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Throughout the media there have been articles in the past weeks that said that Trump 'ordered' the killing of General Qassem Soleimani from Iran. Can a president order such killings or he approved what the generals of the US Army wanted to do anyway? The question simply boils down to the word 'order'.

Which one is more suitable: 'ordered' or 'approved'?

Example links:

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/03/baghdad-airport-iraq-attack-deaths-iran-us-tensions

[2] https://www.france24.com/en/20200103-iraq-baghdad-katyusha-rocket-airport-attack-shiite-popular-mobilisation-forces

[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/trump-order-assassinate-iran-qassem-soleimani-legal-200103212119366.html

[4] https://nypost.com/2020/01/04/queens-jews-have-no-regrets-about-trump-ordered-killing-of-qassem-soleimani/

[5] https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/17/three-reasons-why-trump-ordered-soleimanis-killing

[6] http://www.ejinsight.com/20200109-how-trumps-order-of-killing-soleimani-has-backfired/

Darkov
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  • Please quote exactly what one of these articles writes, because the way you put _ordered_ in quotes makes me believe that they didn't actually write _ordered_. – pipe Jan 18 '20 at 10:02
  • I have updated the question and added several links. – Darkov Jan 18 '20 at 10:54
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it seems to be about the English language or the legal status of the instruction, not about scientific skepticism – Paul Johnson Jan 18 '20 at 17:11
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    If you are a lieutenant and your sergeant says "I think we should do this Sir" and you say "Yes, do it" then you have issued an order. The opinion of the underling is not relevant to the legal status of your words. – Paul Johnson Jan 18 '20 at 17:13
  • I vote to reopen this Q, because as the existing answer demonstrates, it *has been* answered by an authoritative source. – DevSolar Jan 20 '20 at 16:44
  • @DevSolar: This question isn't about the facts, but about the most appropriate words to describe the facts; it is off-topic here. (It also steps into another linguistic minefield: the term "assassination" has political connotations as well.) – Oddthinking Jan 21 '20 at 18:27
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    @Oddthinking: What on earth is "minefield" about "assassination", which is ["the act of killing a prominent person for either political, religious, or monetary reasons"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination)? What would you like to call a drone strike, an accident? – DevSolar Jan 21 '20 at 19:03
  • I edited the question anyway. I changed the word to killing. I hope this one is more suitable. Adding political conotations was not my intention. – Darkov Jan 21 '20 at 19:05
  • @DevSolar: I am not taking a position. I am just noting there is a [controversy over the use of the term](https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/the-killing-of-soleimani-was-not-an-assassination/). – Oddthinking Jan 21 '20 at 21:43
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    @Oddthinking: ...in the USA, the guilty party. – DevSolar Jan 21 '20 at 22:27
  • @DevSolar Yep. That is pure newspeak. BBC (still) says: ["President Donald Trump's decision to assassinate Gen Soleimani…"](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51021861). Objections over that word are also an [affront](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affront), quite plainly. – LangLаngС Jan 21 '20 at 23:27

1 Answers1

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From the Department of Defense:

"At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani..."

Yes, the president ordered the killing of Soleimani.

Dapianoman
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