Others believe the Army is obligated to act because the Geneva Conventions governing warfare forbid arbitrary killings by troops, said Jeffrey K. Walker, a St. John's University criminal law professor. "That's a minimum protection anybody gets at any time, no matter how you categorize them or how you categorize the conflict. That is the basic floor below which nobody can drop as far as protections go," said Walker, a retired Air Force officer and former military lawyer. "Arbitrary deprivation of life is at the top of the list of things you cannot do."
But that's exactly what Obama is doing with his targeted drone attacks.