# Court: White House has no legal duty to justify killing Americans abroad with drone strikes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 3, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978 "2013-01-03T17:36:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/61 "2013-01-03T23:15:20Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > My argument is that murdering children is bad Coincidentally, we agree. I was pointing out some other bad instances of murdering or nearly murdering children - only mine (for reasons not yet explained) were not relevant. > [@](#): > > giving unlimited power to the President as long as he says the magic word “terrorism” is bad I agree, but the AUMF doesn’t do that. Careful reading of this thread would make that clear. > [@](#): > > Your argument is a recycled Rudy Giuliani talking point where your answer to anything is NINELEVENINELEVENINELEVEN. This is what I was saying earlier: saying drone strikes are “evil” and “fascist” and “you’re morally bankrupt” and EXCESSIVECAPITALIZATION does not an argument make. In fact those things are usually substitutes for an argument: people who can make a solid argument don’t have to resort to those things. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/62 "2013-01-03T23:23:37Z")
A total lack of empathy and a genuine confusion as to why people might find bombing ambulances or funerals to be evil is a sign of sociopathy. You need a psychiatrist, not a message board. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/63 "2013-01-03T23:27:58Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > A total lack of empathy and a genuine confusion as to why people might find bombing ambulances or funerals to be evil is a sign of sociopathy. You need a psychiatrist, not a message board. Congratulations: you’ve convinced me to warn you myself instead of leaving it to **tomndebb**. You’ve been here long enough to know this isn’t appropriate for Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/64 "2013-01-03T23:34:11Z")
I’ve been here long enough to know that you have a blind spot about Obama’s moral outrages and aren’t willing to separate your desire to steamroll contrary opinions from your administrative functions, certainly. ---
**Author:** ![chinchalinchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@chinchalinchin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chinchalinchin)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/65 "2013-01-03T23:34:50Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Drone strikes are obviously a blunt instrument. Same with air strikes. There is simply no way that, even if they wanted too, the military could pop down and ask for your papers and hold off on it’s strikes because you happened to be an American. If you are with a group of folks suspected of being with AQ or the Taliban, and you are in the war zone or in one of the countries where these folks are hiding, then you are at risk at any time of something like this happening, whether you are an American or you are a Pakistani or Afghani. If the innocent civilians who happen to live there where these assholes are congregating are at risk, then you have no rights as an American to whine about being at equal risk…after all, these folks LIVE there and in most cases they have few options as too whether or not AQ or Taliban schlubs are in their village or town and thus are targets for these strikes. I agree with Bricker…this was the right call for the administration to make, and the drone strikes have been one of the most effective tools we’ve had in this conflict. It’s taken a lot of guts for Obama et al to stick to this, despite a lot of whinage from the left, and it’s one of the reasons I voted for him again in his second term. He is making the tough calls, and foreign policy wise I have little to complain about wrt the calls he’s made. Wow. Really? You don’t think wantonly dropping bombs on innocent civilians, whether they’re American or Afghani or Pakistani, creates more terrorists than it kills? I know if my family were suddenly blown up by a flying death machine piloted by some computer nerd in Nebraska, I’d probably join the nearest militant group who promised vengeance against the U.S., even if they held some assinine beliefs about feminine oppression and violent proselytizing. Moreover, how do you qualify effective? Do you mean they are helping us win the war? Because as far as I can tell, the war effort ain’t going so swimmingly. Or do you mean they allow us to kill the enemy (and civilians) without risking the lives of our troops? Because, as I stated, I think it’s safe to say these tactics create more terrorists than they stop. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/66 "2013-01-03T23:35:33Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > I’ve been here long enough to know that you have a blind spot about Obama’s moral outrages and aren’t willing to separate your desire to steamroll contrary opinions from your administrative functions, certainly. These are still personal comments - well, personal comments and moderating complaints - so they don’t belong in this forum. Please get back to the thread topic and post within GD rules. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/67 "2013-01-03T23:57:49Z")
> [@chinchalinchin](#): > > Wow. Really? You don’t think wantonly dropping bombs on innocent civilians, whether they’re American or Afghani or Pakistani, creates more terrorists than it kills? I guess it’s a good thing no one is doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/68 "2013-01-04T00:08:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I think it’s the right decision, and it will only become wrong in the eyes of the SDMB when a Republican is again in office. I concede that, like all issues, there’s a ton of partisan bias on this one. But in order to scold Bush and praise Obama, one simply needs to hold the following two principles: (1) The President may order the death of putative enemy combatant he believes to be an imminent threat to the national security of the United States in circumstances in which that individual cannot be safely captured so long as Congress authorizes the action; and (2) The President may not detain without _habeas corpus_ (much less torture!) a putative enemy combatant in circumstances in which safe capture and minimal habeas corpus rights are possible, even with Congressional authorization to do so. Notwithstanding the fact that the putative enemy combatant might prefer to be captured and tortured, I don’t think one has to be a hypocrite to hold those two principles simultaneously true. One can also distinguish the scenarios based on the level of non-judicial due process. One of the chief criticisms of Bush was that the people in Gitmo, Bagram, and the secret prisons in Poland did not receive even the level of non-judicial due process that Obama claims to perform with respect to targeted killing. Many of those prisoners were bought from the Northern Alliance, and held on such grounds as the fact that they were wearing Casio wristwatches of a make and model used in other terrorist attacks. Hardly evidence of an threat to U.S. national security, much less an imminent one. I suspect that another reason that targeted killing doesn’t receive the same outrage is that no one thinks it will bleed into domestic law enforcement. Whereas we improperly treated Brandon Mayfield like a terrorist under Bush, and there are many ordinary Americans who very legitimately feared being treated unconstitutionally by Bush, I don’t think there’s any risk that we’ll be executing the Brandon Mayfields of the world while they are evading capture Yemen. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/69 "2013-01-04T00:38:23Z")
