quick hitting

Looks like the Dubai hit squad was connected to Israel in some way, even if it ends up being a "plausible denialability" way like the post-Munich team that went out to take out the Black September organisation in the wake of 1972. It isn't surprising to me that nation-states can and will use their monopoly of force to kill potential threats to their national security. What is surprising is the number of advocates and nation-states that skip over lesser steps which are probably more effective in the strategic sense, such as legally capturing, detaining, and possibly executing such people through rule of law, in the rush to some tactical success of having killed the latest criminal de jour. Thinking tactically, with the idea of eliminating the threats, doesn't focus on the more important question of how to actually eliminate the threat and instead replaces "threat" with body counts as though this would serve as a deterrence.