Was It a Crime to Kill Al-Awlaki?

Was the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and another American-born al-Qaeda thug actually unconstitutional? The ACLU and others have challenged the killing as the extrajudicial murder of a U.S. citizen who was entitled to legal due process, which is not usually carried out by a Hellfire missile.

Oddly enough, however, there was no legal case against al-Awlaki. He was never charged with any crime by the United States. This blows out the argument that all he had to do was return to the United States to face justice. He had no charges to face.

His problem was that he was, legally speaking, a belligerent, since he was clearly associated with al-Qaeda, a terrorist gang with which the United States has been in a state of undeclared war sincce 2001. We've had lots of undeclared wars, Korea and Vietnam, for example (the War Powers Act has covered subsequent wars). If an American had been so foolish as to join the Vietcong, the U.S. would have had little compunction about shooting him.

Targeted killings are rare in our military experience. The shoot-down of Admiral Yamamoto in World War II is a notable example. But improvements in intelligence and long-range technology (i.e. "drone" aircraft) have made planned killings more feasible. The enemies of the Republic are finding new ways to die.