Slate‘s Juliet Lapidos delves into the neocon view of assassination:
Of course, a neocon might argue that if the CIA kills a terrorist in a foreign country (even if that country does not condone our presence), it’s kosher because it’s a form of self-defense, where the “self” in question is the United States of America.
I think the word Lapidos was looking for is mitzvah, not kosher.
