I'm a loyal member of the Democratic Party and I don't have a problem with Drones

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

233. That's a fair point....

As I understand the DOJ memo (and I have a copy of it right here), the individual must be "an operational leader of al-Qa-ida or an associated force and is personally and continually involved in planning terrorist attacks against the United States." Now there's still some wiggle room there, but if you're known to be activitely participating in planning terrorist attacks, and you've placed yourself in a terrorist stronghold or hide-out, you're not likely to be an innocent bystander. The language of the memo doesn't allow for the target to be some vaguely disgruntled U.S. citizen who joins al-Qa-ida as a foot soldier (i.e., John Walker Lindh). You're got to be at least in "middle management" to get a target.

Which begs the question, who would that be? The only one I can think of is Anwar al-Awaki, and he's already dead. I'm not privvy to any classified information, but I don't know of any prominent Al-Queda leader who is also a U.S. citizen.

I should point out that another requirement in the memo is that the target must be in a situation where "a capture operation would be infeasible." I understand this to mean that the target is beyond the reach of conventional law enforcement -- holed up in a third-party country (i.e., Bin Laden in Pakistan) where local law enforcement appears unlikely or unwilling to complete the task. As far as Americans on U.S. soil, I really can't think of too many scenarios where this would be the case -- at least scenarios that don't look like rejected plots of "McGiver" episodes.

To get back to your original question, I have no idea how any admnistration would obtain permission before the fact to target a terrorist. Assuming the Obama Administration wanted to be transparent, to whom would they go? Congress? The Court? They're no more constitutionally authorized to approve an operation of this nation than is the executive branch. I think we've reached a point where modern warfare and technology have far outraced the law. Right now, the Obama Admnistration is using whatever tools at its disposal to fight terrorism.

At some point (how about now) Congress and the President need to have a serious discussion about the rules of engagement.