# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/81 "2013-01-04T13:46:48Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Being a blood thirsty killer is a requirement for being POTUS, our warlord in chief. Obama’s appeal is his cold bloodedness. But look on the bright side, with this available to satisfy his murderous urges, he doesn’t have to go trolling schools with an assault rifle. ---
**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, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/82 "2013-01-04T14:40:16Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > (But, but those weren’t Americans! If you’re discussing the legality under US law of extra-judicial killings, whether or not the dead person is a US citizen (or located in the US) certainly does matter. Constitutional rights to due process or the Fourth Amendment don’t apply to everyone in the world, but it does apply to US citizens. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/83 "2013-01-04T14:58:04Z")
[QUOTE=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 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. [/QUOTE] If you go back and read what I wrote again, you will note that I didn’t say anything about whether this will or won’t make new terrorists. I’m fairly sure it will. That doesn’t mean that the strikes aren’t effective, however, since they are mostly targeted at the terrorists command and control…i.e. their leadership. Drone strikes are the worst possible action the US could take…except for all the others, including the ever popular ‘do nothing’, which we tried for decades in Afghanistan after they kicked out the Soviets. > [@](#): > > 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. I qualify ‘effective’ as keeping the terrorists off balance, disrupting their command and control and also making them have to take elaborate steps to avoid eating a missile…all of which we are doing. Win the war? What war? It’s not a real war, and we’ll never win it. You can’t stop terrorists or terrorist acts…you can merely strive to contain them, to make it hard for them to act freely, and to make them have to focus on the immediate (namely, eating a missile or an air strike or having a SEAL team drop in for a chat) so that they don’t have the time or energy to plan something spectacular in your own neck of the woods. BTW, why isn’t it going ‘swimmingly’ in your opinion? Seems to me that it’s going about as well as one could expect in such a fucked up situation. > [@](#): > > 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. No, I meant what I said…drones do the least harm all around, assuming you are going to do anything at all. Air strikes, artillery strikes and, worst of all putting boots on the ground all do much, much more harm. They all kill the enemy…and as you cleverly noted, ‘and civilians’ too. But they do a lot more harm, kill a lot more people (on both sides) and do a lot more physical damage. I totally disagree with your statement that this creates more terrorist than it stops. If that was the case then the world should be awash in terrorists by now, since we’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly a decade now with no end in sight. Do you have any data showing that the number of terrorists, and more importantly terrorist operations have gone up substantially in that period 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, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/84 "2013-01-04T16:15:15Z")
> [@XT](#): > > That doesn’t mean that the strikes aren’t effective, however, since they are mostly targeted at the terrorists command and control…i.e. their leadership. No, they aren’t. Something like 2% of all drone casualties are high ranking terrorists - you kill more children than terrorist C&C. ---
**Author:** ![Sevencl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sevencl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevencl)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/85 "2013-01-04T16:17:22Z")
I’m shocked the very first kid murdered by one of these didn’t get the things banned permanently. Sometimes what people will and won’t get outraged about baffles me. ---
**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, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/86 "2013-01-04T16:19:03Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > No, they aren’t. Something like 2% of all drone casualties are high ranking terrorists - you kill more children than terrorist C&C. Actually, it’s 98.7462612%. (That, or it’s actually completely unknown, as documented at length in the excellent NYU/Stanford report.) ---
**Author:** ![I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Made_French_Toast_For_You)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/87 "2013-01-04T16:54:07Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I totally disagree with your statement that this creates more terrorist than it stops. If that was the case then the world should be awash in terrorists by now, since we’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly a decade now with no end in sight. Do you have any data showing that the number of terrorists, and more importantly terrorist operations have gone up substantially in that period of time? From [here](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/drones-and-denial_b_2396612.html): > [@](#): > > Essentially what the U.S. is doing is bombing suspected AQAP targets in Yemen in the hopes that AQAP doesn’t bomb the U.S… In my view, this is neither sustainable nor wise. We have seen AQAP grow incredibly fast in a remarkably short amount