Coming to a City Near You? Assassination and Sanction Blowback

by Jacob G. Hornberger
Feb. 08, 2013

The most persuasive argument against the U.S. government's drone assassination program and its sanctions program on Iran is that they simply wrong in a moral sense. It's morally wrong to murder people through assassination, and it's wrong to inflict economic devastation on the citizenry of another country through sanctions.

Another persuasive argument is that such programs are not authorized by the Constitution, the document which sets forth the powers of the president and the rest of the federal government. One searches in vain for any mention of a power to assassinate people and to impose sanctions or embargoes against other countries. To make sure federal officials got the point, our American ancestors enacted the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibits the federal government from depriving people, citizens and foreigners alike, of life, liberty, and property without due process of law.

But there is another point that Americans need to ponder. That point is that the U.S. government's assassination program in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere and its sanctions program against Iran might well lead to "blowback" in the form of another major terrorist attack on American soil.

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