Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
You really need to check out the meaning of "self-defense", for to you guys it seems to mean something like "we are allowed to kill you if we can make up an excuse".
Fuchs,


The citations used in your discussion of self defense apply to "domestic" law, or laws governing the interactions between individuals, in various USA jurisdictions, not to international law, or laws governing the interactions between nations or their agents.

In traditional just war theory, actions normally considered to be homicides are justified by appeal to a domestic analogy, not a domestic identity. Your points about self defense might have more impact were they drawn from international law or law of land warfare cases rather than those dealing with domestic homicides in the USA.

I am reminded of the story that in Bavaria, der Fhn may be used as a defense in a homicide case. Should one have allowed that defense to the leaders of the Third Reich during the Nrnberg trials? By parity of reasoning from your examples, it seems so.