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Debating targeted killing: counter-terrorism or extrajudicial execution? by Tamar Meisels and Jeremy Waldron, Oxford University Press, 2020, 320 pp., £64.00 (UK) (Hardcover), ISBN 9780190906917
This book addresses the multiple debates that erupted in the wake of counter-terrorist policies instituted after 9/11. Practitioners and scholars of classical counter-terrorism have had to address many questions concerning the ethics, legality and even morality of targeted killing, along with other counter-terrorist practices. It would be naive to assume that terrorism will disappear in the near future, so books like this address a much-needed niche in framing the debates emanating from Critical Terrorism Studies for a larger academic and practitioner audience. Here, the authors, Tamar Meisels and Jeremy Waldron, explore targeted killing. Many countries have used targeted killing as a tool, including Russia during the Chechen conflict, Israel during the Second Intifada, and the United States, which began using the method in 2002 when a drone was used to kill an operative involved in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. The US continues to use this method in its campaigns against Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The attack on the USS Cole, the 1998 Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassy attacks, and 9/11 altered US policy towards terrorist movements, shifting it to a military problem rather than a law enforcement one. Congress authorised the president to use force against terrorist organizations and their members, resulting in the 2001 Authorisation for the Use of Military Force, which was essentially a declaration of war against non-state actors (16). Meisels and Waldron focus on the process of identification and targeting of individuals for killing by government leaders (6–7); unlike other scholars who are concerned about “collateral damage,” the issue of innocent bystanders is brought up only to the extent needed to argue against the policy of targeted killing. With their focus clear, the authors try to frame the concepts consistently, drawing a clear distinction between targeted killings and murder as a criminal offense, arguing that targeted killing is the officially authorized and premeditated killing by military or intelligence officials of named and identified individuals, without the benefit of any judicial process (2).