Five Reasons Why Drone Assassinations are Illegal

[The Northerner]

US civilian and military employees regularly target and fire lethal unmanned drone guided missiles at people across the world. Thousands of people have been assassinated. Hundreds of those killed were civilians. Some of those killed were rescuers and mourners.

These killings would be criminal acts if they occurred inside the US. Does it make legal sense that these killings would be legal outside the US?

...

The US has used drones to kill thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But the government routinely refuses to provide any official information on local reports of civilian deaths or the identities of most of those killed.

In Pakistan alone, the New America Foundation reports US forces have launched 297 drone strikes killing at least 1800 people, three to four hundred of whom were not even combatants. Other investigative journalists report four to eight hundred civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan.

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Drone killings are acts of premeditated murder. Premeditated murder is a crime in all fifty states and under federal criminal law. These murders are also the textbook definition of assassination, which is murder by sudden or secret attack for political reasons.

In 1976 U.S. President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905, Section 5(g), which states "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." President Reagan followed up to make the ban clearer in Executive Order 12333. Section 2.11 of that Order states "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." Section 2.12 further says "Indirect participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order." This ban on assassination still stands.

The reason for the ban on assassinations was that the CIA was involved in attempts to assassinate national leaders opposed by the US. Among others, US forces sought to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.

Read more: http://www.just-international.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5456:five-reasons-why-drone-assassinations-are-illegal&catid=45:recent-articles&Itemid=123

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. Anything excluded by executive order can be reversed by subsequent EO

That's not condoning drone strikes, just noting a fact. Presidents cannot unilaterally make binding law on their successors.

[abelenkpe]

2. Of course they are illegal

They are also immoral.

And so is attacking a nation or person who you fear might be a threat in the future.

[bluestate10]

3. Gerald Ford.

Didn't deal with fanatics that would gladly kill millions in a single attack if they had the means. Going after dictators that did nothing to us than not letting us build bases on their land or aligned themselves with the Soviet Union was wrong. Removing from the face of the earth terrorists that would instantly kill off a major city in seconds if they could is not justified, but morally right.