Ima quote some article...
U.S. citizens working for al-Qaida overseas can legally be targeted and killed by the CIA under President Obama's rules for the war on terrorism, U.S. officials say.
The authority to kill U.S. citizens is granted under a secret finding signed by the president after the Sept. 11 attacks that directs the CIA to covertly attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world. The authority makes no exception for Americans, so permission to strike them is understood rather than specifically described, officials said.
These officials said the authority will be used only when other options are unavailable. Military strikes will take place only when law enforcement and internal security efforts by allied foreign countries fail.
Hold on. There's a typo in the first sentence. It actually reads:
U.S. citizens working for al-Qaida overseas can legally be targeted and killed by the CIA under President Bush's rules for the war on terrorism, U.S. officials say.
The article was written ten years ago.
It goes on.
Capturing and questioning al-Qaida operatives is preferable, even more so if an operative is a U.S. citizen, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Any decision to strike an American will be made at the highest levels, perhaps by the president.
The CIA already has killed one American under this authority, although U.S. officials maintain he wasn't the target.
On Nov. 3 [2002], a CIA-operated Predator drone fired a missile that destroyed a carload of suspected al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. The target of the attack, a Yemeni named Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, was the top al-Qaida operative in that country. Efforts by Yemeni authorities to detain him had previously failed.
But the CIA didn't know a U.S. citizen, Yemeni-American Kamal Derwish, was in the car. He died, along with al-Harethi and four other Yemenis.
OK, an accident. That must change everything, yes?
The Bush administration said the killing of an American in this fashion was legal.
OK. Guess not. Accident, schmaccident: they claim they could've targeted and killed him if they wanted to.
"I can assure you that no constitutional questions are raised here. There are authorities that the president can give to officials," said Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, after the attack. "He's well within the balance of accepted practice and the letter of his constitutional authority."
Some hippies, like Derwish's family think that's wrong. But...
The Bush administration sees it differently. In killing him, the administration defined Derwish as an enemy combatant, the equivalent of a U.S. citizen who fights with the enemy on a battlefield, officials said. Under this legal definition, experts say, his constitutional rights are nullified and he can be killed outright.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, supported this policy. "A U.S. citizen terrorist will kill you just like somebody from another country."
No, I don't like that Obama has embraced this way of thinking. Not a bit. But, let's at least be aware that he didn't invent it. K? And, as always, Congress can put an end to this any time it wants to.