War is war and murder is murder. The law draws the distinction. The American armed drone is a weapons system of war, not of policemen. And even if it were a police weapon (as it may, one fears, become in the future), the United States Department of Defense and the CIA are not police forces, nor has the U.S. a commission to police the world of its radicals, jihadists and religious fanatics, although for too many years it has acted as if it did.

Nor is the U.S. constitutionally at war. President George W. Bush declared war on "terror" after the 9/11 attacks, which is legally meaningless, and the U.S. Congress responded with a joint resolution authorizing the president to use all necessary and appropriate force against those responsible for the attacks. That still was not a declaration of war, but it was interpreted by the U.S. government, the U.N. Security Council, NATO and most major nations to represent a legally legitimate position of self-defense — which it obviously was not, although it was a matter of legitimate retaliation.

However, the people currently being killed by the U.S.' armed drones had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, even if they undoubtedly approved, or now approve, of those attacks, considering them legitimate acts of Arab retaliation against American complicity in Israel's military annexation and occupation of territories legally belonging to Palestinians, Washington's enforcement of devastating civilian sanctions on Iraq, and the continuing presence of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia, in proximity to Muslim sacred sites.