of time, expanding from 200-300 fighters in 2009, when the U.S. bombing campaign began, to more than 1,000 fighters today. This only refers to al-Quaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, however. ---
**Author:** ![chinchalinchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@chinchalinchin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chinchalinchin)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/88 "2013-01-04T18:30:42Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I totally disagree with your statement that this creates more terrorist than it stops. If that was the case then the world should be awash in terrorists by now, since we’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly a decade now with no end in sight. Do you have any data showing that the number of terrorists, and more importantly terrorist operations have gone up substantially in that period of time? [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/05/al-qaida-drone-attacks-too-broad](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/05/al-qaida-drone-attacks-too-broad) From the piece: > [@](#): > > “We have gone a long way down the road of creating a situation where we are creating more enemies than we are removing from the battlefield. We are already there with regards to Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he (Robert Grenier, who headed the CIA counter terrorism center from 2004 to 2006 and was previously a CIA station chief in Pakistan) said. [http://www.salon.com/2012/09/05/drone\_blowback\_is\_real/](http://www.salon.com/2012/09/05/drone_blowback_is_real/) From the piece: > [@](#): > > …drone programs rely on the support of the local regime. Whatever benefits this has over the short-term, over the long-term it makes those regimes lose legitimacy in the eyes of their own people… > > …increased frequency of drone attacks after 2009 coincided with the domestic unrest in Yemen, the authors say… > > …In destroying the state from above, terrorists can fill in the void on the ground. That’s just what happened with Ansar al-Sharia, a Taliban-like group in Yemen, which has seized parts of that country and was only recently formed. “The extensive use of [drones] for executive executions and signature strikes with Yemeni government partners is a dangerous precedent that lends itself to the creation of local-emirate enclaves,” write the journal article’s authors… [http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/drone-strikes-in-pakistan-damaging-and-counterproductive-study-finds/](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/drone-strikes-in-pakistan-damaging-and-counterproductive-study-finds/) From the piece: > [@](#): > > Based on more than 130 interviews with witnesses and foreign policy experts, the authors dissect three separate drone attacks, detailing the personal stories of the victims and offering firsthand testimony from the families they left behind. The study concludes that drone strikes, particularly multiple strikes on one area, cause “under-accounted-for harm” to civilians who escape physical injury. “Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities,” the report says… Well, you say, these are just media outlets. What about a legitimate study that concludes drone strikes create more terrorism than they stop? Here you go: [http://livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Stanford\_NYU\_LIVING\_UNDER\_DRONES.pdf](http://livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Stanford_NYU_LIVING_UNDER_DRONES.pdf) Also, here’s some food for thought, since you seem to be of the misguided opinion these drones strikes target terrorists and their leadership infrastructure. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html) From the piece: > [@](#): > > …Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today… > > …And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene. > > The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike… > > …Despite assurances the attacks are ‘surgical’, researchers found barely two per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the U.S. is ‘ambiguous at best’… [http://www.policymic.com/articles/16949/predator-drone-strikes-50-civilians-are-killed-for-every-1-terrorist-and-the-cia-only-wants-to-up-drone-warfare](http://www.policymic.com/articles/16949/predator-drone-strikes-50-civilians-are-killed-for-every-1-terrorist-and-the-cia-only-wants-to-up-drone-warfare) > [@](#): > > …Despite claims from the administration that drone strikes have killed very few civilians, multiple independent reports confirm that Obama is severely downplaying the wreckage that these drone strikes inflict. It is ultimately impossible to get exact numbers, but a new study from Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute finds that the number of Pakistani civilians killed in drone strikes are “significantly and consistently underestimated” by tracking organizations which are trying to take the place of government estimates on casualties. There are estimates as high as 98% of drone strike casualties being civilians… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/89 "2013-01-04T18:33:22Z")
> [@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 think it’s a terrible decision. I am not necessarily opposed to the drone strike program, but I am certainly opposed to any claim that the administration doesn’t have to explain why it has the authority to conduct them. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/90 "2013-01-05T02:34:11Z")
I’m as hawkish as anyone on the WoT, but **Americans** should never loss their Constitutional rights! ---
