Whacked - It hasn't happened

Whacked - It hasn't happened yet - but it's only a matter of time before I encounter a Democrat who believes, as does Charles Rangel, that killing Qusay and Oday Hussein was illegal.

Volokh, as usual, has the goods:

I don't know if there's been any authoritative interpretation of this order -- and remember that it's just an Executive Order, and to my knowledge violation of such orders with the approval of the Executive (i.e., the President) is not a crime or otherwise actionable -- but in any event, does it apply here? I can't imagine that the order was meant to apply, or was understood as applying, to the killing of the members of an enemy military organization in time of war. That's what you do in a war: Kill enemy soldiers. Sometimes you kill them in battle, sometimes you send special forces to kill them by surprise. Sometimes you kill the grunts, sometimes you kill the generals (and it's often both more effective and more just to focus on the latter).

The next time a Democrat brings this one up, ask them - wasn't Clinton's Lewinsky-Eve Tomahawk attack the same thing?

Not that it matters; this, like the Yellowcakes non-story, is just more evidence that the Dems are panicking.

Posted by Mitch at July 24, 2003 06:11 AM