The Rules - Engaging HVTs & OBL

[jmm99]

Polarbear1605:

Yup; since we have wound down Iraq and soon will in Astan, a presidential pardon review is called for in all of those cases.

David:

from David:
Do such laws have international jurisdiction themselves, or is it the result of incorporation into national law?

Both. The degree of independent international jurisdiction inherent in the criminal law system, vice incorporation of international jurisdiction via positive domestic law, varies greatly from country to country. As a general rule, the US requires incorporation of international jurisdiction via positive domestic law. The US exceptions allowing independent international jurisdiction are limited and not material here - and, in any event, rest on various self-executing provisions of the US Constitution.

from David:
Now a civil action here is quite different and that is where the alliance of activists and human rights lawyers are "making hay", nibbling away at the government's arguments. Hence the attempt to enable civil court procedures to have information i.e intelligence material heard by the judge only, without challenge or disclosure to the plaintiff.

In specific areas, e.g., civil suits for information, the UK and the US are different. See, Peto & Tyrie, Neither Just nor Secure - The Justice and Security Bill (2013) for the UK view. And, for other readers to hand clap David, he took time to pass me this reference by PM.

The US view is typified by the case mentioned by Carl, who is going to be renamed "Bloodhound".

Running our Advanced Search - Keyword(s): classified evidence ; Posts Made By: jmm99 - I just got 50 hits, So, if anyone wants, they are there.

Carl:

from Carl:
To layman she is describing a situation where nobody knows what the law is or why it is and nobody will discuss it.

Colleen McMahon knows exactly what the law is as to (1) drone strikes; (2) as to classified evidence; (3) as to limits on request for information. She also knows exactly what she thinks the law should be. Her dilemma was being caught between the law ruling the case and what law she would like to rule the case.

No one in this international law debate is stupid or ignorant. Almost all (including yours truly) graduated from elite law schools with honors, were law review editors at their schools, and have had some post-law school experience among the political elite (judicial clerkships, international law firms, USG or UN experience, etc.). Some are among the current political elite (e.g., President Obama); some are not (yours truly).

There are two cases, which started in the S.D. of New York (Manhattan), which I decided not to post at the district court level because, at this stage of the game, the appellate decisions are what matter. But since the Bloodhound has sniffed the sausage in the bag, here are some links (from Lawfare).

First, Judge McMahon.

Summary Judgment for the Government in Targeted Killing FOIA Request (by Raffaela Wakeman, January 2, 2013).

Judge McMahon's 75-page opinion.

Second, Judge Forrest.

Katherine B. Forrest (Wiki)

Federal Judge Enjoins Section 1021 of the FY2012 NDAA (by Steve Vladeck, May 16, 2012)

Out today, a 68-page opinion from Judge Katherine Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, entering a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from enforcing the substantive detention authority codified by the FY2012 NDAA on the ground that enforcement of the relevant provision (section 1021) might interfere with the plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights. There’s a lot here, including the central holding (that the NDAA is not merely a “reaffirmation” of the AUMF), but I haven’t had the chance to read it carefully yet. Suffice it to say, I imagine folks will have more to say about the ruling in Hedges v. Obama over the next few days…

Judge Forrest's 68-page opinion.

Judge Forrest Issues Permanent Injunction in Hedges (by Benjamin Wittes, September 12, 2012).

I haven’t read it yet, but here it is.

Judge Forrest's 112-page opinion.

This decision has been permanently stayed until the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals enters its decision. See Wiki - Hedges v Obama. An important case, but I figured on waiting for the 2nd Circuit since the injunction is stayed, despite the eminent list pf plaintiffs.

Hopes this helps, though it's a bit "weedy" in the opinions.

Thank you, all three, for the input.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

In further answer to David and Carl, Judge McMahon's opinion briefly references, but better illustrates, the procedure for handling classified evidence (or, as here, classified information requested).

Attached are two .pdfs, which Bloodhound will scan to make sure I haven't attached the wrong pages.

pdf 3-4. The end of p.3 and start of p.4 states the judge has received classified information, which will not be given to the plaintiffs or their attorneys. It will be placed in a classified appendix for review by appellate judges, including the judge's classified opinion on the classified information. The whole package, unclassified and classified, constitutes the full record. The unclassified public opinion is reviewed by the FBI prior to its release (footnote 1 to p.4).

pdf 74-76. Actually appendices. The ACLU's requests (Appendix I) are very extensive. Thus, Appendix I is a key to Appendix II (of a single unclassified sentence). Appendix II (the classified part) could be a large package of all the material documents requested; or, more likely, an index to and summaries of the documents.

