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Re: Canadian sniper makes history by killing ISIL insurgent from more than 3.5 kilome
It has nothing what so ever to do with American exceptionalism. I feel exactly the same way whether the soldier is from the US or any other country. They only need to concern themselves with the laws of their country. The reason I mentioned the US is because as an American that is the country and the laws that I am most familiar with. I guarantee that JTF2 sniper was acting well within the authorities given to him by the government Canada. You may not like it but that doesn't change a thing and it sure as hell doesn't make it illegal.
Your whole idea of international law is naive beyond belief. Every single country out there will act in the way that it sees as being in its best interest. And what court or law enforcement agency is going to stop them. You simply calling things illegal or a war crime doesn't make them so. Furthermore your opinion that the line between title 50 and 10 has gone to far is nothing more then just that. Your opinion.
Finally pretty much everything you are complaining about the US and Canada doing from strategic reconnaissance to shaping the battlefield and conduct Intel gathering is already being done by virtually every country that is able to do it. So much for your international law.
Thanks but I have sat in enough classes and briefs on the different authorities. Don't have the desire or need to read your link.Braindrain:
There has been an escalating conflation or blurring of the military Title 10 Authorization and the Intelligence Title 50 Authorization since 2001. Not even your own government and JAGs have been able to keep the two prongs of covert action from crossing over.
You may find this article helpful in this debate:
https://fas.org/man/eprint/gross.pdf
Your invocation of US "exceptionalism" and your assertion that US covert special operations conform to US law does not address the whole story here. This thread is about a JTF-2 Sniper making a world record shot but I contend he was doing it while allegedly operating beyond the legal mandate given by the Canadian Government to the Canadian people when the operation (Impact) was last extended on March 31, 2017. So in this case US law does not apply. And since the Canadian and US militaries are cooperating more and more under an integrated command structure that puts Canadians who cannot claim US exceptionalism in legal jeopardy even if they operate within US law because they are subject to Canadian law.
The implied claim that the US can ignore international law and conventions with respect to war and other military operations is a political assertion and not a point of law. The US is bound by treaties and conventions which it has signed and which its senate has ratified and thus it must refrain from certain actions while conducting military operations. Transferring soldiers from military to intelligence authority makes those operations no less legal or illegal. It simply makes them more easily deniable. So playing a legal shell game with authorities might have worked prior to 9/11, 2001 when these operations were fewer in number but since then the acceleration of use and the blurring between Title 10 and Title 50 Authorities has gone too far to systematically distinguish between the two in quite a few operations (and those are only the ones we know about). The fact that the US is conducting military operations against sovereign nations which it is not at war with is a war crime, pure and simple. These special forces are no OSS operatives dropped behind enemy lines to fight a declared war or to help partisans fight an occupying power with which you are at war. The SFO teams which are infiltrating into foreign state not at war with the US are conducting strategic reconnaissance, espionage (despite being soldiers and not spies), shaping the battlefield operations, insurgent training missions to destabilise legally recognized governments, killing people and kidnapping people on foreign soil while not at war and conducting sabotage and other mischief. That is not cool.
Cheers.
Evilroddy.
It has nothing what so ever to do with American exceptionalism. I feel exactly the same way whether the soldier is from the US or any other country. They only need to concern themselves with the laws of their country. The reason I mentioned the US is because as an American that is the country and the laws that I am most familiar with. I guarantee that JTF2 sniper was acting well within the authorities given to him by the government Canada. You may not like it but that doesn't change a thing and it sure as hell doesn't make it illegal.
Your whole idea of international law is naive beyond belief. Every single country out there will act in the way that it sees as being in its best interest. And what court or law enforcement agency is going to stop them. You simply calling things illegal or a war crime doesn't make them so. Furthermore your opinion that the line between title 50 and 10 has gone to far is nothing more then just that. Your opinion.
Finally pretty much everything you are complaining about the US and Canada doing from strategic reconnaissance to shaping the battlefield and conduct Intel gathering is already being done by virtually every country that is able to do it. So much for your international law.