There are two problems with extra-judicial killings, IMO
1) The nature of the war
2) The categorical lack of judicial review
If the war was an actual war against a nation there would not be much at issue here. Some American moves to Berlin to tell the Nazis information or do propaganda broadcasts or join the German army and a spy can take him out, we would do it without much fuss. Ethically, the person would no longer really be an American citizen. If joining another nation in a formal war against the USA doesn't abrogate citizenship, a least ethically, then what could? If the guy returned here we would arrest him at the airport and try him for treason, but he's in Berlin... things happen in war.
But the war on terror is not a war, no matter what we call it. It is a policing function. It is like a "war" on Mexican drug cartels. People are doing crimes that we want to prevent. And if we were at war with Americans who aid drug gangs, why stop at the border?
Most GWOT abuses boil down to this. It isn't a WAR. So the question arises whether we can take out any American anywhere involved somehow in unlawful actions against American interests. Phrased that way, I hope everyone would answer, "no."
In moral terms, we are not at war with Pakistan (for example) but we kill lots of people in Pakistan, including innocent Pakistanis, so the extra-judicial killing of an American citizen in Pakistan has no special moral dimension. I have no special tears for one blown up person versus another blown up person based on their place of birth.
And the people we blow up on purpose are probably more guilty than the people we blow up accidentally, if you see what I mean.
In a real war we wouldn't think to hard about it. But in this "war" we are looking at the application of rules of national survival to crime prevention, and thus extreme caution is indicated.
The Constitution provides explicitly for the death penalty for treason, and in a real war the people we target would indeed be traitors. But again, this isn't a real war, and the death penalty for treason is applied following a trial.
And this is my biggest sticking point. The document specifies that there is no judicial review.
In a real war, nobody expects the army to get a warrant before bombing a factory. In a policing function, however, we do expect a warrant. Before a SWAT team drives a tank through your wall some member of the Judicial branch with veto power is supposed to have been consulted by the executive branch. It is a needed check on executive power.
In the case of putting an American citizen on a kill list some panel of judges somewhere, no matter how secretly, is supposed to look at the thing to make sure the target isn't someone your wife is having an affair with, a political opponent, someone you owe money, etc..
This seems basic to me. It should take more than one branch of government to plan to kill an American citizen in a non-war.
Is that so much to ask? The judges involved would be a rubber stamp in practice. They always are. (Our courts signed off on interning Japanese Americans, for instance.) But their involvement would prevent grotesque, absurd abuses. Say, for instance, if Gore Vidal were an expatriate and W. Bush was tired of him criticizing the Iraq War in the foreign press and decided that his press interviews constituted "aid and comfort" to the enemy.
A "war" with no end, and that is really large scale violent police work must have a check in place when turned against Americans.
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