"The targeted killing campaign also bolstered Israeli morale. In the last five years, Israel has lost more than 1,000 people to terrorism. No government can remain idle as its citizens are slaughtered, and, in a grim fashion, the killings of terrorists created a sense among the Israeli public that its government was striking back and protecting them."

This is actually a non-trivial benefit. One of the key enablers/ goals of terrorism is to spread the impression of precisely the opposite idea: that the government and society are weak and corrupt, and protection is impossible. This was codified in the late 1960s by Marxist terrorists (the predominant kind at the time) like Marighella. Tiptoeing through a number of Osama's videos also show a similar underlying message, for which targeted killings provide a grimly effective countermessage.

In an age where terrorist leaders think nothing of sending children with Down's Syndrome out as suicide bombers, repeatedly (as usual, the Palestinians invented this one), these measures also restore moral equilibrium to the battlefield.

Byman does note that the practice has limitations, however, and that Israel's experience may be instructive. He makes essentially three points in the abbreviated newspaper versions of his February-March 2006 Foreign Affairs magazine article, and they fall into two broad headings.

Capture vs. Kill: The Intelligence Dimension

One of which is that capture is usually preferable to execution due to the information that can be extracted. Of course, it is not always a realistic option, and Byman acknowledges this. Still, when it is possible:

"Moral considerations aside, arrests allow interrogation, and interrogation leads to information that can disrupt planned attacks or lead to the capture of other operatives. And mistakes [in kill-focused operations] are inevitable...."

I would concur, but flag the underlying assumptions: [1] that an effective interrogation regie eexists; and [2] that captured prisoners are not likely be released while they still represent a danger. If either of those assumptions are not true, or become no longer true, his recommendation may suffer a fatal blow.

Byman also raises the issue of foreign governments and cooperation as an additional intelligence consideration:

"Israel operates in a tiny area that it has penetrated with intelligence assets — and still, it has made mistakes. The U.S., in contrast, must operate globally and in regions where its intelligence is weak.

Israel, moreover, could not rely on the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat to arrest the suspects when Israel identified them. The U.S., however, relies heavily on the cooperation of allied governments in arresting and disrupting suspected terrorists."

This is a valid point, and deciding whether or not to execute a specific operation has to take this into account. On the other hand, once again we must flag the underlying assumption. Beyond a certain point, non-cooperation from a government in policing its own territory can, should (indeed, must) cause the calculus to shift. For "allied cooperation" to be a viabe argument for anything, there must be either sufficient cooperation or serious enough retaliatory consequences to make respect for their sovereign perogatives worth it.

This caveat may become more and more central in some darker scenarios for The Islamist War's future - for instance, as the full long-term consequences of EUrabia become apparent. Meanwhile, one hopes our "friends" the Saudis have been reminded of this often since 9/11.

Clear Policies and the Question of Civilians

Byman again:

"Perhaps the biggest lesson the U.S. can draw from Israel is the need for transparency. Israel has a robust public debate on the controversial policy. While the government does not share specific intelligence, the targeting criteria are understood by all. The result is a broad consensus. In the U.S., in contrast, the process is secretive and, if mistakes occur, a backlash is possible. Although transparency may result in missed opportunities, the result would be a more sustainable policy."

Unreservedly true. In holding that discussion, however, one must raise those missed opportunities and their costs as one discusses where the bar is to be set. Recall, for instance, the failure to kill the Taliban's nominal leader Mullah Omar in the early days of the war, for the ridiculous reason that some pipsqueak lawyer in CENTCOM [a] was goven authority to vet it; and [b] wasn't sure about it.

The Guardian mentions this incident in its Novemmber 3, 2001 article "Winter is coming and the Taliban are strong as ever. What now for the war on terror?" - which is also a useful reminder of the "quagmire" rhetoric at the time. The US Air Force Magazine's November 2002 "An Air War Like No Other" recap of the air campaign over Afghanistan mentions it too. But the original source was The New Yorker in their Oct. 22, 2001 FACT feature:

"That night, an unmanned Predator reconnaissance aircraft, under the control of the C.I.A., was surveilling the roads leading out of Kabul. The Predator, which costs forty million dollars and cruises at speeds as slow as eighty miles an hour, is equipped with imaging radar and an array of infrared and television cameras that are capable of beaming high-resolution images to ground stations around the world. The plane was equipped with two powerful Hellfire missiles, designed as antitank weapons. The Predator identified a group of cars and trucks fleeing the capital as a convoy carrying Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Under a previously worked-out agreement, one knowledgeable official said, the C.I.A. did not have the authority to "push the button." Nor did the nearby command-and-control suite of the Fifth Fleet, in Bahrain, where many of the war plans had been drawn up. Rather, the decision had to be made by the officers on duty at the headquarters of the United States Central Command, or CENTCOM, at MacDill Air Force Base, in Florida.