The bottom line is that Judge McMahon could be the most informed person on the law and process of drone strikes, outside the White House.

Regards

Mike

PS Carl: you know that I'm just poking fun at myself - sometimes you are just so serious:

[carl]

PS Carl: you know that I'm just poking fun at myself - sometimes you are just so serious:

Boy ain't that the truth. Please give me a swift but soft kick when I need it.

A bloodhound! Tres cool.

[jmm99]

As we have seen from the DoJ "White Paper", drone strikes involve choosing the law which will control the case. The basic choice is between the "war" (armed conflict) paradigm and the "law enforcement” paradigm, with each paradigm having branching choices of legal subsets. Life is less confusing when the author initially lays out the choices, and then goes to the author's reasoning in selecting the "correct" law. That style can be called "analysis". Another style is to setup a strawman and proceed to demolish it, hopefully (to the author) generating emotions in the reader. The style might be called a form of "advocacy".

HT to Jack Goldsmith at Lawfare for linking two articles which illustrate the two styles.

The first article discusses the basic choices: the "war" (armed conflict) paradigm and the "law enforcement” paradigm - and briefly explains the consequences of each choice, including the Obama administration's choice of the "war" (armed conflict) paradigm and the "law enforcement” paradigm

President Obama Can Do Anything He Wants To Fight Terrorism - That’s the lesson of the leaked drone memo (by Eric Posner, 5 Feb 2013):

So far, the reporting on the leaked white paper from the Justice Department about drone attacks clearly assumes that we are supposed to be outraged by the Obama administration’s legal theories, just as we were supposed to be outraged by the Bush administration’s. And outrage is being dutifully ginned up. But the memo is utterly conventional as legal analysis; its arguments could easily have been predicted. It’s most useful as an opportunity to reflect on how the law has evolved to address the problem of terror.

All you need to know in order to understand the memo is that Obama administration lawyers have enthusiastically endorsed the once-vilified Bush administration decision to classify security operations against al-Qaida as “war” rather than as “law enforcement.” This was not an inevitable decision. Obviously, the use of military force in Afghanistan was a military operation, and to the extent that members of al-Qaida joined Taliban soldiers in defending the Afghan homeland against the U.S. attack, they could be killed on sight and detained without charges, as is permitted by the international laws of war. But the U.S. government could otherwise have regarded al-Qaida as a criminal organization like a street gang or drug cartel. Outside the battlefield in Afghanistan, the government would then have pursued members of al-Qaida with conventional law enforcement measures.

If the administration had taken the law enforcement approach, members of al-Qaida who are American citizens would have had the same rights to due process that are familiar from everyday policing. We would send FBI agents to foreign countries like Yemen after obtaining permission from governments to conduct joint law enforcement operations. Or we would have asked foreign governments to arrest suspected members of al-Qaida and extradite them to the United States. We could not have sent drones to kill them. We would have offered them trials in civilian courts. ...

In the rest of the article, Posner does critique the USG's "war" approach.

IF the law enforcement approach were the only approach to be taken (that is, the drone strikes are taking place outside of an armed conflict), then I would find them illegal. However, they would not be "war crimes" (because they then would be taking place outside of an armed conflict). They would be some form of homicide under the applicable "Rule of Law" - probably premeditated murder, given the degree of planning, deliberation, etc.

I have stated that many times; but I also have stated that individual killing or detention operations can be based either on a war approach or on a law enforcement approach under US law. In short, both choices are generally available to choose between in any given operation.

The second piece is advocacy, and not analysis. It jumps directly to the law enforcement approach, without consideration of the war approach (the actual choice of the Obama administration). It doesn't make any of the arguments that have been made against the war approach. In fact, it sets up a strawman and then proceeds to demolish its own creation.

Drone Strike Out - The Obama administration's drone strike memo is unconstitutional (by Jeffrey Rosen, 6 Feb 2013):

The Justice Department white paper released on Monday by NBC News is the public's first direct glimpse at the legal reasoning that the Obama administration relied on in using a drone strike to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen living in Yemen. The memo's arguments are troubling on many levels.
Although the Obama administration's brief is directed at the assassination of Americans abroad, the arguments it offers could apply with equal force to the assassination of Americans at home; lawyers for the Bush administration who tried to justify lesser outrages have been pilloried for supporting torture. But perhaps most troubling is the administration’s attempt to redefine the idea of the kind of “imminent threat” that can justify a targeted assassination.

