The Final Solution

'Cause what they do
In Washington
They just takes care
of NUMBER ONE
An' NUMBER ONE ain't YOU
You ain't even NUMBER TWO
--The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing,
Frank Zappa

For the first time, the weird and the stupid
and the coarse are becoming our
cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.
--Carl Bernstein

Thou hast committed Fornication:
but that was in another country,
And besides, the wench is dead
--The Jew of Malta, Christopher Marlow
______________

Assassinating American supposedly in cahoots with terrorists has been getting press lately. The justification boils down to the following:

1. Terrorists are Bad. They want to kill us.
2. The President is Good. He wants to protect us.
3. The President can call hits on Them because They are Bad and He is Good.

Simplicity itself, except for the burden of the rule of law, to which Americans are still bound. When did being a terrorist become an automatic death sentence, without benefit of trial by jury? The New York Times online Opinionator column delved into the topic in depth recently (Assassinating Americans, Killing the Constitution?):

[fr. the WaPo]:

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose “a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests,” said one former intelligence official. The Obama administration has adopted the same stance.

[fr. Glenn Greenwald]:

More critically still, the Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — defines the “battlefield” as the entire world. So the President claims the power to order U.S. citizens killed anywhere in the world, while engaged even in the most benign activities carried out far away from any actual battlefield, based solely on his say-so and with no judicial oversight or other checks. That’s quite a power for an American President to claim for himself.

“Even if you’re someone who does want the President to have the power to order American citizens killed without a trial by decreeing that they are Terrorists (and it’s worth remembering that if you advocate that power, it’s going to be vested in all Presidents, not just the ones who are as Nice, Good, Kind-Hearted and Trustworthy as Barack Obama), shouldn’t there at least be some judicial approval required? Do we really want the President to be able to make this decision unilaterally and without outside checks? Remember when many Democrats were horrified (or at least when they purported to be) at the idea that Bush was merely eavesdropping on American citizens without judicial approval? Shouldn’t we be at least as concerned about the President’s being able to assassinate Americans without judicial oversight? That seems much more Draconian to me.”

Being judge, jury and executioner is not a very cool posture for the U.S. President to assume. It puts him on par with dictators like Adolph Hitler. Any chief of government who can capriciously and arbitrarily authorize state-sponsored, non-judicial or non-war related death is participating in the same behavior that sent people to their deaths in the Nazi camps.

The Holocaust did not start in Auschwitz, but rather in incremental programs leading up to the final insanity. It is simply a matter of degree. By authorizing the assassination of anybody, the U.S. is passing into territory we once fought to destroy.

There is no Constitutional basis for the President of the U.S. to usurp the power of the courts and apply death sentences. We are still a civilized nation operating under the rule of law. Even IF the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) were a war, the President lacks the power to contravene The Hague Convention or civilized standards of conduct.

It is a shame to even discuss this topic, which is an embarrassment and an illegality. If assassination is a greater good, then Congress should pass a law authorizing assassination. Barring that, any Executive Order to the contrary is a crime against humanity.