What would constitute proof that a dead young man is not a militant? And how diligently is the CIA looking for evidence of its own fatal mistakes? After all, this is the same CIA that is investigating itself for illicitly censoring its own critics because it doesn't want knowledge of its misdeeds and mistakes to see the light of day.
For that matter, what is a military-age man? Any male between 15 and 50? An honest casualty count would presume that women, children, and the elderly are civilians; that only previously identified militants count as combatants; and that, absent further evidence, everyone else is a question-mark who must be counted as a civilian in the proportionality analysis. One official says, "Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization-innocent neighbors don't hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs." That may well be true, and perhaps it is fair to conclude that all the men in the back of an al Qaeda-identified truck headed for the border with guns and bombs are combatants. (Such a truck would itself be a legitimate target, in any event.) But that is a far cry from assuming that all men of a certain age are combatants whenever they are near an al Qaeda operative.
The Times article also disturbingly suggests (without providing evidence) that the president has adopted the CIA's dishonest accounting. Does that mean that he takes at face value a post-mortem report from the CIA saying, in effect, "Got the target! And a bunch of militants who were in the house with him! No civilian casualties!" (wink wink, nudge nudge)? Does he then use this marvelous success record in his deliberations about the next operation?-"We are really good at not killing civilians, so there's little need to be concerned about ‘collateral damage' in considering the next drone strike." That would be a disgraceful moral cheat. But the Times has nothing to say about how the president reviews the CIA's casualty figures, and we don't really know anything except what the president's aides want us to know.
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The Times suggests that the main point President Obama took from Augustine and Aquinas is that he, as commander in chief, ought to personally assume the moral responsibility for targeted killings. In Shakespeare's words, "if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make." (Henry V, act 4, sc. 1, l. 134) Moral responsibility is central to just war theory. If war is a fit subject for moral judgment, commanders must take moral responsibility for the choices they make. Kudos to Obama for shouldering his responsibility.
