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title: Revisiting a Key Legal Basis for Obama's Drone Strikes
description: After I wrote a short piece for last week’s magazine that, among other things, chastised the Obama Administration for not doing more to discuss the...
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og:description: After I wrote a short piece for last week’s magazine that, among other things, chastised the Obama Administration for not doing more to discuss the...
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* [Politics](/section/politics/)

# Revisiting a Key Legal Basis for Obama's Anti-Terrorism Drone Strikes

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by 

[TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/)

Jun 12, 2012 7:01 PM UTC

by 

[TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/)

Jun 12, 2012 7:01 PM UTC

After I wrote a short piece for last week’s magazine that, among other things, chastised the Obama Administration for not doing more to discuss the pros and cons of its heavy reliance on drone strikes against suspected [terrorists](http://topics.time.com/terrorism/), an Administration official groused that I hadn’t credited public comments on the subject by various Obama officials. He specifically cited an [April 30 speech](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/04/brennanspeech/) by the White House’s counterterrorism point man, John Brennan, outlining the laws, rules and ethics that guide the drone campaign.

It’s a pretty good speech and definitely worth reading if you care about these issues. But Brennan doesn’t really address the point of my article, which is the danger that drone strikes could have a counterproductive effect. The civilian casualties and general resentment they breed in places like [Pakistan](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13077365) and [Yemen](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle%5Feast/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-breed-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U%5Fstory.html) clearly threaten to undermine long-term American interests in those countries, even if we are [nailing](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/05/us-pakistan-libi-idUSBRE85407220120605) some top al-Qaeda figures in the short term. moreBut reading Brennan’s remarks drove home a point that virtually no one discusses, but that is a little startling when you step back and contemplate it. It is the Obama Administration’s heavy reliance [on a law enacted by Congress](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization%5Ffor%5FUse%5Fof%5FMilitary%5FForce%5FAgainst%5FTerrorists#Text%5Fof%5Fthe%5FAUMF) three days after the Sept. 11 attacks that justified an extremely broad range of military action in the name of fighting terrorism. Here’s Brennan:

---

> “”

---

Here’s the complete passage that Brennan cites from the AUMF:

---

> “”

---

It’s been more than a decade since [Congress](http://topics.time.com/congress/), acting with all the contemplation you’d expect while the Ground Zero rubble still burned, approved the AUMF. The law was designed mainly to allow the coming invasion of Afghanistan and various other acts of immediate retribution. It’s hard to believe anyone envisioned it being cited as a legal justification for missile strikes in countries like [Yemen](http://topics.time.com/yemen/) and Somalia more than 10 years later. And it’s hard to understand why the AUMF allows us to [kill the leader](http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-01-16/news/30633502%5F1%5Fdrone-strike-hakimullah-mehsud-pakistani-taliban) of the Pakistan-based Taliban, which had little or no role, that I’m aware of, in planning, authorizing, committing or aiding the 9/11 attacks that originated across the Durand Line in Afghanistan.

I suppose the Obama Administration would say that any group with pre-9/11 ties to al-Qaeda can be deemed as having aided the 9/11 attacks. And that the AUMF’s language justifying action to “prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the U.S.” (_future_ being a conveniently open-ended word for the purposes of the law) allows us to strike splinter groups of al-Qaeda, like those in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere in Africa.

But it still seems peculiar that the central basis for these strikes — apart from the right of self-defense against imminent attack provided by international law, which is hard to establish in any specific case — is a law of about 350 words that was written and approved within three days of Sept. 11.

Obama Administration officials long ago [stopped](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/31/obama-abandoning-war-on-t%5Fn%5F162804.html) using the phrase _war on terror_. But that war carries on, under a legal basis that remains unchanged — and largely unquestioned.

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