US approves assassination of Muslim cleric

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The Obama Administration has authorized operations to capture or kill a terrorism suspect based in Yemen who is also an American citizen. The World’s Jeb Sharp reports. (Photo: Wikipedia)

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MARCO WERMAN:  This is The World, I’m Marco Werman.  The Obama administration has given the green light to capture or kill a U.S. born Muslim cleric.  Anwar al Awlaki, born in New Mexico, is said to be hiding out in Yemen.  The Muslim cleric has been linked to the Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as well as Major Nidal Hassan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last November.  The World’s Jeb Sharp reports on what the effort might look like to eliminate a man described by one U.S. lawmaker as the single biggest threat to the U.S.

JEB SHARP:  It’s no secret that the United States has a targeted killing program that goes after Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects.  Gary Solis ran the Law of War program at West Point for six years and is the author of the new book “The Law of Armed Conflict”.

GARY SOLIS:  Early in the war on terror President Bush first generated a list of individuals who may be targeted, a Presidential finding.  So this is very common and it is updated regularly and this individual is now on it.  And what is different about it is that he is a U.S. citizen.

SHARP: Solis says he can’t speak for the CIA, but he has a pretty good idea how the Department of Defense would proceed.  The list would be passed on to intelligence services who would try to pin point the individual’s location.  If that can be done, U.S. forces would then target the suspect with a missile fired from a drone.  That’s assuming there were no friendly forces who could do the job on the ground.  It may sound straight forward, but targeted killing raises profound ethical questions. Gary Solis believes drones are lawful weapons, but he says you have to use them with, and these are legal terms, “distinction” and “proportionality.”

SOLIS: The problem is knowing that we are targeting the right individual.  In a world where most people wear white robes and turbans, how do we know that this individual in a white robe and a turban is the person we want?

SHARP: Solis says even if you do know it’s the right person, then you have the problem of trying to kill them without killing other people.

SOLIS: We don’t want to target this individual when he’s in the middle of a praying crowd.  Ideally if you’re going to fire a hellfire missile at somebody, he will be in the middle of the desert alone.

SHARP: But that’s often not the case, and there are inevitably civilian casualties associated with drone attacks.  Amos Guiora, professor of Law at the University of Utah, says those civilian casualties raise questions about the criteria the United States is using, both in whom it targets, and how it carries out operations.  Guiora says the legal rationale for targeted killing is based on the concept of self-defense.

AMOS GUIORA:  But what’s important here is the following:  drone attacks are legal only if the action is based on intelligence information indicating future action.  I have long argued that if it’s based on revenge, meaning there is no intelligence information suggesting future action, then that’s not self-defense.

SHARP: That’s a significant distinction and it’s not clear how closely the United States adheres to that principle, because the rules governing the targeted killing program are not known.  The ACLU recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request with U.S. government agencies to try to get more information.  The ACLU’s Jonathan Manes says this case involving a U.S. citizen only underscores the lack of transparency surrounding U.S. targeted killing policies.

JONATHAN MANES:  One thing that’s a little bit surprising about the situation is that right now we know more about when the government can get a warrant to wiretap a U.S. citizen abroad than to kill a U.S. citizen abroad.  That seems quite strange and we’re hoping that the government will be a little more forthcoming about what the parameters of this program are.

SHARP: Meanwhile the program continues apace.  Every few days there’s word of another drone attack that has killed both militants and innocent civilians.  Proponents say the drones are an effective weapon against terrorists.  Critics worry they make killing far too easy.  For The World I’m Jeb Sharp.

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