If an American citizen is living in Yemen and directing military and terrorist attacks against U.S. interests and citizens, do we have the right to kill him? That’s the question the administration doesn’t want to have to answer in court. They think they have that right, but they don’t want to settle it legally.
And it is a legal question. Or, better put, of course the president has the right to kill someone who is living abroad and who is trying to kill us. But he doesn’t have the right to order the death of a U.S. citizen without any due process or even a review by any outside parties. Otherwise, the president can start killing U.S. citizens without even explaining himself.
What Obama is trying to do here cannot stand. I don’t care about some terrorist in Yemen’s rights. But I do care about setting up a process that can lead to the worst imaginable kinds of abuses. If this guy is as bad as they say, then they should submit their evidence to the courts. In the meantime, Congress needs to clean up some loose ends with the law. If Obama is relying on the Authorization to Use Military Force against those who carried out or are affiliated with 9/11, then he’s on really thin ice. If we face a situation where new actors are trying to blow up our airplanes, then new authorizations are needed.
It’s really the lack of foundation in law that is outrageous here. If this guy were operating in Afghanistan, it wouldn’t matter that he’s an American citizen. But the battlefield is supposedly borderless. That’s not a tenable legal footing. And if the administration were willing to submit their evidence to real judicial review, we could have confidence that innocent Americans will not be targeted in the future.
Again, it’s not about this guy in Yemen. It’s about the administration trying to have the right to act on their say-so without any accountability. I very much hope they lose this case.