I think the argument over whether or not the government has the authority to kill Anwar al-Awlaki is actually far more complex than the argument over whether torture is legal or justified, so it doesn't surprise me that Andrew Sullivan comes down on this to the right of where you might actually expect him to, or where Glenn Greenwald would like him to be. I just want to briefly respond to this statement made by Sullivan:
What makes this different from defending the rights of terror suspects who are already under our physical control and in our custody (which I have not stinted in doing) is that Awlaki isn't. He is currently a core member of the faction of al Qaeda that is actively trying to murder us. You will find no such account of Awlaki's record of despicable Jihadist terror in Glenn's post. As for "imminent" and "immediate" threat, maybe Glenn could have a word with the cartoonist for Seattle Weekly who, even now, is living in hiding and has had to change her name because of Awlaki's fatwa of death against her. I'm sure she regards the threat as imminent.
I actually agree with Sullivan that this is substantively different from how we treat people in U.S. custody, but I think he's largely missing the point with his reminders that al-Awlaki is a really terrible human being. No one is arguing that he isn't. The question here is whether or not the government has the authority to kill an American citizen apart from any declared battlefield based on secret, internal deliberations that a judge will never be allowed to look at. But the fact that as principled a person as Sullivan on matters of executive power is swayed by the argument that al-Awlaki is simply a vile individual who deserves to die is a reminder of how isolated opponents of targeted killing actually are.
Of course, they apparently have Jeffery Goldberg, so there's that.