The U.S. Supreme Court has previously held that the police can only use deadly force against fleeing, dangerous suspects when killing the suspect is “necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” But, in a vast expansion of this narrow precedent, the Obama administration says that the U.S. is not required “to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future” in order to assassinate U.S. citizens whom the government believes are Al-Qaeda leaders. Instead, the memo argues a “decision maker determining whether an al-Qaeda operational leader presents an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States must take into account that certain members of al-Qaeda …. are continually plotting attacks against the United States; that Al-Qaeda would engage in such attacks regularly to the extent it were able to do so; that the U.S. government may not be aware of all al-Qaeda plots as they are developing and thus cannot be confident that none is about to occur.”

Mr Rosen is well aware of the major arguments that have been made by his colleagues against the existence of an armed conflict (I don't believe he is either stupid or ignorant):

1. The strikes are made against a non-state group that cannot be an "armed force" subject to the Geneva Conventions.

2. The strikes are made outside of the territorial limits of an "armed conflict" subject to the Geneva Conventions.

3. The strikes are made in a conflict area, but the conflict is of too low intensity to be an "armed conflict" subject to the Geneva Conventions.

4. The strikes are made in a conflict area, but the conflict is of too low continuity to be an "armed conflict" subject to the Geneva Conventions.

5. The strikes are outside of the scope of the AUMF used to justify the strikes; and, outside of the scope of the President's separate powers as CinC.

Rosen elects not to analyze those factors; but simply skips to the law enforcement approach as the only paradigm (which is not the paradigm chosen by the Obama administration !). That's his "right" as an advocate. But then, his piece must be taken for what it is - advocacy intended to make the reader outraged; and for what it lacks - a rationale to take one into his strawman situation.

Of course, the "war paradigm" itself does have its limitations. Of them, distinction is the key factor. When a non-state group lacks the attributes of a regular "armed force", identification of its members as combatants (armed force members who participate in combat), non-combatants (armed force members who have a qualified immunity) and civilians (not armed force members) can only be done by functional tests - comparison of how their participation or non-participation lines up with similar roles played by the participants and non-participants in warfare conducted between regular "armed forces".

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

Gregory McNeal is back at Lawfare for a series of guest posts. He was linked here in 2011, Kill or Capture - the McNeal View.

McNeal again confronts the practical aspects of direct actions (focusing on drone strikes, but the principles play across the spectrum) in How to Make A Kill List (by Gregory McNeal, February 25, 2013):

... For this round of guest posts I will focus on the kill-list creation process. These posts are based on a massively updated version of the collateral damage estimation paper. That paper is now called “Kill-Lists and Accountability” and will be available in SSRN on March 1st. Just like the earlier version of the paper, it builds on government documents, training documents, military doctrine, reports in newspapers and non-fiction books and field interviews and observations. Please note, much of what will appear in the blog posts are drawn directly from the article linked above, as such I’m not including footnotes or sourcing, they can be found in the article once it’s posted. ...

Here are what seemed to me be the high points, starting with:

CATEGORIES OF TARGETS

Many have already analyzed the potential legal rationales offered by the U.S. government in support of its targeted killing campaigns (the subject of Part I of the paper), therefore let me just offer this summary with regard to categories of targets. There are three basic categories of targets who might find their way onto a kill-list: (1) Targets who fall within the AUMF, and its associated forces interpretations [AUMF Targets], (2) targets who fall within the terms of a covert action finding [Covert Action Targets], and (3) targets provided by allies in a non-international armed conflict in which the U.S. is a participant [Ally Targets; or derisively, “side payment targets”]. ...
...
DEVELOPING NAMES FOR THE LIST

The process of developing names for the list is initially delimited by the categories of individuals who may be targeted. Those limits are established by the law of armed conflict, which prohibits the targeting of civilians except those who are members of an organized armed group or those who are directly participating in hostilities. Because direct participation in hostilities is a fleeting, time bound categorization, the only criteria by which an individual would likely be added to a kill-list would be if they fall into the category “members of an organized armed group.” While seemingly simple, the term “members of an organized armed group” has been the subject of extensive debate. ...

