Are You a ‘Legitimate Target’? By Kym Robinson

With today’s drone and artillery technologies, anyone is a target. If a government doesn’t like you, particularly the U.S. government, you are, by definition, a “legitimate target.” From Kym Robinson at libertarianinstitute.org:

In some troubled and dangerous parts of the world right now, any gathering of males inside a designated area could be deemed a legitimate target composed of “fighting age males” or “suspects.” The fact that men, or boys for that matter, had come together is enough for a drone operator to kill them from afar. Should the footage of their bodies blown to pieces go viral for a few minutes, it would be asked, “what were they doing there?” As though guilt is determined by mere existence itself. Artificial intelligence and automated systems are now being used by the allies of democracy and freedom to hunt and kill human targets, expanding the killing culture of technowar.

When we witnessed the triple tap murder in Gaza, it was also young men walking through the ruins of their homes. They were “legitimate targets.” Before the current genocide, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and police would abduct Palestinian boys as young as eight, and torture them or shatter their arms on the spot to prevent them from throwing stones at tanks. This practice went on for decades. Such abuse and violence is legitimate so long as it’s committed by certain governments, in those cases, the little boys are assumed guilty and as dangerous as “snakes.”

The pogrom against the Palestinians is not new to human history. A century ago much of the world tolerated such injustices against the Jews, Armenians, or Roma people. The Kurds have for decades experienced betrayal and persecution, along with the Karen people in Southeast Asia, West Papuans, and in the Sudan. Any murdered males are assumed to be partisans by default, therefore they were legitimately killed.

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