Assassination and Targeted Killing
At least since World War II, a distinction has been drawn between assassination of civilian leaders, and targeted killings of leaders of fighting organizations. Some cases were blurry, such as the British-Czech Operation Anthropoid, the killing of uniformed SS officer Reinhard Heydrich, the German governor, at the time, of Czechoslovakia. A failed attempt, by British troops, to kill Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was clearly aimed at a military leader, as was the successful shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
CIA has admitted being involved in assassination attempts against foreign leaders. Recently, there have been targeted killings of suspected terrorists, typically with missiles fired from unmanned aerial vehicles, in a manner that a number of legal authorities believe was a legitimate act as opposed to a prohibited assassination.
Read more about this topic: CIA Transnational Human Rights Actions
Famous quotes containing the word killing:
“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)