The last photo of Adm. Yamamoto, April 18th, 1943. He was dead by 10:00 a.m. Tokyo time. R.I.P.

From the depths of interstellar space, the unusually pensive Klingon, Da’rod of Q’onos, writes in:

Most Puissant and Beneficent Volgi,

I have been pondering the circumstances of the death of OBL and searching through my knowledge of history for a parallel. What I came to was the shooting down of Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto in the Mariana Islands during WWII. Yamamoto, owing to his position, was essentially a non-combatant, the architect of a surprise attack, and his death was affected by an aerial ambush of P-38s, certainly something akin to a Special Forces raid.

Obviously there are some differences, Yamamoto was a regular officer in the established military of a recognized nation-state, OBL was the leader of a paramilitary supra-national entity that corrupted the government of a recognized nation state. I argued this parallel with my fellow warriors a bit, finally coming to comity when I made clear I wasn’t trying to equate Yamamoto or Pearl Harbor with terrorism, but was instead searching for a way to equate OBL and the fight against terror with legitimate tactics during a declared war in our history. Something clicking in our heads, instincts maybe, tell us that targeting and eliminating OBL was a legitimate tactic, but I was struggling to go beyond those gut feelings and come up with a real justification for these events until working through this parallel in my head.

It was important to me build a defensible case for our conduct, as just because we have the power to effect his elimination, doesn’t mean we have the authority. Power without law is tyranny. I thus also wanted to get a Gormogical spin, since if I think independently too much I fear a gut boot. What say you Volgi? Am I off my rocker here, or can history guide us to a place where OBL’s elimination is a legal tactic against a recognized enemy?

[signed]
“It is a good day to die, and the day is not yet over.”

Well, Confucius* will be happy to rectify some names for you. It’s his bidness.

The category under which Osama is a legitimate target is that of the outlaw—i.e., someone who has by conscious conduct placed himself outside the legitimate rules of warfare (or law) and thereby forfeited their protection. In international law, the best precedent is that of hostis humani generis or “enemy of the human race” [i.e., “enemy of humanity”]. Historically, these are people like pirates, slavers, torturers, etc. who don’t wear uniforms, kill and do other horrible stuff, sufficient that they are allowed to be killed by any state at any time.

Whether or not al-Qâ’ida and its ilk are considered in this category by international lawyers is vague. John Yoo’s famous memo talking about “illegal enemy combatants” seems to be taking the logic of the “enemy of humanity” laws while circumlocuting around the name.

We here at the Castle, as we’ve mentioned, declare flatly that all members of terrorist groups who attack civilians are hostis humani generis, and that the main problem is actually defining at what point the definition stops—does the guy who launders their money qualify? What about a donor? What about someone who runs a front company? Or gives to that front company? Clearly, in a spy novel, all of those people would be wearing a 115-grain, jacketed, hollow-point earplug. In real life…you start putting your operatives at risk of running afoul of murder charges.

So not only was Osama the operational leader of the kind of non-state terrorist organization you describe well, but by his active participation in the group, as far as we’re concerned, he (and everybody else in it) lost his status as a combatant covered by the laws of war.

The Obama Administration, incidentally, seems to believe in the logic of outlawry implicitly, although one suspects they’d never come out and say it. How else can you justify targeting Anwar al-Awlaqi, an American citizen, for death by Hellfire missile? He’s never been stripped of his citizenship, so he—unlike KSM, et al.—does have legitimate rights vis-à-vis the U.S. government. And the government can’t just put out hits on its own citizens. (Save me the paranoid e-mail.)

Ergo, one suspects that the Obama lawyers believe (as Yoo, et al., did) that al-Awlaqi has no rights, per se, presumably having forfeited them as a member of an international-outlaw group (since al-Awlaqi is a recruiter-type, it’s hard to say he’s technically “levying war” which usually [though not always?] means serving in an armed capacity).

Oh, and finally, Naval Marshal-General Yamamato, Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was emphatically not a non-combatant. He was a uniformed member of an enemy military who was not surrendering. Ergo, he was a legitimate, lawful military target. Moreover, he was flying in a bomber with a fighter escort, so he can’t even be said to have been without defense (indeed, the U.S. lost at least one pilot in the raid, if Confucius’s admittedly 2,561½-year-old memory serves).

The fact that we knew where he was and where he was going (on an inspection tour) and were therefore able to send in a superior force (18 P-38s!) all but guaranteed to kill him—well, that’s superior intelligence and planning. But practically, it’s no different from Carlos Hathcock’s putting a .30-06 round in an NVA general’s chest after stalking him for four days.

It’s cold, it’s chilling…and it’s war. Which is why one prays for peace (et parat bellum).

St. Norbert of Xanten, ora pro nobis.

*For those who came in late: Confucius is the Gormogons’ Œcumenical Volgi.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.