These following three paragraphs are absolutely essential if one is to understand the US position, which is not the same as that held by the ICRC and the EU nations:

First, there are open questions as to what particular groups count as “organized armed groups.” Second, as a matter of law, what members of an organized armed group are targetable? Many in the international community reject the idea that members of an organized armed group are always targetable based merely on their membership in that group. Rather, they believe that for a member of an organized armed group to be always targetable requires that member have a “continuous combat function.” That term as described by the ICRC’s Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities (DPH study) refers to those individuals whose “continuous function” within the group “involves the preparation, execution or command of acts or operations amounting to their direct participation in hostilities.”

It is critical to note that the U.S. and many international law experts do not subscribe to the DPH study’s CCF interpretation. They reject it because it creates different standards for regular armed forces - who are always targetable based on their status - and organized armed groups, for whom based on this standard only some of their members would be always targetable based on their status. Under the U.S. approach, all that is needed to target an individual is sufficiently reliable information that the person is a member of the organized armed group (Taliban, al Qaeda, associated forces). This differs from the ICRC interpretation which would require the U.S. to know that person’s function before attacking him.

This is an important and fundamental distinction for any debate about targeted killings. The U.S. claims the authority to target persons who are members of organized armed groups, based merely on their status; in so doing the U.S. is not just considering planners or commanders as potential targets, but all members of enemy groups. This may mean that an outside observer who does not interpret the law as the U.S. does may see the killing of a person who was placed on a kill-list as an unlawful killing that violates IHL as many countries interpret it, whereas the U.S. may see a particular killing as completely lawful. Both parties may be acting in good faith, but merely interpreting the law differently. In light of these differing legal interpretations, it is critical that in any debate about targeted killing, participants clearly specify what law they are applying and what interpretation of that law they are applying to any given factual circumstance.

Ultimately, the process depends on the judgment of the decision makers:

WHO’S WORTH KILLING
....
Inside the bureaucracy, analysts approach the question “Who’s worth killing?” by viewing enemy organizations as systems and social networks. Systems analysis means they will analyze variables such as whether an individual is critical to the group he is a member of, looking at factors such as the individual’s value, ability to be replaced, time it would take to replace that person, and what that person’s contributions are to the enemy organization. Taken together, these concepts all relate to the effect that attacking a target will have on the enemy group’s war-fighting capability. It is important to note that these operative principles mean that an individual may be critical to an organization, despite being a low level individual.

A hypothetical can help illustrate these concepts. Suppose an analyst would like to place a bomb maker on a kill-list, that bomb maker’s criticality will be measured by the four factors outlined above (value, depth, recuperation, capacity). The value of the bomb maker will be determined by analyzing how killing him will impact the group’s ability to conduct operations. The amount the enemy’s operations are disrupted by the particular targeted killing will depend on the depth of the enemy’s bomb-making roster. So, if this bomb maker is one of ten similarly-skilled bomb makers, an analyst might note that this organization is deep on bomb making talent and the disruption in short-run bomb-making capacity will be short lived. However, just because another bomb maker currently on the roster quickly replaces the target, does not mean that the enemy organization hasn’t suffered. The long-term effects on the organization will require an estimate of how long it will take the enemy to regain its functional capability, in this example how long it will take the organization to go from nine bomb makers back to the ten they started with? It may be that bomb makers take a long time to train, or the frequent killing of their kind may deter prospective bomb makers. An analyst making a determination about the criticality of a target will consider all of these factors.

To Be Continued ...

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

We return to the next installment, Kill-Lists and Network Analysis (by Gregory McNeal, February 25, 2013):

In my previous post I discussed how law creates three broad categories of potential targets (AUMF targets, Covert Action targets, and Ally targets). Those broad categories mean that many individuals may be targetable based on their status as members of an organized armed group. Working from these broad legal categories, the U.S. next relies on multiple levels of bureaucratic analysis to sort out the persons worth adding to a kill-list from the universe of potential targets.

The goal is not merely killing people, but to kill those persons whose elimination will have the greatest impact on the enemy organization. I briefly described a systems based approach to targeting that looks at potential targets, their value to enemy organizations, their ability to be replaced, and their contributions to the enemy’s warfighting effort. In this post I dive a bit deeper into the targeting bureaucracy to discuss network based targeting analysis.

