(1) We are engaged in an armed conflict with AQ - and you yourself have stated that AQ is engaged in unconventional warfare against us. Under LE rules, direct actions to kill would be illegal - period, full stop.

(2) The argument about the US violating other national sovereignty is a red herring - at least to the extent that it seeks to make direct actions illegal vice the persons attacked. If we violate sovereignty, the violated nation (not the terrs we kill) have remedies under I Law. In most cases, they seem to have exercised the remedy of diplomatic protest. Fine; once the protest is made, I Law is satisfied. Or, the violated nation could sue for damages, etc.; but they seem not to do that. Instead, they take our billions in foreign aid.

Your construct seems to include only "war" (in an all-out sense) or "peace" (which involves only LE rules). I'd say that TVNSAs (Transnational, Violent, Non-State Actors) present us - by their choice, not ours - with a middle ground (armed conflicts, usually of lower intensity than conventional war).

Regards, despite definite disagreement

Mike