**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 5, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/91 "2013-01-05T02:45:59Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > I’m as hawkish as anyone on the WoT, but **Americans** should never loss their Constitutional rights! So no one should ever lose their liberty, i.e. be incarcerated, regardless of what they do? ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/92 "2013-01-05T07:38:01Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Al-alwaki (sp?) neither planned, authorized, committed, nor aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons. In addition to what **Marley** posted, Awlaki was _considered part of the organization_ that did plan, authorize, ect. even if he did not personally do those things. It’d be like not being able to kill a soldier because he joined after the war started. A marine is a marine is a marine. or, AQAP is closely enough connected to AQ as to be the same organization. That organization attacked us on 9.11 You can imagine how this can start to get tricky. Lots of judgment as to which affiliated group is connected enough and which is not. AQAP is, others are just terrorist groups that would not fall under the Sept 2001 AUMF. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/93 "2013-01-05T07:45:16Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > So no one should ever lose their liberty, i.e. be incarcerated, regardless of what they do? No, what I meant (was unclear sorry), was that no matter where they are ALL Americans are entitled to due process. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/94 "2013-01-05T07:51:42Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Al-alwaki (sp?) neither planned, authorized, committed, nor aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons. [Actually, he may have done exactly and precisely that.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/9781370/Radical-al-Qaeda-cleric-Anwar-al-Awlaki-purchased-plane-tickets-for-911-hijackers.html) ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/95 "2013-01-05T08:51:08Z")
I guess during the civil war we should have just arrested all the rebels and put them through the court system and given them due process, rather than shooting them and killing them on the battlefield. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/96 "2013-01-05T10:19:40Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I guess during the civil war we should have just arrested all the rebels and put them through the court system and given them due process, rather than shooting them and killing them on the battlefield. Again, shooting at enemy combatants on the battlefield is not what the government is doing. ---
**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 5, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/97 "2013-01-05T17:18:38Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [Actually, he may have done exactly and precisely that.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/9781370/Radical-al-Qaeda-cleric-Anwar-al-Awlaki-purchased-plane-tickets-for-911-hijackers.html) Good to know that the President can unilaterally decide to kill US citizens without judicial oversight based on “may haves”. What could possibly go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/98 "2013-01-05T21:47:39Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > If everybody just wants to determine what is and isn’t legal, we should be talking about this in GQ. The thread is about a court ruling, so what is legal is one of the issues. > [@](#): > > 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? OK. Do you think the killing of innocents during war or law enforcement operations should always be a crime, or do you think there are situations where (no matter how regrettable it is) it comes with the territory- that it can’t be avoided because of the nature of war and policing? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/99 "2013-01-05T22:42:56Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > Good to know that the President can unilaterally decide to kill US citizens without judicial oversight based on “may haves”. What could possibly go wrong? The alternative being what? Ask him nicely to turn himself in? Invade Yemen and arrest him? When you declare yourself an enemy of the United States and flee to a lawless region of a country embroiled in civil war in order to lead a resistance movement against an allied government, I think it’s pretty safe to say that you’ve forfeited your right to due process. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/court-white-house-has-no-legal-duty-to-justify-killing-americans-abroad-with-drone-strikes/645978/100 "2013-01-05T23:27:21Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I guess during the civil war we should have just arrested all the rebels and put them through the court system and given them due process, rather than shooting them and killing them on the battlefield. Well, ideally, yeah… In the same way, I favor treating terrorism as a criminal activity, and dealing with it via law-enforcement means…when possible. The problem is when a criminal organization gets so big that the police can’t take them on. The Branch Davidian siege is one example…and the American Civil War is another. If 50 or 60 chaps had pulled a cannon off a courthouse lawn and fired a few ill-aimed shots at Ft. Sumter, we’d expect the police to have handled the matter. [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=4) [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=6)