Holder’s death-by-drone rules

Opinion: March 12, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times: Not too many debates were settled last week when U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. detailed the Obama administration’s decision-making process on targeted killings. Critics were left with as many questions as before, while supporters had a few more things to cheer about. For our part, we’re as troubled as ever by drone-based assassinations — and perhaps more concerned that this nation is heading down a dangerous path.

The debates, in large part, are about priorities: At what point does the threat of a terrorist attack justify bypassing constitutional guarantees of due process, not to mention international law? Early in his speech, Holder tipped the administration’s hand by suggesting the terrorist threat is truly extraordinary. “As President John F. Kennedy may have described best, ‘In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.’ ... It is clear that, once again, we have reached an ‘hour of danger.’”

A different level of threat

Kennedy was talking about the threat of nuclear annihilation; we don’t mean to downplay the genuine dangers posed by al-Qaida and like groups, but they don’t rise to this level. And we’re uncomfortable with the broad powers Holder asserted for the president to act as judge, jury and executioner for suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, on the basis of secret evidence.

We have to wonder how supporters of this position would feel if another country such as China or Russia were to take this approach in killing its enemies around the world. And we’re more than a little disappointed at the way Democrats (including Holder and President Obama) who criticized President Bush’s broad assertions of presidential powers in the war on terrorism have changed their tune now that a Democrat is in the White House.