NYT Editorial: "To Kill an American"

[markpkessinger]

[font size=2]EDITORIAL[/font]
[font size=5]To Kill an American[/font]
[font size=2]Published: February 5, 2013[/font]

On one level, there were not too many surprises in the newly disclosed “white paper” offering a legal reasoning behind the claim that President Obama has the power to order the killing of American citizens who are believed to be part of Al Qaeda. We knew Mr. Obama and his lawyers believed he has that power under the Constitution and federal law. We also knew that he utterly rejects the idea that Congress or the courts have any right to review such a decision in advance, or even after the fact.

Still, it was disturbing to see the twisted logic of the administration’s lawyers laid out in black and white. It had the air of a legal justification written after the fact for a policy decision that had already been made, and it brought back unwelcome memories of memos written for President George W. Bush to justify illegal wiretapping, indefinite detention, kidnapping, abuse and torture.

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According to the white paper, the Constitution and the Congressional authorization for the use of force after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, gave Mr. Obama the right to kill any American citizen that an “informed, high-level official” decides is a “senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or an associated force” and presents an “imminent threat of violent attack.”

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But it takes the position that the only “oversight” needed for such a decision resides within the executive branch, and there is no need to explain the judgment to Congress, the courts or the public — or, indeed, to even acknowledge that the killing took place.

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Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/to-kill-an-american.html?ref=opinion

[markpkessinger]

1. Here is a text of a comment I submitted to the NY Times . . .

. . . which has not yet appeared on the site:

This kind of policy is the predictable fruit of the decision to declare a "Global War on [a tactic, not an enemy]." There are very good reason why prior to 9/11, terrorism was prosecuted as crime and not as an act of war, and also why the term "war" was generally reserved for those military hostilities between states which rose to the level of posing an existential threat to one or both of the states involved. When a nation faces such a threat -- a threat to its very survival -- and goes to war to protect itself from that threat, certain things are permitted that otherwise are not. In the case of Al Qaeda, while the threat to the safety of Americans was certainly quite real, if we are to be truly honest with ourselves, it did not pose an existential threat to this nation's existence.

So, when we declared a "Global War on Terror" ("GWOT&quot , for the first time in our history, we found ourselves at war with a tactic -- and an ancient one at that. Due process certainly does not apply to one's enemies in combat, even if the enemy is an American citizen. But when you declare a permanent war -- and indeed, the GWOT IS permanent, because we have no specific foe whose vanquishing will represent a successful conclusion -- and you declare your "battlefield" to be the entire world, you have set up a situation in which definitions have become so fluid that legal, ethical and moral confusion are most certainly bound to ensue, as indeed they have.