Obama’s drone rationale

A Justice Department memo leaked this week has revealed the legal rationale for White House drone strikes abroad, stating that the president has authority to order targeted assassinations of anyone—including U.S. citizens—believed to be associated with al Qaida, even without intelligence linking them to an active plot to attack the U.S. The document presents the U.S.’s controversial drone strike program against al Qaida suspects in Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries as “a lawful act of self-defense,” even when it targets U.S. citizens such as Anwar al-Awlaki.

The White House has previously said targeted assassinations are constitutionally justified when government officials believe a person poses an “imminent threat of violent attack.” But the secret memo, obtained by NBC News, allows for what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” that does not require the U.S. to have “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” Instead, “informed, high-level officials” must determine only that the target has been recently involved in activities that presage a violent attack.

This memo gives Obama the “most extreme power a political leader can seize,” said Glenn Greenwald in Guardian.co.uk. He can legally assassinate anyone accused of ties to al Qaida so long as they’re involved in vague, nonspecific “activities.” This establishes a chilling legal precedent even beyond the Bush-Cheney power grab: that the president can kill whomever he likes “far from any battlefield, with no charges or trial.”

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What would liberal critics have Obama do? said Saikrishna Prakash in NYTimes.com.He can hardly have a judge on hand to review the real-time targeting decisions of military commanders. We are still at war with al Qaida, and this memo gives a “careful and lawyerly” view of how we fight our own citizens when they fight us. “It is nothing if not exhaustive.”

Hardly, said Jack Shafer in Reuters.com. This document is filled with “squishy language,” failing to define “recently” or “activities” or exactly who the “informed, high-level officials” making decisions are. A separate memo reportedly exists that justifies the process in more explicit terms. The White House should release it. If Obama wants to assassinate U.S. citizens based on “gut feelings,” he ought to be prepared to defend that act.