Obama Gives Commanders Wide Berth for Secret Warfare

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic explains that Obama has delegated authority to military commanders to hunt and kill basically whoever they want in foreign countries.

Obama Gives Commanders Wide Berth for Secret Warfare by Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic.
Last summer, the White House authorized a massive expansion of clandestine military and intelligence operations worldwide, sanctioning activities in more than a dozen countries and giving the military's combatant commanders significant new authority to conduct unconventional warfare.

The New York Times reported on one major operational plan, which authorizes intelligence gathering and reconnaissance activities in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia. A Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order, was signed on September 30, 2009, by CENTCOM commander in chief David Petraeus. It was marked "LIMDIS" -- as in "limited distribution," and hard copies were delivered to about 30 people. [Continue reading]

Americans are supposed to feel safer because, as reported last month, the military or the CIA must receive the President's express authorization before assassinating American citizens.

I find the lack of morality of the current (and previous) U.S. administration appalling. A basic test for the morality of an action is what Immanuel Kant called the Categorical Imperative: Loosely speaking, an action is morally possible if it can be universalized without contradiction. Would anyone want assassinations carried out without judicial due process on the say so of some government official from any country to be universalized? Asking the question is answering it. Of course not. If we would not want to see the Chinese or Russian or Iranian governments order the assassination of Americans or anyone else here or anywhere else, then we should not accept the American government doing so.