{"id":1011,"date":"2011-10-19T11:30:53","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T15:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:26:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:26:23","slug":"dojs-aulaqi-memo-under-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/10\/19\/dojs-aulaqi-memo-under-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ\u2019s Aulaqi Memo Under Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>Billy Corriher<\/em><\/p>\n

A law professor recently\u00a0compared\u00a0<\/a>the Department of Justice\u2019s legal memo justifying the Anwar al-Aulaqi killing to the Bush administration\u2019s notorious torture memos. \u00a0Professor Noah Feldman suggested that the OLC again twisted the law to achieve certain ends. \u00a0Feldman says that critics of the torture memos believed \u201cthere was something wrong with the president acting as judge and jury in the war on terrorism.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The ACLU and others have also\u00a0argued\u00a0<\/a>that the Obama administration\u2019s killing of Aulaqi is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the author of the torture memos\u00a0thinks\u00a0<\/a>Obama\u2019s view of executive power is too constrained.<\/p>\n

The Obama adiministration stated that it isentirely lawful for the United States to target high-level leaders of enemy forces, regardless of their nationality, who are plotting to kill Americans both under the authority provided by Congress in its use of military force in the armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces as well as established international law that recognizes our right of self-defense.<\/p>\n

An unnamed official added: \u201cWhat constitutes due process in this case is a due process in war.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Did the Obama administration afford Aulaqi\u00a0his Due Process rights as an American citizen?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One legal commenter, Benjamin Wittes,\u00a0suggests\u00a0<\/a>that Due Process was satisfied because Aulaqi was on notice that the United States would kill him and capture was infeasible.\u00a0 Wittes emphasizes the evidence of Aulaqi\u2019s operational role in al Qaeda.\u00a0\u00a0He compares the Aulaqi decision to the power of police to kill a hostage-taker.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0is unfair to criticize the OLC for its legal reasoning, at this point, because no one has seen the memo.\u00a0\u00a0Liberals are right to criticize the torture memos for asserting an overly broad view of executive power, but the fact remains that the OLC has a tough job. \u00a0Though some might disagree with its conclusion, there is no\u00a0evidence yet that the\u00a0current OLC distorted the law like Yoo and his cohorts. \u00a0The rules of armed conflict are tricky when fighting a stateless enemy.<\/p>\n

Feldman\u2019s essay begins: \u201cKilling terrorists with drones is great politics. To the question, \u2018Is it legal?, a natural answer might well be, \u2018Who cares?.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 The answer is that the executive branch will continue to target persons engaged in plots to kill Americans, and no court is likely to stop it.\u00a0\u00a0A federal court\u00a0ruled\u00a0<\/a>that the decision to kill Aulaqi was one for the executive branch, and it refused to enjoin the administration\u2019s plan to kill him.\u00a0\u00a0Though courts would note the potential for abuse, a\u00a0plaintiff suing\u00a0to obtain\u00a0restitution for such a decision would face enormous obstacles.\u00a0 The judiciary will likely not intervene, absent a conflict between the political branches.\u00a0 But our polarized Congress is hard pressed to agree on anything, let alone the rules of the fight against al Qaeda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Billy Corriher A law professor recently\u00a0compared\u00a0the Department of Justice\u2019s legal memo justifying the Anwar al-Aulaqi killing to the Bush administration\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-gj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}