Terror Suspect Targeting Debate
As you can see, this week’s post actually discusses two articles, both of which tackle issues surrounding the U.S. using drones to target American citizens. The Obama administration, along with the military and national security actors are in “high-level discussions about staging an operation to kill an American citizen involved with al Qaeda and suspected of plotting attacks against the United States.” The senior official who confirmed the discussions refused to provide specifics.
Under current U.S. law, military force cannot be used against an American unless there is “imminent danger and no reasonable prospect of capturing the target.” The action would also require Presidential approval.
The first article concludes by listing Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both American citizens who were targeted and killed by a drone strike in 2011. According to the article, Khan, who died in, but was not the target of, the strike, “was behind al Qaeda’s English-language Inspire magazine.”
The second article discusses an American citizen who might be targeted in a drone strike. Because specifics are not given, it is unclear whether the two articles refer to the same individual. The individual mentioned in the second article is “an al Qaeda fighter in Pakistan.”
The article begins by discussing whether a drone strike should be delayed or scrapped in favor of increasing surveillance on the targeted individual in hopes of discovering other terrorist operatives. The article reiterates the Obama administration’s standard that an American would have to pose an imminent threat to the United States and there must be no reasonable prospect of capture before an American can be killed in a drone strike. Because the individual in question is located within Pakistan, the article also lays out a brief discussion concerning the negative impact such a strike would have on U.S.-Pakistani relations.
Farther down in the article, and perhaps most significant, is a quote from former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to the effect that “The Obama administration would be justified using drones to kill American terrorists abroad and at home.” This blending of lines is significant. As of yet, drone strikes on American citizens have only publically occurred overseas. That the former top law enforcement officer of the United States embraces drone strikes on Americans at home is significant.
Departing from the article for a moment, this extension of drone jurisdiction seems to raise three separate but important issues. First, what due process rights or concerns are implicated when Americans are targeted for execution on domestic soil? Second, if the “American terrorist” is on American soil, how could the Presidential Administration, Department of Defense, or other National Security bodies ever argue that there is no reasonable prospect of capture, specifically via traditional arrest? Finally, how would the use of drones domestically implicate or violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids deployment of the military within American borders?
In addressing the due process concerns, the article, and Mr. Gonzales, discuss the two-step process of putting an individual on the “kill list” and then executing a specific kill order. According to Gonzales, “the President has the authority – as the commander in chief – once you identify where an ‘enemy combatant’ is, to take action, to take him out on the battlefield like you would any other enemy.” In administrations prior to that of George W. Bush, the notion of America being an active battleground in any war on terror was relatively limited. Gonzales followed by saying that “Due process would be a concern only in designating someone as an “enemy combatant”.
“Asked whether drones might be used to kill Americans who have been determined to be pressing, imminent threats to U.S. safety on U.S. soil, Gonzales said doing so was probable, even though it might worry civil libertarians.”
Given that engaging in acts of or supporting terrorism is a federal crime under the United States Code, why should terrorists on American soil be given fewer rights than any other criminal? Is Gonzales’s analysis of a President’s authority going too far in allowing individuals or small groups to decide people’s fates outside the constitutional and moral bounds traditionally respected in this country?