That said, the president would not find in either Augustine or Aquinas a requirement that he take personal charge of targeting decisions. That would be an impossible requirement to impose on a battlefield leader who can't be everywhere at once. But the doctrine of command responsibility, according to which a commander is responsible for crimes by his subordinates that he knows about but fails to prevent or punish, is central to the law of war, and it has impeccable American credentials: it appears in the Articles of War of George Washington's armies. (1775 Articles of War, art. 12; 1776 Articles of War, sec. IX, art. 1) The point of this rule was to encourage officers to supervise and discipline their men, and Obama has evidently chosen the most straightforward way to do it: running the operation himself.
How should we judge Obama's personal involvement in these life-and-death decisions? Anyone who thinks the targeted killings are immoral or illegal will be repelled. I don't think that killing deadly enemies is in principle either immoral or illegal. On the assumption that the targeted killing program is a legitimate way for the nation to defend itself against an all-too-real threat, I support presidential involvement. The alternative, after all, is presidential non-involvement-passing the buck to someone else.
The Times editors offered a far more negative view in a strongly worded editorial entitled "Too Much Power for a President." The Times objects to giving a politician the power over life and death with no independent oversight or judicial review. A fair-enough point, but it blurs two issues: first, whether the decision to strike should be decided exclusively within the executive branch and, second, whether the president should insist on being part of that decision-making. The Times says "no" to the first; I say "yes" to the second. Passing the buck to lower-level bureaucrats and to military and intelligence officials who do not share the president's electoral accountability will not make the process less political or more accountable, nor will it better protect against tragic and horrifying mistakes. Apparently decisions only reach the president after other officials have approved the use of force. Adding his possible veto, then, can only be for the good, checking unwise uses of force that otherwise would likely have occurred.
I am skeptical about the Times's preferred alternative, judicial review of targeted killing decisions. What evidence would judges hear that the president doesn't? And why think that judges would make better decisions on the purely factual question of who is a member of Aa Qaeda and who poses an imminent threat to the United States? Judges don't face the political pressures on the president, but the last decade has shown that they are seldom profiles in courage when officials tell them that national security is at risk. Ultimately, it's easier for the president to veto a targeted killing than it would be for a cautious judge.
The real issue is not about decision-making within the executive branch versus outside review. It's about whether the decision-making process is based on a genuinely skeptical, probing structure, with a heavy burden of proof on those proposing a killing and an institutionalized "devil's advocate" to argue against each and every deadly "nomination." The Times article suggests that the actual process over which Obama presides includes some skeptical voices, although former National Security Advisor Dennis Blair, a skeptic of the entire program, was fired. But the article is light on detail, and the process still remains essentially shrouded in fog.
