Oh, Ford and Carter wrote executives orders...I'm sure that stopped all assassinations from that point on....thanks.
Lol, you should have asked me in 2002. Not that we don't assassinate people, but I do think we were on a bad road before the assassination bans and they helped in the broader reform of an intelligence function that was being very irresponsible internationally. We do a less toppling of sovereign governments nowadays because of the gut-check we took in the 1970s, and that's good (though more progress is still needed). As to assassination of terrorists, I've changed my mind in the intervening 16 years. I'm more comfortable now with dropping a bomb on a known and wanted terrorist if they are somewhere we cannot reasonably do a capture operation. In 2002, after 9/11 when we saw our country engage in a national freak-out and talking about wars in far-off countries that had little to nothing to do with the attack we suffered as well as the government asking us to submit to more surveillance and restrictions on our movement -- well throwing assassinations in too contributed to me feeling very wary of where we were headed as a nation (with many of my fears later confirmed). But we do have jihadi enemies who are attacking us. I'm not too keen on fighting wars to stop them, but if we've identified an active combatant and can drop a bomb on him, okay. It's better than overthrowing governments.
