← Back to context

Comment by adolph

5 days ago

> Suppose a venezuelan living in America just looks up a bunch of US generals addresses online, and then sets all their houses on fire killing them in their sleep in their McMansions in suburbia.

I don't think the analogy is apt. Members of Hezbollah do not occupy a positions of similar relationship to Lebanon as US generals does to the US. As far as I've heard, flag officers and others are escorted by personal security for an attack of any sort, such as the 2009 Ft Hood shooting. [0]

Moving past that, a civilian citizen of Venezuela in the US who performed actions against US military targets would not be a valid military strike since that person would not be an identifiable member or Venezuela's military. It would more akin to a spy or assassin. Below is an excerpt from an article representing a US-centric view of history [1].

  But the right to kill one’s enemy during war was not considered wholly 
  unregulated. During the 16th century, Balthazar Ayala agreed with Saint 
  Augustine’s contention that it “is indifferent from the standpoint of justice 
  whether trickery be used” in killing the enemy, but then distinguished 
  trickery from “fraud and snares” (The Law and Duties of War and Military 
  Discipline). Similarly, Alberico Gentili, writing in the next century, found 
  treachery “so contrary to the law of God and of Nature, that although I may 
  kill a man, I may not do so by treachery.” He warned that treacherous killing 
  would invite reprisal (Three Books on the Law of War). And Hugo Grotius 
  likewise explained that “a distinction must be made between assassins who 
  violate an express or tacit obligation of good faith, as subjects resorting 
  to violence against a king, vassals against a lord, soldiers against him whom 
  they serve, those also who have been received as suppliants or strangers or 
  deserters, against those who have received them; and such as are held by no 
  bond of good faith” (On the Law of War and Peace).
  

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting

1. https://lieber.westpoint.edu/assassination-law-of-war/

Edit: /Hamas/Hezbollah/