So, we move into finding the Great White Whale, often easier said than done in our real-life ocean:

NETWORK BASED ANALYSIS AND PATTERN OF LIFE SURVEILLANCE
...
Networked based analysis looks at terrorist groups as nodes connected by links, and assesses how components of that terrorist network operate together and independently of one another. Those nodes and links, once identified will be targeted with the goal of disrupting and degrading their functionality.

To effectively pursue a network based approach, bureaucrats rely in part on what is known as “pattern of life analysis” which involves connecting the relationships between places and people by tracking their patterns of life. This analysis draws on the inter-relationships among groups “to determine the degree and points of their interdependence.” It assesses how activities are linked and looks to “determine the most effective way to influence or affect the enemy system.”

While the enemy moves from point to point, reconnaissance or surveillance tracks and notes every location and person visited. Connections between the target, the sites they visit, and the persons they interact with are documented, built into a network diagram and further analyzed. Through this process links and nodes in the enemy’s network emerge. The analysis charts the “social, economic and political networks that underpin and support clandestine networks” identifying key-decision makers and those who support or influence them indirectly.

This may mean that analysts will track logistics and money trails, they may identify key facilitators and non-leadership persons of interests and they will exploit human and signals intelligence. They will feed this information into computer systems that help integrate the knowledge and which generate and cross-references thousands of data points to construct a comprehensive picture of the enemy network. “This analysis has the effect of taking a shadowy foe and revealing his physical infrastructure…as a result, the network becomes more visible and vulnerable, thus negating the enemy’s asymmetric advantage of denying a target.”

When does one take the out the Goose Who Is Laying Golden Eggs; or, for that matter, the Local Hen Who is Supplying Breakfast:

NETWORK BASED ANALYSIS AND THE KILLING OF “FOOT SOLDIERS”
...
Viewing targeting in this way demonstrates how seemingly low level individuals such as couriers and other “middle-men” in decentralized networks such as al Qaeda are oftentimes critical to the successful functioning of the enemy organization. ... This means that social ties that appear inactive or weak to a casual observer such as an NGO, human rights worker, journalist, or even a target’s family members may in fact be strong ties within the network. Furthermore, because terrorist networks oftentimes rely on social connections between charismatic leaders to function, disrupting those lines of communication can significantly impact those networks.

For example, Osama Bin Laden’s courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was Bin Laden’s sole means of communicating with the rest of al Qaeda. ... Once identified, tracking al-Kuwaiti allowed analysts to determine the links and nodes in Bin Laden’s network. Moreover, if the government had chosen to kill al-Kuwaiti, a mere courier, it would have prevented Bin Laden from leading his organization (desynchronizing the network) until Bin Laden could find a trustworthy replacement. Finding such a replacement would be a difficult task considering that al Kuwaiti lived with Bin Laden, and was his trusted courier for years. Of course, sometimes intelligence gained from continuing to monitor a target is more significant than killing or capturing the target (as was initially the case with al Kuwaiti). This is a point that is [should be] recognized by every expert in targeting.
...
Critics oftentimes accuse the government of not considering the potential intelligence loss associated with killing rather than capturing persons, but that intelligence loss is one that is well known by targeteers. The only issue is that someone deep within the killing process has decided that an operation, when it occurs, is worth the intelligence loss (given the available options).

That issue again boils down to a judgment call (hopefully based on experience and wisdom; though no one's judgment calls can ever be 100%.

At this point, consideration must also be given to both the immediate and long-range fallout effects of the particular strike, including but not limited to the perceptions among external observers. As to the last factor, how much methodology and sources should be disclosed:

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is that to an external observer, it is not clear what criteria will render an individual or a group an associated force, let alone what would constitute being labeled a node or a link in some networked base analysis. This is a point that is not lost on even the highest level officials in the U.S. government, as Daniel Klaidman has noted:

[President Obama] understood that in the shadow wars, far from conventional battlefields, the United States was operating further out on the margins of the law. Ten years after 9/11, the military was taking the fight to terrorist groups that didn’t exist when Congress granted George Bush authority to go to war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Complicated questions about which groups and individuals were covered…were left to the lawyers. Their finely grained distinctions and hair-splitting legal arguments could mean the difference between who would be killed and who would be spared.

