The U.S. government claimed broad war powers far beyond battlefields to justify its 2011 extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen, the recently-released “drone memo” reveals, in what critics warn sets a dangerous precedent for U.S. and foreign citizens alike.
The 41-page memo was penned in 2010 by David Barron, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and is addressed to attorney general Eric Holder. It draws heavily on a broad and controversial congressional act—the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force—to justify the killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi a year before his death.
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“[W]e believe the AUMF’s authority to use lethal force abroad may also apply in appropriate circumstances to a United States citizen who is part of the forces of an enemy organization within the scope of the force authorization,” reads the document.
The 2001 AUMF authorizes the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
This act has been interpreted by the Obama administration to authorize military force against “Taliban or al-Qaida forces, or associated forces”—an ill-defined grouping that includes a host of people and organizations, many of them unknown to the public.
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