Legal Commentary

Where And When Can The President Order "Assassinations" In Wartime?

By Big Tent Democrat

Glenn Greenwald cites to this Scott Horton post on the question of Presidential assassinations. Glenn describes Horton's post thusly:

Harper's Scott Horton, who says he originally thought the objections of civil libertarians in the Awlaki case were overblown, but has now concluded -- in light of the Obama DOJ's brief -- that the Obama program is the embodiment of "tyranny"[.]

Horton's post is quite muddled in my view (and rightly so - this is a very tough issue.) For Horton also writes:

I don’t for a second question the principle established in Quirin, and I believe that the president can in some circumstances target and remove figures in a command-and-control position over hostile forces even if they are removed from a conventional battlefield. But I am deeply suspicious of the need to add to the president’s theoretical powers by killing a U.S. citizen in Yemen who could certainly be captured, brought back to the United States and put on trial.

(Emphasis supplied.) What if the President concludes that Al-Alwaki was "in a command-and-control position over hostile forces removed from a conventional battlefield?" I have great respect for Greenwald and Horton. I think they raise important problems with this policy. I think the legality of the policy is not one of those problems.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).