Being a blood thirsty killer is a requirement for being POTUS, our warlord in chief. Obama’s appeal is his cold bloodedness. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/70 "2013-01-04T02:29:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Wait… so your deep and trenchant analysis of the issue, in which you conclude that the President’s determination was wrong because it was “obvious,” was based on some level of examination of the facts that didn’t include his contact with the September 11th hijackers before that attack? > > Even more useless now that it’s clear your conclusion was based on clues derived from reading the backs of old boxes of Frosted Lucky Charms. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this kind of disdain from you. Anyway, I had understood that he was basically an online presence, creating videos, etc., but wasn’t involved in actual terrorist planning. I conceded basically immediately that if he was involved with the September 11th attacks or the planners of that act, then he does fall under purview of the law (assuming that’s true, since all we have is the executive’s say-so). In any case, I summarized my position above: [QUOTE=me] I still hate the open-ended nature of that law, the Patriot act, and how this and the previous administrations have been acting in this regard, but I concede it’s probably technically legal. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/71 "2013-01-04T03:46:52Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Personally, I’m not okay with obviously frivolous, slippery slope questions posed as though they are matters that should be seriously discussed. > > “If we allow the cops to carry guns to defend themselves against armed robbers, does that mean we are okay with police shooting unarmed children in the head while they sleep at night?” How is that a slippery slope? It’s the very thing we’re debating. According to the courts, and various posters in this thread, shooting defenseless children in the head is perfectly legal so long as the president thinks it’s okay. With no oversight. And it isnt just theoretical, it has happened. Repeatedly. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/72 "2013-01-04T04:44:59Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > How is that a slippery slope? It’s the very thing we’re debating. According to the courts, and various posters in this thread, shooting defenseless children in the head is perfectly legal so long as the president thinks it’s okay. With no oversight. And it isnt just theoretical, it has happened. Repeatedly. You realize that the killing of innocents during war or law enforcement is not in and of itself a crime, right? ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/73 "2013-01-04T05:09:28Z")
We’ve done this whole “The President can kill American citizens without due process as long as he says he really wants to” thing back when Obama ordered the extrajudicial killing of Al-Awlaki. I see that this is basically a rehash of those discussions (with a side of Bricker’s patented “Dem’s are hypocritical” bullshitsauce). If anyone is interested: [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=607649&highlight=awlaki) [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=644244&highlight=awlaki) and [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=587179&highlight=awlaki). I honestly don’t know enough about FOIA law and very little interest to educate myself enough to become outraged over a judicial ruling that is of no surprise to me. I’ll save my indignation for the extrajudicial killing of US citizens and innocents and the court rulings that leave them unchallengeable. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/74 "2013-01-04T06:45:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > This is what I was saying earlier: saying drone strikes are “evil” and “fascist” and “you’re morally bankrupt” and EXCESSIVECAPITALIZATION does not an argument make. In fact those things are usually substitutes for an argument: people who can make a solid argument don’t have to resort to those things. Or the situation is so obviously black and white no one feels the need to waste time debating it, not everyone enjoys a debate for the hell of it. I’m reminded of the GD thread about the morality and ethics of killing healthy infants, at some point debate is a waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/75 "2013-01-04T08:29:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’d support something like that. But I think the amount of rights being eaten away gets overstated in debates like this. If a WWI-era U.S. infantryman had run out of his trench, gotten in a Central Powers trench and started shooting at the Allies, nobody would have argued that the U.S. military needed some kind of extra permission to kill him. There are some obvious ways in which that example differs from what’s going on with people like al-Awlaki and I don’t mean to ignore those, but the similarities shouldn’t be ignored either. Yes, they should be. The important part is that your WWI-era infantryman is actually shooting at American soldiers, while al-Awlaki was not. Your infantryman is an enemy combatant, which is why it is permissible to shoot him without trial. Your argument is akin to saying “If an American citizen was shooting at people it would be acceptable for the police to shoot back, therefore it’s perfectly alright if policemen start shooting drunk drivers.” ---
**Author:** ![spanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@spanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spanna)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/76 "2013-01-04T08:39:23Z")
I can’t believe how far the western powers have fallen since 9/11 Perhaps I was naive before I was astounded/horrified at Bush & Blair’s actions, and I am saddened beyond belief that we are still doing stuff like this ☹ The rule of law was what made us different from them ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/77 "2013-01-04T13:00:01Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Or the situation is so obviously black and white no one feels the need to waste time debating it Ah, but… IS the situation “so obviously black and white”? That becomes the debate. So Bush and Obama torture and kill in the name of National Security. Did not expect any better of either one; heck, when Mr. O got the preemptive Peace Nobel I thought to myself “oh, Hell… this is gonna look silly, it’s not going to be summer before he orders someone blown up…” . ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/78 "2013-01-04T13:11:53Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Someday, we’re going to wonder how the US became a fascist state. Don’t flatter yourself, kiddo. Y’all have a long way to go before you can style yourselves a fascist state. Your secret police goons don’t even have jackboots, fer chrissakes. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/79 "2013-01-04T13:23:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You realize that the killing of innocents during war or law enforcement is not in and of itself a crime, right? If everybody just wants to determine what is and isn’t legal, we should be talking about this in GQ. I figured in GD, we would talk about what _should or should not_ be legal. And try to convince people one way or another. Am I mistaken? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/80 "2013-01-04T13:28:38Z")
'Cause we’ve never extrajudicial killed anyone before this, [right](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program)? (But, but those weren’t Americans! Was every person on those olde timey “Wanted, Dead or Alive” posters convicted for the crime they were wanted for before the posters went up?) CMC [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978.md?page=5)