<story><title>The Drone that Killed my Grandson</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?hp&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>InclinedPlane</author><text>This is a good analysis but I think it misses the mark a bit.&lt;p&gt;The problem is very much one of terrorism. The basic idea of terrorism is to erase the boundaries of the battlefield. The worst possible reaction to that is to do the same, but that&amp;#x27;s increasingly what we&amp;#x27;ve been doing. In order to be capable of fighting a war effectively (even while acting purely defensively) the rules of the battlefield must necessarily be very much different from the rules of civilized society.&lt;p&gt;Increasingly the ideas that police should act like soldiers, that soldiers should be used for policing, and that the protections inherent in the criminal justice system are now outmoded and no longer useful in fighting terrorism have taken hold. But this has occurred concomitant with the expansion of the &amp;quot;battlefield&amp;quot; in the &amp;quot;war on terror&amp;quot; to encompass no less than the entirety of human civilization.&lt;p&gt;The result is that while the terrorists may have knocked a few holes in the walls we have put up between civilized society under the rule of law and the near-anarchy of the battlefield the governments of the world have gleefully participated in shooting vastly more holes in those walls.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>The sad and dangerous thing that has happened is that a new category of criminals has been made: Terrorists. Once someone is put in that category all his rights cease to exist. It&amp;#x27;s sort of like the outlaws of medieval Europe.&lt;p&gt;The only right thing to do is to start treating terrorist suspects exactly like those suspected of any other crimes, be it murder, theft, rape etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bigiain</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to read those comments while thinking of the &amp;quot;other war&amp;quot; the US (and the militarized police force) is fighting. What are the battlefield boundaries of &amp;quot;the war on drugs&amp;quot;? How can the &amp;quot;rules of that battlefield&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;the rules of civilized society&amp;quot; be any different?</text></comment>
<story><title>The Drone that Killed my Grandson</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?hp&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>InclinedPlane</author><text>This is a good analysis but I think it misses the mark a bit.&lt;p&gt;The problem is very much one of terrorism. The basic idea of terrorism is to erase the boundaries of the battlefield. The worst possible reaction to that is to do the same, but that&amp;#x27;s increasingly what we&amp;#x27;ve been doing. In order to be capable of fighting a war effectively (even while acting purely defensively) the rules of the battlefield must necessarily be very much different from the rules of civilized society.&lt;p&gt;Increasingly the ideas that police should act like soldiers, that soldiers should be used for policing, and that the protections inherent in the criminal justice system are now outmoded and no longer useful in fighting terrorism have taken hold. But this has occurred concomitant with the expansion of the &amp;quot;battlefield&amp;quot; in the &amp;quot;war on terror&amp;quot; to encompass no less than the entirety of human civilization.&lt;p&gt;The result is that while the terrorists may have knocked a few holes in the walls we have put up between civilized society under the rule of law and the near-anarchy of the battlefield the governments of the world have gleefully participated in shooting vastly more holes in those walls.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>The sad and dangerous thing that has happened is that a new category of criminals has been made: Terrorists. Once someone is put in that category all his rights cease to exist. It&amp;#x27;s sort of like the outlaws of medieval Europe.&lt;p&gt;The only right thing to do is to start treating terrorist suspects exactly like those suspected of any other crimes, be it murder, theft, rape etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ordinary</author><text>While the definition of the term &amp;#x27;war crime&amp;#x27; is fairly recent, the murder of civilians (only one of many types of  war crime) during times of conflict is hardly a new phenomenon. The only thing that&amp;#x27;s new to us who have not lived though World War 2 is that a few times, civilians from the West were killed within their own borders. Islamist terrorism, while inexcusable, immoral and criminal, has not erased the boundaries of the battlefield. History shows that even if there were ever any borders on the battlefield, they were erased long ago.</text></comment>