Four NOT Two Americans Were Killed In Drone Strikes

[metalbot]

44. What field of combat were they on?

I completely support the notion that if someone is shooting at you, whether they are military or civilian, we have a right to kill them. However, in the specific case being discussed here, none of the drone strike targets was currently engaged in combat. So let's extend that argument: if someone who is not a soldier took a shot at your soldiers on the battlefield, does that give you a right to target and bomb his specific house three months later because he shot at your soldier before? Are we arguing in essence that once you have been an "enemy combatant", you can be executed arbitrarily at any time in the future for that crime?

In the specific case of Adam Gadahn, he's almost certainly guilty of treason (a crime for which we generally have trials). What evidence supports that he is an "enemy combatant"? My understanding is that he was the English speaking propaganda mouthpiece for Al Qaeda - a treasonous, but not combative act.

At some level, I support the use of drone strikes to fight Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Bin Laden's own correspondence gives a good indication of how effective it is. However, I'd acknowledge at best that it is simply the "least bad option", not that it is somehow "legal" under an interpretation of international law on enemy combatants. If it's not legal, but yet it's the least bad option, we should be having the national dialog about what we have to change (law? constitution? treaties?) to make it legal, and force Congress, the President, and SCOTUS to take a real position, not a made up one.