Accountability for these “finely grained” legal distinctions is bound up in bureaucratic analysis that is not readily susceptible to external review. It relies on thousands of data points, spread across geographic regions and social relationships making it inherently complex and opaque. Accordingly, the propriety of adding an individual to a kill-list will be bound up in the analyst’s assessment of these targeting factors, and the reliability of the intelligence information underlying the assessment. How well that information is documented, how closely that information is scrutinized, and by whom will be a key factor in assessing whether targeted killings are accountable.

To Be Continued ...

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

Kill-List Baseball Cards and the Targeting Paper Trail (by Gregory McNeal, February 26, 2013).

This serial starts with a mock-up/depiction of what an actual kill-list baseball card looks like. It is not a "real" baseball card and is not based on any classified information. It is a large jpg and is found here.

McNeal first considers the data and intelligence that underlies the "baseball card":

TARGET FOLDERS AND THE DISPOSITION MATRIX
...
In current practice, the analytical steps I have described are documented in target folders, those folders are part of the process for creating kill-lists and the information in them is available right up through the execution of a strike. The folders contain target information, such as data about how the target was validated, who approved the target and at what step in the process, along with any identified potential collateral damage concerns associated with the target. Contrary to the claims of critics who worry about stale or out of date intelligence, target folders are continuously updated to reflect the most recent information regarding a target’s status and the compiled data is independently reviewed by personnel not responsible for its collection. The independent review is designed to ensure mistakes do not proliferate throughout the targeting process. Across government, the targeting folders have now been reduced to a database, and the information is now maintained in Electronic Targeting Folders (ETF)’s within that database. ...
...
The ETF’s contain a record of the approvals, changes in intelligence, collateral concerns, anticipated benefits of attacking the target, and other information as it becomes available. That information includes human intelligence reports referencing the target, signals intelligence referencing the target, imagery and floor plans of likely locations of the target, a diagram showing the social and communications links of the target as derived from human and signals intelligence, and previous operations against the target. Also documented are intelligence gaps that will form the basis of additional intelligence requirements. Analysts who identify needs for more information can request additional pieces of information that they believe are needed to complete target development, and those requests will also be documented. ...

The “disposition matrix” has been reported at Lawfare here; as well as being discussed in a number of posts in this thread.

The process then goes to another judgment call step, which checks on the preliminary decisions to target a specific individual (or perhaps, a defined type of individual in a "signature strike", which is not McNeal's focus in this series):

VETTING AND VALIDATING TARGETS

The United States government has developed a formal vetting process which allows members of agencies from across the government to comment on the validity of the target intelligence and any concerns related to targeting an individual. At a minimum, the vetting considers the following factors: target identification, significance, collateral damage estimates, location issues, impact on the enemy, environmental concerns, intelligence gain/loss concerns, and issues of legality. ...
...
A validation step follows the vetting step, it is intended to ensure that all proposed targets meet the objectives and criteria outlined in strategic guidance. The term "strategic" is a reference to national level objectives - the assessment is not just whether the strike will succeed tactically (i.e. will it eliminate the targeted individual) but also asks whether the strike will advance broader national policy goals. Accordingly, at this stage there is also a reassessment of whether the killing will comport with domestic legal authorities such as the AUMF or a particular covert action finding. At this stage, participants will also resolve whether the agency that will be tasked with the strike has the authority to do so. Individuals participating at this stage focus their analysis on a mix of military, political, diplomatic, informational, and economic consequences that flow from killing an individual. Other questions addressed at this stage are whether killing an individual will comply with the law of armed conflict, and rules of engagement (including theater specific rules of engagement). ...

Note that most of these questions, their answers and the factors considered, have already been asked, answered and researched in prior stages. Thus, there is a considerable amount of intentional redundancy throughout the process up to and including the final decision-making step:

VOTING ON TARGETS
...
At this stage, information from the ETF’s is reduced to more manageable summaries of information - the baseball cards. Those baseball cards differ by agency, but they generally look like the image depicted above. They are Powerpoint slides that display a color picture of the target and physical characteristics (such as height and weight.) The slide lists information such as the individual’s rank in the organization, professional expertise, family ties and links to individual attacks. Also included is specific intelligence to support the individual’s nomination with an explanation of the source of the intelligence. Other data may include a map of the area where the target has been operating, a personal history of the target, patterns of life for the target, cell phone number of the target and even what vehicle the target is known to travel in. If the person reviewing a baseball card wants more information, they can dig into the ETF to see what intelligence supports the information on the baseball card. ...

To Be Continued ...

Regards

Mike