Government Poltroons
by digby
I read this typically bellicose Max Boot piece with a surge of bile in my throat. I know people like this have been around forever, but I am still gobsmacked that they feel so comfortable throwing this stuff out there like it’s common sense. There’s a lot of that going around with the Al-Awlaki matter:
A few civil libertarians are raising questions about whether the U.S. government had the right to kill an American citizen without a trial….That’s like asking if it was lawful to kill Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg. Like the rebels during the Civil War, Awlaki and Khan gave up the benefits of American citizenship by taking up arms against their country. They, and other Al Qaeda members, claim to be “soldiers” in the army of Allah; it is only fitting that their avowed enemy, the Great Satan, would take their protestations seriously and treat them just like enemy soldiers. If it’s lawful to drop a missile on a Saudi or Egyptian member of Al Qaeda, it’s hard to see why an American citizen should be exempt.
Reams and reams have been written about the relative morality of war and the state killing of its own citizens. I’m not going to answer that question. But the United States had, up until now, established some pretty clear guidelines in these matters.
I’ll let Kevin Drum spell it out. He points out the obvious, which is that the state would have many options other than sending in a drone plane if Al-Awlaki were living in the United States. Indeed, it would be required to use those other methods since we don’t generally believe that the they’ve “declared war” on their government. If they did, we’d be looking at a whole lot of dead militia members and Tea Partiers who use those words all the time.
Kevin writes:
The Civil War analogy suggests that even if Awlaki had been living within the United States he would have been fair game for a presidential assassination merely for belonging to a group that calls itself an offshoot of al-Qaeda.
In fact, I doubt that Boot believes this. He does not, in truth, think that President Obama can empower the FBI to roam the country and gun down American citizens who are plotting against us, whether they belong to al-Qaeda affiliates or not. He’s merely using the Civil War analogy because it was handy and seemed like it might sound plausible to readers who didn’t think about it too much.
I don’t know what Boot believes and it wouldn’t surprise me if he really does think the president has the right to order the killings of anyone — who Max Boot thinks is worthy of killing. The rub, of course, is when he disagrees about the target. Police states always present that one little problem, don’t they?
These fatuous arguments are all over the place as adherents seek to justify something that is happening without any serious debate or legal justification. Kevin is confident that Presidents are unlikely to abuse this manufactured right to kill US citizens, but I’m a paranoid sort and I don’t think a free people should ever take that chance. But we are in full agreement here:
But there are good and sound reasons that presidents are constrained in their ability to unilaterally kill U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live, and we allow these bright lines to be dimmed at our peril. Unfortunately, the war on terror has made poltroons out of every branch of government. The president hides behind the post-9/11 AUMF, using it as a shield to justify any action as long as it’s plausibly targeted at al-Qaeda or something al-Qaeda-ish. Congress, which ought to pass a law that specificially spells out due process in cases like this, cowers in its chambers and disdains any responsbility. And the courts, as usual, throw up their hands whenever they hear the talismanic word “war” and declare themselves to have no responsibility.
If the president wants the power to kill U.S. citizens who aren’t part of a recognized foreign army and haven’t received a trial, he should propose a law that spells out when and how he can do it. Congress should debate it, and the courts should rule on its constitutionality. That’s the rule of law. And regardless of whether I liked the law, I’d accept it if Congress passed it, the president signed it, and the Supreme Court declared it constitutional.
However, none of that has happened. The president’s power in this sphere is, in practical terms, whatever he says it is. Nobody, not liberals or conservatives, not hawks or doves, should be happy with that state of affairs.
Zactly.
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