Drone Killing: The Future of Warfare or the Death of the Constitution?
I am not usually a fan of Paul Rosenberg. He is one of the most liberal of the liberal media, and seems to delight in making outrageous off-the-cuff comments without much justification or acknowledgement of the 'facts on the ground.' This time, however, he has hit the nail on the head. His idealism, in this case, is well-applied, and highlights the crux of the drone-killing issue.
For those who have not followed the whole business, a little history. On September 30, 2011, the US government targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a United States citizen living in Yemen, via drone strike. Two weeks later, on October 14, 2011, the US government also killed his son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a 16 year old United States citizen, born in Denver but also living in Yemen. These two US citizens were killed without benefit of trial or even notification of the charges laid against them. They were not brought back to the United States; they did not face a jury of their peers; one was under age. To be fair, Anwar al-Awlaki, the father, was an alleged terrorist, working for al'Qaeda. His son was also an alleged terrorist. The Obama administration claimed that they had acted in such a manner - dispatching these two citizens without benefit of law - in order to protect other American citizens against future attacks. For several months, they refused to give further evidence or justification of the attacks. In early 2013, they published guidelines (not legally binding) for drone targeting and killing. In it, they claimed that the administration did not need evidence of 'future attacks' to target even US citizens, despite the fact that this was their claim at press conferences immediately before and after the publication. You can read the document here.
Although I recommend reading the entire article, where Mr. Rosenberg really does an excellent job of laying out the arguments (both legal and ethical) against such executive privilege, the follow excerpt is (to me) the heart of the matter:
"Let us be clear. No one is a worse advocate for al-Qaeda than al-Qaeda itself. Killing thousands of innocent civilians - including Muslims - does not strike most people as a convincing demonstration that you are holy warriors (rather than just thuggish criminals) in service to a merciful and compassionate God. At the same time, no one is a better advocate for al-Qaeda than the American government, whose war-on-terror response to 9/11 was first to validate al-Qaeda's previously imaginary status as warriors, then to validate al-Qaeda's broader claim that America was at war with Islam itself. The assassination of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a classic continuation of this same pattern, whereby America's actions contradict everything America is supposed to stand for, and appear to confirm everything that al-Qaeda alleges. It represents an active rolling back of citizen rights to a pre-Magna Carta, pre-1215 era. Bush began this process with Guantanamo, with torture, rendition and detention without trial, but Obama, rather than rectifying things, has taken them even further with the targeted killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. And in so doing, he has crushed the promise that he once seemed to exemplify."
