are numerous reasons why someone might be digging next to the road at night.
It's only by chance that he happened to be right. He uses the phrase "good shoot, bad result", but if that is the standard he's using for "good shoot", I wonder how many of his kills were "bad shoot, good result".
And it's ridiculous to isolate the responsibility for this kind of action to the soldiers. This is on everyone who accept this as okay--the voters who vote for warmongering politicians, the politicians who start wars and create decision policies that say a shot like this is okay, the officers who give the orders, and the troops on the ground that follow them.