Some facts about the death of Gen. Qasem Soleimani:
Gen. Qasem Soleimani was an enemy combatant.
For years, Gen. Soleimani has planned and approved terrorist attacks by Iran and its proxies that have murdered hundreds of American troops. Most recently, he approved a Dec. 27attack on an Iraqi base near Kirkuk that killed an American contractor and wounded other American & Iraqi personnel.
The Defense Department has defined an “enemy combatant” as “a person engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners during an armed conflict.”
Under this definition, it is unquestionable that Soleimani was an enemy combatant.
The man wasn’t roaming Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East on vacation; he was paving the road for escalating attacks designed to kill as many as possible in route to their ultimate goal of annihilating Israel and the United States.
Gen. Soleimani was killed in a warzone.
Soleimani was killed during a trip to Iraq, where he was no doubt planning and facilitating future attacks.
American forces and facilities in Iraq have been targeted by Iranian-backed rocket or missile attacks 12 times in the past two and a half months alone, including the Dec. 27 attack that killed an American civilian.
Gen. Soleimani was killed during a conflict authorized by Congress.
Measures passed by Congress in 2001 and 2002 specifically authorize the President to use military force to address threats to America’s national security emanating from Iraq, where Soleimani was operating.
The 2001 and 2002 Authorizations of Military Force (AUMFs) have authorized other similar actions against terrorist leaders like Soleimani in recent years, including President Obama’s approval of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, as well as dozens of other drone strikes against terrorist targets across the Middle East.
Jeh Johnson, former Homeland Security Secretary under President Obama, said it best:
"If you believe everything our government is saying about General Soleimani, he was a lawful military objective and the president, under his Constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, had ample domestic legal authority to take him out without additional Congressional authorization.
Whether he was a terrorist or a general in a military force that was engaged in armed attacks against our people, he was a lawful military objective." (Meet the Press, 1/5/2020)
