Shooting bin Laden and all that

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I just heard a story that Churchill and Roosevelt composed a list of about 50 Germans who were to be shot on sight as WWII was coming to an end. They dropped the plan because, when they showed it their ally Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, Uncle Joe wanted to raise it to 5,000.

You have to exercise some restraint, but I am willing to support giving the American president pretty wide latitude in dealing with bin Laden, al Awlaki, etc.
One can support:
a) using EITs on random suspects in the conflict.
b) using EITs on those known with certainty to be among the enemy.
c) killing,without warning, those who have "joined in the war on us"
and, occasionally, some innocents around them.

I haven't met anyone who supports a).

This whole question exposes some strange attitudes of some folks.
They will support c) but not b). It seems to me that, for the terrorist, b) is a better outcome than c). I think it seems that way to at least some of the terrorists, too. In particular, those who surrender rather than "fight to the death" may perhaps be said to prefer b) to c).

I agree with Sherman: War is hell.

They need to reconvene at Geneva.
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