After FBI agents took custody of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the
Nigerian who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on
December 25, 2009, they told him he had the right to remain silent.
For Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who allegedly helped
plan Abdulmutallab’s mission, that right was more like an
obligation, enforced by Hellfire missiles fired at his car
from remotely controlled CIA aircraft in northern Yemen at the end
of September. 

President Barack Obama’s policy regarding people
linked to terrorism is clear: They are to be treated like criminal
defendants with constitutional rights, except when they are treated
like enemy soldiers in the heat of battle, subject to death dealt
from a distance. Although this flexibility has obvious advantages
in waging the never-ending war on terrorism, it threatens to
transform the elected executive of a republic into a dictator with
summary execution power.

That danger may seem theoretical in light of Awlaki’s public
record of fomenting violence against Americans. Regarding the U.S.
Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting
rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, the month before Abdulmutallab was
caught with plastic explosives in his underwear,
Awlaki bragged: “Nidal Hasan is a student of mine, and I am
proud of this.…I call upon anyone who calls himself a Muslim, and
serves in the US army, to follow in the footsteps of Nidal Hasan.”
Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in
2010, also cited Awlaki as an inspiration. 

The U.S. government claims Awlaki, a U.S. citizen whom
experts perceived as a threat mainly because of his
rhetorical appeal to English-speaking Muslims, not only advocated
terrorist attacks but helped plan them as a leader of Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula. Yet the extent of his involvement remains
unclear, and the Obama administration seems determined to keep it
that way. 

Announcing Awlaki’s death, Obama called him “the leader of
external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”—the
first time he had ever been described that way. The president also
claimed Awlaki “took the lead in planning and directing efforts to
murder innocent Americans.” 

At a press briefing later that day, four reporters
asked White House spokesman Jay Carney for evidence to back up
those allegations. “I don’t have anything for you on that,” Carney
said, refusing even to acknowledge that the U.S. government had
killed Awlaki, let alone explain the rationale for the secret
decision that marked him for death. 

While Awlaki may have been guilty of everything the
administration claims, it is not hard to imagine how a program of
classified, unreviewable death decrees might go awry, especially in
the service of a perpetual, geographically undefined war against an
amorphous enemy. Endorsing Obama’s “targeted killings,” Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) declared that “restricting the
definition of the battlefield” or “restricting the definition of
the enemy” would be reckless because “this is a worldwide conflict
without borders.” 

Writing in The New York Times, Jack
Goldsmith, an assistant attorney general in the Bush
administration, acknowledged that the unilateral power to
kill anyone the president identifies as an enemy is “fraught with
the danger of executive overreach or mistakes.” But “so far,”
Goldsmith assured us, “it appears” Obama is using his license to
kill “with caution.” After all, “before someone like Mr. Awlaki is
targeted, multiple intelligence sources support the conclusion that
he is a dangerous threat, top lawyers from many agencies scrutinize
the action, [and] policy makers at the highest levels of government
approve the action after assessing its legal and political
risks.” 

Or so we’re told, by former insiders like Goldsmith and unnamed
officials quoted in news stories on the condition that they not be
identified.  The Obama administration can’t even be bothered
to say “trust us” on the record.  

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor of
reason.