Unauthorized Government Killing Using Drones, Bombs, or Other Means Is Still Murder

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/unauthorized-government-k_b_6596114.html

Ivan Eland

2 February 2015

Unauthorized Government Killing Using Drones, Bombs, or Other Means Is Still MurderAlthough U.S. drones firing missiles at suspected bad guys in faraway places -- such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia -- have gotten much publicity in recent years, it was recently revealed that the CIA assassinated top Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyah with a good old-fashioned car bomb in Damascus, Syria with President George W. Bush's strident approval in 2008. Because of an executive order, signed in 1975 by President Gerald Ford, prohibiting assassinations by the CIA, presidents usually get around that order by using the military to kill an enemy bigwig and then make the disingenuous claim that it was merely taking out a "command and control" target rather than an assassination. In this case, Bush, never one to observe constitutional or legal niceties, became incensed that the CIA director was being too timid in carrying out the hit using the exploding car. The real issue in such cases is not whether it is more dangerous to liberty to kill the enemy using a high-tech drone or a more traditional car bomb, but whether it constitutional to do either.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/unauthorized-government-k_b_6596114.html