Skulduggery?

How long do you think some random New York Times editor has been waiting to use the word “skulduggery” in a headline? “New hints of skulduggery in Hamas killing,” reads the hed; from the story:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The murder was straight out of a cheap spy thriller. At least 11 professional assassins, some wearing wigs and fake beards, tracked a senior Hamas official to his Dubai hotel in January and killed him with cold precision, fleeing the country afterward on European passports, the Dubai police say.

But even as the Dubai authorities called Tuesday for an international manhunt, questions emerged about the identities of the suspects, deepening the mystery around the killing.

British and Irish officials said the suspects’ passports — which were unveiled at a news conference Monday by the Dubai police, along with their photographs and surveillance video — appeared to be fake, and in at least three cases appeared to have been stolen from British citizens living in Israel.

So let me see if I can wrap my head around this: Israel tracked a Hamas terrorist to Dubai and executed him at close range and by hand so as to avoid any collateral damage to civilian life. Shouldn’t we be celebrating this as the way war should be conducted instead of putting our noses up in the air and acting as though we’re so much better when we lob a missile at a terrorist from an airplane?

I mean, look, I’m all in favor of lobbing missiles at terrorists from airplanes; it’d be nice to capture them alive and get some info out of them via harsh interrogations, but a Tomahawk up the keister works just as well as far as I’m concerned. But then you get all the hemming and hawing about “Oh, we’re just creating more terrorists when we accidentally kill an innocent bystander.” Well, there’s none of that here, is there? The guy was traced to his hotel room, zapped with a stun gun, and smothered to death. Quick and easy. If only all terrorists could meet the same fate.

(h/t Andrew, again.)