TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The Obama administration believes that an executive branch review of facts counts as due process before killing American citizens:

The Obama administration believes that executive branch reviews of evidence against suspected al-Qaeda leaders before they are targeted for killing meet the constitution’s “due process” requirement and that American citizenship alone doesn’t protect individuals from being killed, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech Monday.

Doesn’t that make you feel safe knowing that the executive branch reviewed evidence before killing an American?

The issue here isn’t that the government shouldn’t be able to kill American citizens fighting against the U.S. in a war zone. I don’t know of anyone who thinks that. The issue is that Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by U.S. drones in Yemen, a country the U.S. is not (officially) at war in. Effectively, the administration is arguing the U.S. should be able to assassinate U.S. citizens anywhere in the world, if the executive branch deems they are planning to kill U.S. citizens and they cannot be captured.

I sympathize with the Obama administration, because they’re trying to fight a different kind of an enemy. Al Qaeda has no national affiliation nor are they congregated in a single area, so fighting them with the rules of war for nations is, well, difficult. But rather than just say that the executive branch should be able to decide on its own when to assassinate U.S. citizens, we need to create new standards for when it is permissible and when it isn’t. And there must be some kind of oversight, because it’s absolutely insane to allow the executive branch to be jury and executioner, however solemnly they carry that responsibility.