An interesting question

From the NYT

Or take the vexed question of who constitutes an enemy combatant. The Obama administration has used drone strikes to assassinate Taliban officials in their homes, far from the battlefield. It has accepted that an American citizen in Yemen who incites terrorist attacks can be targeted for assassination. By this reasoning, Carter asserts, the president can target anyone in the world. And why not? Are we to wait until terrorists actually attack Americans before moving against them? But Carter reminds us that the laws of war apply to both sides. And he proposes a thought experiment: How would we feel if the Taliban launched a Predator attack on the White House?

That would be despicable, we answer. But why is it O.K. if we do it, but not if they do? Because we’re the good guys, of course. We implicitly accept what Carter calls, only semi-ironically, the American Proviso — that “attacking America is morally different from being attacked by America.” This is, of course, a more or less universal belief, but it makes a mockery of both international law and moral philosophy. Is there some way out of it? Is the war on terror so categorically different from conventional warfare that the usual principles don’t apply?