The Predator tracked the convoy to a building where Omar, accompanied by a hundred or so guards and soldiers, took cover. The precise sequence of events could not be fully learned, but intelligence officials told me that there was an immediate request for a full-scale assault by fighter bombers. At that point, however, word came from General Tommy R. Franks, the CENTCOM commander, saying, as the officials put it, "My JAG" — Judge Advocate General, a legal officer — "doesn't like this, so we're not going to fire." Instead, the Predator was authorized to fire a missile in front of the building — "bounce it off the front door," one officer said, "and see who comes out, and take a picture." CENTCOM suggested that the Predator then continue to follow Omar. The Hellfire, however, could not target the area in front of the building—in military parlance, it could not "get a signature" on the dirt there — and it was then agreed that the missile would attack a group of cars parked in front, presumably those which had carried Omar and his retinue. The missile was fired, and it "obliterated the cars," an official said. "But no one came out."

It was learned later from an operative on the ground that Omar and his guards had indeed been in the convoy and had assumed at the time that the firing came from rocket-propelled grenades launched by nearby troops from the Northern Alliance. A group of soldiers left the building and looked for the enemy. They found nothing, and Omar and his convoy departed. A short time later, the building was targeted and destroyed by F-18s. Mullah Omar survived.

Days afterward, top Administration officials were still seething about the incident. "If it was a fuckup, I could live with it," one senior official said. "But it's not a fuckup — it's an outrage. This isn't like you're six years old and your mother calls you to come in for lunch and you say, 'Time out.' If anyone thinks otherwise, go look at the World Trade Center or the Pentagon." A senior military officer viewed the failure to strike immediately as a symptom of "a cultural issue"—"a slow degradation of the system due to political correctness: 'We want you to kill the guy, but not the guy next to him.' No collateral damage." Others saw the cultural problem as one of bureaucratic, rather than political, correctness. Either way, the failure to attack has left Defense Secretary Rumsfeld "kicking a lot of glass and breaking doors," the officer said. "But in the end I don't know if it'll mean any changes."

That was the first major indication I had that the West was in serious danger of losing the Global War on terror, and may be in a terminal civilizational phase.

One should also raise the point very forcefully that deliberately using the presence of civilians to immunize oneself from attack is itself a war crime, and note the applicable rules in the Fourth Geneva Conventions.² CPO Sparky's excellent March 2003 article, "Human Shields or Mercenaries?" goes into more detail, and notes:

"When our leaders decry a practice as a "war crime" but then allow such practices to affect planning (even though we are under no obligation to do so), the enemy now knows that he has successfully affected operations in his favor and he continues to use it. The very success of the tactic encourages the enemy's inclination to not take the "war crime" threat seriously, because "you have to catch me first."

Thus vitiating one of the key purposes of the Geneva Conventions, which was to provide protection to civilians in wartime by clearly separating them from military actors. One described well and in depth in Bill Whittle's essay "Sanctuary."

In other words, the cooperation of "anti-war" and/or co-belligerent elements in making collateral civilian casualties a major political issue as part of their political strategy, simply ensures that the practice will spread and far more civilians will be put in harm's way. The general failure to focus on the war crime dimension of terrorists like al-Qaeda, the PLO, et. al. also exacerbates this problem.

Worse, to the extent that states submit to these gambits, it also creates a false feeling of security on the part of civilians. This, too, has consequences. For starters, it means they see much less of a personal threat when the latest tin-pot dictator or terrorist cabal co-locates military targets among them. If revolutions are dangerous and the terrorists promise to kill you for blabbing, while the West promises not to kill you regardless, what's the incentive pattern here?

The result, of course, is more frequent decisions NOT to take action against a government whose actions may in fact threaten their lives rather directly. Or NOT to risk providing information or support to the authorities re: terrorist elements in their midst.

These are not trivial side-effects, and taking the battle to the Left on this issue is important for the West's long term success in the war.

Conclusion

Targeted killings work. While their ultimate manifestation per Robert Heinlein's "Friday"³ is not possible, they are disproportionately effective against "Netwar" organizations that rely on clandestine recruitment and looser command and control.

Footnotes:

¹ A similar dynamic could be observed in the American Mafia, which was decimated by a series of arrests and convictions. The next generation of leaders were basically a bunch of young punks who couldn't fill the old guard's shoes - indeed, one can trace a steady decline from the Luciano/Gambino era to leaders like John Gotti to his ineffective successors. The Sicilian Mafia, which is far safer from American law enforcement and has done far better against its own local law enforcement, now runs a good chunk of the show in America.

² Note that the Additional Protocols, introduced in 1977, were not signed by the USA. The last portion it signed was the Fourth Geneva Conventions in 1949.

³ In Heinlein's "Friday," he briefly describes a tactic whereby a very good intelligence organization figured out which enemy commanders were competent, and assassinated only those people, leaving only the morons in charge. Needless to say, they went on to win the war handily. To take this idea to a more personal level, it's well-known that weak managers tend to promote even weaker people who cannot threaten them. Look around your workplace (if you work or have worked for an organization of any size), and imagine what would happen if someone pulled that kind of "Friday" stunt there.