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Notes -
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The difference here between homicide and murder is significant.
Potato, potato. As Bierce observes,
I will grant you that killing in self-defense is meaningfully different from murder.
I might even grant you that there is sometimes a difference between killing out of murderism and accepting killing someone as an acceptable side effect in pursuit of another goal.
But I have read enough Tucholsky to reject the premise that murder dressed in uniform ceases to be murder.
If the US navy is shooting boats of suspected drug smugglers in international waters near Venezuela, arguing about the difference of that and what is generally understood to be murder is splitting hairs.
Directionally, what Obama did to Bin Laden seems to be mostly the same thing, at least based on my priors. Could be that he forced the hands of the US troops when they were trying to take him into custody, and could be that he was on the verge of giving the order for 9/11 2.0, which is why they had to storm his compound right away, but likely the US just decided that it would not bother with a trial.
Again, least upsetting murder committed by the US ever, though.
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