That's how the Obama Administration prefers it. Says the article:





The administration has said that its covert, targeted killings with remote-controlled aircraft in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and potentially beyond are proper under both domestic and international law. It has said that the targets are chosen under strict criteria, with rigorous internal oversight.



It has parried reports of collateral damage and the alleged killing of innocents by saying that drones, with their surveillance capabilities and precision missiles, result in far fewer mistakes than less sophisticated weapons. Yet in carrying out hundreds of strikes over three years -- resulting in an estimated 1,350 to 2,250 deaths in Pakistan -- it has provided virtually no details to support those assertions.



Setting this precedent alone is an irresponsible abuse of power. Across successive administrations, there is no chance that commanders in chief can order unlimited secret assassinations with impunity and never abuse that extreme discretion. Men are corrupted by far less power, and in situations where there are many more checks on their misbehavior. What is Obama thinking?

In outlining its legal reasoning, the administration has cited broad congressional authorizations and presidential approvals, the international laws of war and the right to self-defense.



For once, let's put aside the self-serving and dubious legal arguments. Say this approach to drone warfare is legal. There is just no realistic account of human nature that makes it prudent.

I found the following particularly absurd. "Senior administration officials say they deserve to be trusted on drones," the article states, "in part because Obama kept his pledge to do away with the CIA's secret prisons and the use of harsh interrogation techniques." So the profound abuses of the last president are being marshaled as arguments in favor of a policy that would give all future presidents the power to kill anywhere with no oversight? Shutting down the CIA's ability to secretly imprison is cited as an argument in favor of giving the CIA the power to secretly kill?!

One day, perhaps many years from now, Americans will read about the abuses of power that American presidents perpetrated in the years following the September 11 terrorist attacks. After all the ugly truths are out, there will be widespread revulsion, as if we couldn't have known at the time that something indefensible was going on. But I submit that when the president has adopted a policy of killing whoever he wants, without ever explaining who the targets were, or why it was appropriate to target them, or how we know we're right, something indefensible is already going on.





Image credit: Reuters

