Assassinations for Fun and for Profit

This week, instead of proclaiming my unvarnished opinion, I am instead posing questions. I am asking you, my readers, to give your considered response. I will set it up for you. Here is the situation as I see it.

 Last September our President Obama authorized an assassination order to kill a certain Anwar-Alwaki, purported Muslim cleric and terrorist. Mr. Alwaki was killed on or around September 30, 2011, in Yemen. One of the complicating legal factors in this killing is that Alwaki was an American citizen. A further complicating issue has now surfaced. It seems that our current political administration is unwilling to say that their supposed right to assassinate Americans does not stop outside our national borders. So, now the question being chased about on the news cycles is whether or not our president or any of our national officers, can have an American citizen killed within our borders, without proper trial procedure?

 Thus, there are two related questions to resolve:

1. Can an American president, lawfully and morally order the death of a person, outside our national borders, when that person is not in a zone where we are fighting a declared war, i.e. away from a battlefield area?
2. Can an American president, lawfully and morally, order the death of any unconvicted person, especially an American citizen, inside our own borders?

Now, please understand, when I say “lawfully and morally” I am referring to God’s law as given in Scripture, and to Biblical morality. These questions then, circle around deriving the mind of God in these issues. The problem is not primarily Constitutional, nor is it primarily a question of what United States statute law allows. Rather, these questions are asking directly how God’s revealed word may inform our opinions. How does God think about all this?

 While reflecting on this there are a number of observations I have made and some complications I do not exactly know how to resolve. I know, I am the guy with an opinion about everything, but on this one, well, the issues are tangled at best. Maybe they are simple but I am just not seeing it, I do not really know. But, here are a few thoughts to consider.

 First, there is not any office of President under God’s system of law. There were judges, and later on kings but no presidents. Therefore, we have no way to directly compare Biblical examples with our current government. Judges, being the first and best expression of the Godly government form, served the people much more directly. They did not answer to a congress and were not elected by popular vote. They did not implement new statutes because they were only to judge according to God’s principles of eternal law. Consequently, it seems, that there is no way we can compare across the board, the rights and duties of Old Testament judges and our current presidents.

 Second, there is a question relating to the importance of national citizenship when implementing lawful punishment. Should our laws apply differently to citizens and non-citizens? I am confident the answer to this question is NO. Biblical standards reveal clearly that everyone inIsrael, Israeli or foreigner, was to be judged by the same law. Biblical law is to apply equally to all men in all places at all times. There is no law superior to God’s law.

 Third, under normal criminal procedure, the accused is to be given a trial. The defendant may only be convicted on the testimony of “two or three witnesses” as Scripture directs. When is it lawful then, to kill a person without proper arrest and trial? I recognize that in open warfare God’s enemies were rightfully killed without trials. However, we are talking about disparate individuals who are not on a battlefield. Is the entire world our battlefield?

 Under the Constitution for the United States, congress was given the right to issue Letters of Marque and Reprise. These were letters given to Privateers, who were sponsored by the enabling government, to capture or kill a specified enemy or enemies. This was an historic method to deal with pirates or the like without engendering open warfare with another nation. As a nation we stopped using this allowance in the 1850s but never officially repudiated it. Should congress be using this provision to deal with terrorists? Or, is this concept just another unlawful method under Biblical precept?  I read that Ron Paul went on record in congress, advocating the use of these letters after 911.

 Finally, some possibly relevant Biblical examples might be when the Judge Ehud (Judges 3) assassinated Eglon, king of Moab. There was no trial in that situation. Of course it started a war, but God’s army, by His grace, won. Queen Athalia was killed by order of  High Priest, Jehoiada, obviously to God’s glory. There are a few other possible examples, but none I can recall, that directly reflect our current questions.

 So, write to me. Does anyone have Biblical insight into this concept of the President’s purported right to order killings? What morality would best represent Christian civilization regarding this issue?

 This time it is a question.

 For Christian Culture,

 Don Schanzenbach 3-17-12