The issue of targeting the enemy for elimination by drone strikes, putting aside for a moment the extraordinariness of the entire concept, is a rich source of definition questions. Nobody who attempts to make an argument of any kind against or in favor of using remote killing techniques to pick off specific individuals deemed threatening to US interests can hope to be understood without establishing clear definitions for combat or combatant, civilian and militant, enemy, threat, and imminent, to name just a few. We’ll have time to identify a few of the problems today, but answering them would take the rest of the semester.

Here are some samples from the reading list I’ve compiled below:

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has acted with an overly broad definition of what it means to be engaged in combat.

[enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay included] people who were “involved in terrorist financing.”

The Pentagon says that when drug traffickers are killed by drones, it is

“important to clarify that we are targeting terrorists with links to the drug trade, rather than targeting drug traffickers with links to terrorism.”

One author says:

sweeping financiers into the group of people who can be killed in armed conflict stretches the laws of war beyond recognition.

Questions are asked:

about the standards the administration has used in deciding to use drone strikes to kill Americans suspected of terrorist involvement overseas

Newspaper stories say the president has

embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that [does] little to box him in.

Is it fair to use the following definitional strategy to justify taking out a house and all its inhabitants?

if a group of fighting age males are in a home where we know they are constructing explosives or plotting an attack, it’s assumed that all of them are in on that effort

Choose any of the articles from the list below to read and analyze in class. Provide the title at least (a link to the article if possible) in your post, then

1. Find as much language as you can that makes definition claims
2. Of the examples of definition argument you react most strongly to, choose one or two
3. Analyze or criticize the correctness of the definition
4. Analyze or criticize the effectiveness of the definition to achieve its author’s goal
5. Publish your post in the Definition Exercise category (and of course in your name also).

Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will

Drone Strikes Under Scrutiny

The Drone Question Obama Hasn’t Answered

“Militants”: Media Propaganda

Dissecting Obama’s Standard on Drone Strike Deaths

Obama Embraced Redefinition of Civilian in Drone Wars

Rape has been Decriminalized

White House Reclassified “Militants” to Include Civilians

Assignment Specifics

• DUE: During class; complete by 4:30PM THU MAR 06.
• Word count is irrelevant. Thorough analysis will be graded higher than superficial writing that wastes words. Complex ideas briefly expressed are rewarded best.
• You will receive just one grade for this in-class exercise.
• Quizzes and Exercises category (10%)