The Yoda Doctrine and the War on Terror

The NYT picked up on my BHTV spot with Dan Drezner last weekend, where we discuss whether or not Obama should be assassinating Americans. But they only stuck a small clip of our discussion on that topic at their site, so I've clipped the entire piece for your perusal.



Note that a variety of technical snafus caused the BH folks to edit the video here and there making the context hard to infer at spots (watch out for the part at about 5 minutes in where my face and voice suddenly jump scarily forward at you!). In fact, it seems they edited out the part where I mention the Terrorist Expatriation Act currently being pushed through the Senate by Joe Lieberman, which would render it constitutional to strip Americans of their citizenship for "joining a foreign terrorist organization or engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States or its allies."

While human rights law would still arguably make it criminal to summarily execute non-citizens, the aim of this legislation is to at least render the constitutional questions moot (would it, actually? I defer to the lawyers who blog here and elsewhere...) until such time, at least, as the Supreme Court renders said law unconstitutional.

In that regard, it's worth noting the Court's (and the current nominee's) past history on precisely these issues, which has been helpfully summarized by Richard Epstein.