<<I wonder when anyone shot in wartime got to demand a trial first?>>
Not in the course of a battle, but these powers to kill or assassinate are not battlefield powers.
<<Generally if you join one of the armies you can expect one of the other armies to shoot at you when they can as long as the war lasts.>>
Yes, again you are referring to battlefield conditions, there are two sides, each is shooting at the other and both are wearing uniforms to distinguish themselves.
<<The Al Quieda doesn't even restrict itself in this , anyone on earth can be a legitamate target of terrorism. >>
Yes, but you will notice that the Greenwald article was not a complaint about what al Qaeda does to U.S. citizens, but a complaint about what the U.S. Government does to U.S. citizens.
<<Our best bet is to kill them off at a rate that overcomes their recruiting .>>
No, actually, your best bet is to see why they are determined to kill Americans and if there is anything that Americans can do that will stop pissing them off to such an extent. It'd be a lot less costly too.
<< Frankly I am not getting your point>>
THAT'S for God-damn sure.
<< . . . since when have we held a trial before each killing in a war? >>
One of my points is that we are not talking about "each killing" in a war. We are talking about a targeted assassination, not a battlefield shoot-out.
<<What would a trial for the accused be like ? >>
The guy would be faced with evidence against him, that he is in fact an "enemy combatant" as Dennis Blair alleges he is, his lawyer would cross-examine Blair's witnesses, and put his own witnesses up to testify and be cross-examined in their turn, then counsel for each side would argue their case to the judge, then the judge would decide if this guy was in fact an enemy combatant as Blair had alleged he was.
<<Can we put armed men in combat on trial?>>
Good question. Have you ever heard of participants in a shoot-out with the police being captured and put on trial? Are you claiming that the U.S. military is somehow incapable of taking prisoners?
The answer is yes, you CAN put armed men in combat on trial. Furthermore the answer is that very few of the victims of extraterritorial assassination will be "armed men in combat," but rather American citizens NOT engaged at the moment in combat of any kind, suddenly targeted by drones and assassinated because of what the civil servant Dennis Blair thinks they are guilty of doing.
<Aren't you simply being silly?>>
No, the person being silly is YOU, because you persistently assume that the American victims of this unprecedented shoot to kill policy are going to be killed in active combat with guns in their hands, when all evidence is that they will be tracked down, stalked and assassinated when NOT engaged in combat. Either deliberately or through pure ignorance you are persistently misrepresenting the problem that has arisen.
