Rand Paul: Show Us the Drone Memos
The context that these discussions often lack is that there are situations where it is considered acceptable for law enforcement to kill a suspect. An armed hostage taker being taken out by a sniper, for example. What is the rule that says that could be OK, but killing Anwar Awl Alaki is not?Superficially, the rule seems like it would be based on whether capturing / arresting the person is not feasible, but doing nothing has a high probability of resulting in that person being involved in a violent crime (killing of hostages, participating in a terrorist act). Unfortunately, deciding if that is true for a given situation is of course a judgment call. But to simplify it down to "the government shouldn't kill people without a trial" overlooks some things that need to be considered. Could he have been feasibly arrested? What would have been the consequences of doing nothing?