Allowing the government to target people for assassination represents a grave and mortal danger, not only to the targeted individual, but to the viability of a free and democratic society, and to the rule of law.
Citizens of a democratic and civilized country should never acquiesce to extrajudicial killings of any human being.
Of course, in the case of a shooting war, there are rules of engagement that allow for the use of lethal force, and in that case, killing an enemy combatant may be warranted.
But when the government of a country routinely targets individuals for assassination, for whatever reason, then such country has crossed the rubicon towards (what could become) an oppressive, undemocratic, and abusive police state.
And because any and all information the citizens are exposed to, about any and all issues, is subject to manipulation, the only way to avoid killing of innocent people is to abide by a very clear an unequivocal restriction of extrajudicial killings by the state.
Otherwise, all a government would have to do in order to justify targeted killings, would be to define certain categories of individuals deserving to be assassinated. And governments typically do this by manipulating the population with fear, and thus getting the approval of the citizenry.
So it's similar to the concept of a bogeyman: "An amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten children or 'leaders' to frighten adults into behaving."
In today's parlance, some of those categories include "terrorist," "al qaeda number 2 (or 3, or 4),"enemy combatant."
However, the citizenry is not equipped, able, or sufficiently informed to ascertain whether the label applied to individuals by the government, in order to justify their killing, is accurate.
Also, we don't get complete information. For example, how many tyrants is our government supporting in exchange for access to resources, cheap labor, etc? Is our government engaging in illegal activities abroad, including kidnapping, torture, bribes, suppression of legitimate resistance movements against oppression, dumping hazardous materials in poorly regulated areas, etc.
We, the citizens, don't get a whole picture about any of these things, and their implications when it comes to our security.
And so, you could see an individual being portrayed on TV, and other media outlets as a terrorist, but you, as an individual citizen, are not qualified to ascertain the veracity of that claim. That is why the rule of law exists. There are processes put in place to safeguard the security of the innocent, and to ascertain the culpability of the accused.
So if you are in a battlefield, and a soldier or enemy combatant is shooting at you, then you are justified to shoot back. But if a guy is sitting at home drinking some tea, then dropping a bomb on his house in a targeted assassination mission, is more dubious.
The danger is that the State could eventually turn this awesome power against its own citizens, with increased frequency.
And if such State becomes corrupt and oppressive, it could then use that power to turn it against those who rise up to confront the oppression. And usually, the reason the State is able to do this s by convincing a large-enough portion of the population that the targeted citizens deserve to die (because they have been branded with the threatening label of the day).
There is a reason we have a Constitution, and the rule of law. No, the Constitution is not quaint. It's there to protect you.
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UPDATE - October 1st, 2011 1:00pm: US warns of retaliation following cleric's killing
"The State Department says the death of Anwar al-Awlaki would provide motivation for individuals or groups to retaliate against U.S. citizens or American interests."
This type of situation helps keep the country in a perpetual state of war, which mainly benefits the war profiteers of the military industrial complex.
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