A STRIKE IN YEMEN

A STRIKE IN YEMEN
Washington Post: Bush administration officials described the missile strike on a car carrying six Al-Qaida operatives in Yemen on Sunday as a battlefield operation in the war on terrorism, even though it occurred far from Afghanistan and in a country where no conventional military conflict is under way. Other observers called it a targeted assassination, or even an extrajudicial killing -- terms usually reserved for violations of human rights or international law. Such condemnation is not justified: The Yemen operation did not target political or criminal figures, but trained combatants of an organization that has declared war against the United States, that itself has defined the battlefield as global and that recently has landed its own military blows in Yemen.
Indifference?
The distinction is important not because the Bush administration needs to be defended from criticism, but because participants in numerous civil and ethnic conflicts -- especially those where terrorism has been employed -- would like to take cover behind the war America is fighting. If the United States can fire a missile at an Al-Qaida leader in Yemen, some ask, why shouldn't Israel aim one at Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, or Russia target exiled Chechen leaders in Turkey and Azerbaijan? It sometimes appears that the Bush administration either accepts these comparisons or doesn't care about the difference.
And yet the differences are fundamental: Al-Qaida has no conventional cause, no homeland, no purely political leaders; there is no territory at stake in its fight with the United States, and no possibility of negotiations or settlement. The only course, chosen not by the United States but by Al-Qaida, is a scattered and unconventional military conflict across continents, lasting until one side is eradicated. There is no way to treat Al-Qaida's members other than as combatants, because they have no other understanding of themselves.
Law enforcement
America's war also differs from others in that it is rightly being fought primarily with the tools of law enforcement, financial regulation and intelligence. Al-Qaida combatants as dangerous as those killed Sunday are scattered throughout Europe, the United States and Asia, yet these have not been targeted by American assassins or missiles -- nor should they be. Military action makes sense only when it is impossible to work through law enforcement or local authorities. Yemen clearly falls into that category: Its authorities tried and failed to capture numerous Al-Qaida militants operating in remote parts of the country, and now they appear to have acquiesced in the CIA's use of missile-armed drones. The success of Sunday's operation, which seems to have eliminated one senior Al-Qaida figure and avoided innocent casualties, is therefore cheering. But such clean shots are likely to be few and far between.