Are Targeted Drone Strikes Allowed Under Just-War Theory? by Matt Hadro

Msgr. Charles Pope: A Meditation on the Mystery of Time
January 4, 2020
Daily Reading & Meditation: Monday (January 6)
January 6, 2020

Iran’s head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, April, 2016. (Wikimedia Commons.)

On Tuesday the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was stormed by a crowd of thousands of protesters and Iran’s head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, Qasem Suleimani was alleged to have been behind the attacks.

By Matt Hadro, CNA, 1/3/20

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian official on Friday has ignited discussion of the Catholic Church’s teaching on just war theory. One theologian talked to CNA about the morality of targeting military leaders.

Early on Friday morning at a Baghdad airport, Iran’s head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, was killed by drone strikes, for which the U.S. later claimed responsibility. Soleimani’s forces are listed by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization. Also killed in the strikes was Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, known for helping fight against ISIS.

The strikes are the latest episode in a series of interactions between the U.S. and Iran in the region, that are causing concern of an intensifying conflict. After an American contractor was killed by a rocket barrage in Iraq last week, the U.S. retaliated against Iranian-backed Shiite militias it said was responsible for the attack. The U.S. counterattack killed 25 Iraqis.

On Tuesday the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was stormed by a crowd of thousands of protesters. Suleimani was alleged to have been behind the attacks.  ….

Read more here  http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/are-targeted-drone-strikes-allowed-under-just-war-theory