[neilv]

> The civilians appeared to be diving for shellfish when they inadvertently came across the detachment of SEALs as they splashed ashore at night, the Times reported. The American forces opened fire, killing all those aboard the small fishing vessel, the report said, without specifying the number of casualties. [...] A classified Pentagon review later concluded the killings were justified under the rules of engagement, the report said.

Can someone explain?

Were they believed to be militants? Were they recognized as civilians but they took up weapons? Is there a rule that you can kill a non-militant who might raise the alarm to militants, even if not at war? Were there unusual orders in effect for this mission? Something else?

[jandrewrogers]

There are different clandestine and covert legal authorities under which these kinds of operations can be conducted with different rules of engagement. While most don't, some of these authorities may allow for killing of innocents in furtherance of the mission. The article implies that the rules of engagement for this particular mission allowed for the elimination of witnesses.

Governments around the world have strong incentives to keep this kind of thing out of the news even when they are on the receiving end, so it is relatively rare for it to leak into the public sphere no matter which government ends up killing innocents.

[neilv]

Thanks for the explanation.

Isn't this a pretty dangerous power and precedent to have, if you're the good guys?

Especially if you don't have a lot of confidence that the top of the command chain will always be of the utmost integrity and decency?

[jandrewrogers]

At least in the US, there is a systematic separation of concerns and quite a few authorization interlocks. These are intentionally designed to make it nearly impossible for a rogue unit to operate with legal cover. Everybody who is a part of that legal process takes their bit very seriously and it isn’t just a bunch of political appointees.

Some types of operations require explicit and direct sign-off by the President, which provides legal sanction for people doing the work. Even in these cases, the operational details are left to the career professionals.

That isn’t to say that organizations can’t leave the reservation (see: FBI under Hoover) but that over time they’ve built up a lot of internal structure to limit it with varying degrees of effectiveness. It is useful to note that almost all of this was invented out of whole cloth after WW2, so the US has had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way.

[neilv]

That systems of interlocks sounds somewhat reassuring.

Though, what we can see recently of some checks on other extraordinary powers don't seem to be working well.

[NaomiLehman]

There are no good guys. There are just different flavors of bad guys. All power corrupts.

[padjo]

Everyone thinks they are the good guys.

[locallost]

There are no goods guys. Just a series of rationalizations on why something wrong is justified. Even the Nazis saw themselves as the good guys.

Instead, justice is blind for a reason. Your declared noble intentions are irrelevant.

[AnimalMuppet]

"Elimination of witnesses" makes sense for a cable-tapping mission. You can't let the country know that you tapped their cable. It would ruin the whole point.

On the other hand, if you leave a bunch of dead bodies with bullets in them, a reasonably-competent government is going to figure out that something happened there, and if the cable is near there, it's a reasonably likely candidate...

[jandrewrogers]

They don’t necessarily know what the mission was, just that the mission left dead bodies. Furthermore, they don’t know which country did it. There are probably a dozen countries that would do a mission like this against them with various objectives.

You also have to consider the possibility that the mission was intentionally designed as a distraction, such that the purpose was to leave evidence of a mission.

[esbranson]

The rules of engagement are probably to consider everyone hostile unless and until proven otherwise. If you're a California male citizen for example, you probably have no clue that you've been declared a combatant. By law. (Military and Veterans Code § 122.) North Koreans are probably less sexist and ageist, and less ignorant and naive than Californians to boot. On a state-owned vessel.

Enemy combatants don't magically get immunity from war when they don't have a weapon on them, nor do military forces have to go into a state property and politely ask everyone without a weapon if they're an enemy combatant before they can fire on it and turn everyone into dust. Nor are they required to refrain from engaging enemy forces because someone else is likely to get hurt. Your entire line of assumptions and the questions that flow from them is detached from reality.

The military law of your jurisdiction, at a minimum, would be a good book to read, if you can afford it. I think a one-time purchase from Thomson Reuters for the California Code would cost you $41,000 USD and a pretty onerous contract. If you tried to take one from a library, I'm sure they'd only give you a couple nights in jail and a year of probation. I think you can get Hong Kong's for $90,000 if that's where you live.