You are absolutely correct. In addition, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have no moral dilemma with hiding behind and killing innocent women and children and killing American civilians that they capture—and theey would have had no moral compunctions about killing him if they had captured him.
I wouldn’t go there if I were you. The U.S. has killed more innocent civilians than Al Quesa could ever dream of, and though we shy away from killing captives, most of the time we send robots or Seal Teams to assassinate people instead of capturing them, American citizens included. You must seek elsewhere to justify our side.