Mike,

This is a good news story all around, first we have two bad actors off the street, and I agree with the analysis that Awlaki was numero uno threat to the homeland, and Samir Khan was not an innocent by stander. Second, we civil libertarians jumping up to challenge the legality of this action, which in their own way is protecting Americans as much as the mission that killed Awlaki.

I personally felt the argument fell short when they argued that Yemen wasn't a battlefied, so therefore the mission was illegal. Whereever we kill terrorists is a battlefield, it isn't confined to a specific geographical region. It seems ludricous to believe that if a terrorist is conducting operations againstthe U.S. outside of a designated battlespace we can't kill him. Were these same arguments made when President Clinton launched missiles into Sudan and Afghanitan in the late 90s in an attempt to kill UBL?

The fact that both Awlake and Khan were U.S. citizens obviously complicates matters, and I don't think this decision was made lightly. It is impossible to deny that Awlaki was promoting the killing of Americans, to include using weapons of mass effect (crashing a jet liner). The Government has an obligation to protect its people, and it would seem that a case could be made that if they failed to act and Awlaki was successful again (as he was with MAJ Hasan), the relatives of those killed should have the right the suit the government for not acting.

I keep hearing the term assassination thrown around, and I recall being taught that we couldn't do assassinations. Assassinations were defined for this purpose as the planned killing of a political figure (like Castro). Killing an individual terrorist wouldn't seem to fall under that category to me, it is just a targeted killing. If we killed the President of Yemen, then that would be an assassination.

Good kill even if it was/is somewhat messy legally. President Bush stated shortly after 9/11 this would be a different kind of war, yet I still don't think most people understand what he meant when he said that. It is a global war, because the hostile network is global. It isn't a war confined to GPF fightiing in Afghanistan.