The current administration’s military operations in Venezuela, which have resulted in numerous casualties, are drawing significant criticism. However, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent statement that “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists” represents the continuation of policies established during the Obama presidency rather than a completely new direction.
During his final speech as president in 2017, Barack Obama proudly stated that his administration had eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists. His tenure saw a tenfold expansion in drone strike operations, which contributed to increased anti-American sentiment across multiple countries.
When campaigning in 2007, Senator Obama promised that America would demonstrate to the world that legal principles cannot be bent to suit obstinate leaders’ desires. Many voters in 2008 anticipated
fundamental changes in Washington’s approach. Instead, Obama quickly authorized numerous covert strikes against foreign targets, some of which made headlines when drones accidentally killed wedding attendees and other civilians.
A pivotal moment came on February 3, 2010, when Dennis Blair, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, shocked lawmakers by revealing that Americans could also be targeted for assassination. Blair explained the criteria to a congressional committee: involvement with groups attacking the United States and posing threats to American citizens constituted grounds for targeting. He emphasized that free speech alone would not make someone a target, but threatening actions would. The vague terminology of “involved” and “action that threatens Americans” left considerable room for interpretation.
Anwar Awlaki, a cleric from New Mexico, became Obama’s most prominent American target. Following September 11th, Awlaki had been presented as an exemplary moderate Muslim leader, conducting interviews with major media outlets, delivering sermons at the Capitol, and meeting with Pentagon officials. His radicalization accelerated after concluding that the Bush administration’s counterterrorism efforts specifically targeted Islam. FBI attempts to recruit him as an informant against fellow Muslims prompted his departure from the country. In Yemen, he was detained and allegedly subjected to torture at America’s request. His eighteen-month imprisonment further hardened his views, leading to increasingly violent rhetoric in his sermons.
When the Obama administration announced plans to eliminate Awlaki, his father secured legal representation to challenge the decision in federal court. The ACLU supported the lawsuit, seeking disclosure of the standards used to place American citizens on execution lists. The administration classified the entire case as a State Secret, avoiding any obligation to explain how federal law permitted such killings. Despite having sufficient evidence to charge Awlaki criminally, the administration avoided providing him any legal standing.
In September 2010, reporting indicated widespread consensus among the administration’s legal advisors that Obama could lawfully authorize Awlaki’s killing. This represented the same legal reasoning the Bush administration had employed to justify torture techniques. Obama’s team claimed authority to execute American citizens without trials, advance notification, or opportunities for legal challenge.
Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter argued in federal court during November 2010 that no judge possessed authority to second-guess Obama’s targeted killing decisions, characterizing the program as fundamental to presidential commander-in-chief powers.
The following month, federal judge John Bates dismissed the ACLU’s case, ruling that certain circumstances rendered executive decisions to kill American citizens overseas beyond judicial review. Bates characterized targeted killing as a political question outside court jurisdiction—an unprecedented position suggesting that killing Americans constituted merely another political matter.
A drone strike on September 30, 2011, killed Awlaki and Samir Khan, another American editing an online publication for Al Qaeda. Obama publicly acknowledged the operation that same day. Administration officials subsequently shared portions of a fifty-page classified Justice Department memorandum with journalists, which reportedly justified the killing despite executive orders prohibiting
assassinations, federal murder statutes, Bill of Rights protections, and international warfare laws.
Two weeks later, another drone strike killed Awlaki’s son and six others at a Yemeni café. Officials initially claimed the son was a twenty-one-year-old combatant, but subsequent documentation proved he was sixteen and uninvolved with terrorist organizations. When questioned, Robert Gibbs, Obama’s former press secretary, suggested the teenager should have chosen a more responsible father.