Hello Bill and Mike,

Thanks for all the doc. I have some comments on Bill link.

But that raised another pressing question: would it comply with the laws of war if the drone operator who fired the missile was a Central Intelligence Agency official, who, unlike a soldier, wore no uniform? The memorandum concluded that such a case would not be a war crime, although the operator might be in theoretical jeopardy of being prosecuted in a Yemeni court for violating Yemen’s domestic laws against murder, a highly unlikely possibility.
Ok, let me play the devil advocate here. If GC recognizes the active participation of civilian in military actions for the enemy, it also does for the “friends”.
On that particular point I feel a little frustrated. A CIA agent is not different from a non uniform wearing combatant from the enemy. Being part of a civilian administration conducting military operations does not exclude him from the GC.
That said, US have a law excluding their soldiers from being judged by any other jurisdiction than US. This does not change the fact that a civilian can be accused of war crimes, only the court.

Secondly, I found interesting the argumentation to justify that such action does not go against Jus ad Gentium.
As to whether it would violate Yemen’s sovereignty to fire a missile at someone on Yemeni soil, Yemen’s president secretly granted the United States that permission, as secret diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks have revealed.
Basically, the US are doing it by the book (seeking sovereign foreign government agreement) despite having the technology to do it without permission. The remaining question is in deed the boundaries of the battle field, as I am not convinced by that statement:
The memorandum examined whether it was relevant that Mr. Awlaki was in Yemen, far from Afghanistan. It concluded that Mr. Awlaki’s geographical distance from the so-called hot battlefield did not preclude him from the armed conflict; given his presumed circumstances, the United States still had a right to use force to defend itself against him.
As said previously, my only concern is that targetted killings becomes a norm and then are used as "jurice prudence" by less accountable states supported and trained by US.

Finaly, as said in the article, there are occasions US are capable to set commando operations to “arrest” a HVT as Ben Laden. Now, my cynical political paranoid mind is telling me that we are entering in the cost consideration area rather in the risk evaluation area. And laws are used just to justify those budget cuts.