A Note On 'Drone Strikes', Ladies And Gentlemen

[Tom Rinaldo]

62. Hard, but I think worthy of a good faith effort

First off there is the matter of when we are in "a state of war". I understand that we often enter war now without full scale Congressional Declarations of War, this has been an ongoing gray area but Congress and the Executive has grappled together over this and if not a Declaration of War, than some Congressionally sanctioned sign off acknowledging that the President is operating under circumstances that necessitate operational war powers should be a pre-condition. Arguably that is the currently the case, but it should always be the case before any President's Administration can legally target an American citizen abroad as an enemy combatent.

Next I see no reason why the generic decision making process and criteria to be employed for cases where American citizens might be subject to targetting should not explicitly be reviewed and signed off on by representatives of the legislative and judicial branches as consistent with Constitutional intent. Members of any Administration making those operational decisions should then legally be held accountable for adherence to that decision making process previously agreed upon. If there is need for any emergency exceptions that would allow for bypasing any aspect of that review because of fast breaking events that threaten our security - the standards for invoking them should be spelled out and then subject to a review after the fact to make sure those powers were not abused. The American people have a right to insist that this type of decision must receive specified thorough high level review even if we must delegate the final decision to the Executive and those who serve him or her as Commander in Chief.

Finally while the conduct of war is an executive function I see no reason why an Administration can not or should not be required to submit to legislative oversight over the conduct of this specific use of war powers - the pre-planned intentional targeting of specific American citizens abroad as enemy combatents to be killed through combat operations. It might not entail needing Congressional pre-authorization for specific military strikes, but the program should be subject to regular high level security clearence congressional review.