The problematic use of “drones” to prosecute the U.S. war on terror is very much in the news again. On February 7, during a hearing that was repeatedly interrupted by protesters, senators questioned John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director-designate, about the administration’s heavy reliance on “targeted killings” by unmanned aircraft. A prominent line of questioning by senators concerned the government’s exercise of due process under U.S. law, or the lack thereof, when targeting American citizens overseas. Exhibit A: the CIA’s takedown of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric, in September 2011.
“Now that the drone program is so public…people don't know what this one citizen was doing,” noted Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee chairman, in one exchange with Brennan. “This man was not upstanding by a longshot. I’ve read enough to know that he was a real problem.” The circumspect Brennan acknowledged that a “relationship” existed between al-Awlaki and the foiled attempt by al-Qaeda terrorists in October 2010 to destroy cargo airplanes using plastic explosives hidden in printer cartridges. Sen. Ron Wyden asked Brennan if the President should offer a U.S. citizen the opportunity to surrender before taking him out. “Any American who joins al-Qaeda will know full well that [he has] joined an organization that is at war with the United States, and the U.S. will do everything possible to destroy that organization,” Brennan said. “They can surrender any time and turn themselves in.”
