While I agree with the arguments presented in this piece, I disagree with the entire premise. This guy, together with the rest of Al Qaeda are outside the law. They are waging war against the United States and we have every right to take the war to them, killing them whenever and where ever we can. They need not be armed with an AK-47, you can wage war with a laptop just as well.
As combatants, they are entitled to treatment as POWs should they be captured and we can keep them as long as the war continues. They can be tried by military tribunals for crimes that they may have committed during the conflict. For example, we did this to members of Kampfgruppe Peiper for the murder of U.S. POWs during the battle of the bulge. Several were hanged.
Where we have gone astray is by pretending that we can treat acts of war as ordinary criminal behavior and deal with it within our civilian legal system which is patently absurd on its face. The fact that Al Qaeda chose to ignore the laws of land warfare and refuses to wear uniforms and observe the international conventions of warfare does not entitle them to treatment as criminal suspects entitled to presumption of innocence and due process of a jury trial with full disclosure of all lawfully obtained evidence. They are declared enemies and anyone who joins their ranks should receive the same treatment, even it they happen to be American citizens.
While the United States has generally avoided the targeting of enemy leaders, we are certainly entitled to do so. We shot down a Mitsubishi “Betty” bomber carrying Admiral Yamamoto during World War II. We knew he was on board and we knew where the plane was going. We ambushed the plane and shot it down. Admiral Yamamoto never shot an American soldier or sailor, he never planted a bomb. But, he was an enemy combatant and he was killed during the performance of his duties. That’s what happened to this guy.
The result was good, the convoluted rationale put forward by the Obama Administration is not.
What a well thought out and cohesive argument for drone strikes against me. I am the enemy of this government, but not an enemy of the republic. I often use a laptop. Who defines “ordinary crimes “ vs. Acts of war? Why, the government, of course.
I am not defending either the dead terrorist, or the article, but this needs a little more thought before we start granting the regime Constitutional exemptions.