CIA Hit Teams: Who's In Charge Here?

[laststeamtrain]

CIA Hit Teams: Who's In Charge Here?


Revelations of a secret CIA plan to knock off Al Qaeda leaders has refueled burning debates in the United States over the proper tools for combating terrorism -- and who should control how and when those tools are used.

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There are at least two debates going on here. One concerns the program's goals: Can U.S. spooks covertly kill bad guys overseas without breaking the law?

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Some say no -- that the UN Charter bars the use by any nation of military force except in self defense or with a Security Council blessing. Domestically, past Presidents, including Ford and Reagan, have explicitly ordered that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination."
Some legal experts, such as Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers' Guild, argue that those rules bar targeted killing plans like the CIA reportedly considered.

"As a 1998 report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur noted, 'extrajudicial executions can never be justified under any circumstances, not even in time of war,'" she said. "Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act."

But other legal experts say that the technical definition of "assassination" is limited to targeting political leaders -- such as the CIA's efforts against Castro during the Cold War.

"Killing private persons overseas is a garden variety murder ... it has nothing to do with international law, and it's not an assassination," said David Rivkin Jr., an attorney who served in the George H.W. Bush White House.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=43606

[bleever]

1. If David Rivkin Jr. says it, you know it's damage control.

That means that in this case, smoke means fire.