From Marcy:

First, is it not the actual legal memos used to authorize the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and who knows who else. As Michael Isikoff notes in his story, the Senators whose job it is to oversee the Executive Branch -- even the ones on the Senate Intelligence Committee that are supposed to be read into covert operations -- are still demanding the memos, for at least the 12th time. The release of this white paper must not serve to take pressure off of the White House to release the actual memos.

[snip]

And there is abundant reason to believe that the members of the Senate committees who got this white paper aren't convinced it describes the rationale the Administration actually used. Just minutes after Pat Leahy reminded the Senate Judiciary Committee they got the white paper at a hearing last August, John Cornyn said this,

   Cornyn: As Senator Durbin and others have said that they agree that this is a legitimate question that needs to be answered. But we're not mere supplicants of the Executive Branch. We are a coequal branch of government with the Constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight and to legislate where we deem appropriate on behalf of our constituents. So it is insufficient to say, "pretty please, Mr. President. pretty please, Mr. Attorney General, will you please tell us the legal authority by which you claim the authority to kill American citizens abroad?" It may be that I would agree with their legal argument, but I simply don't know what it is, and it hasn't been provided. [my emphasis]

As Marcy points out,

This white paper admits the President claims he could kill an American solely on his inherent Article II powers. But that's not the argument laid out in the white paper.

More chilling has to be this, from the ACLU:

Even more problematic, the paper contends that the limits on the government's claimed authority are not enforceable in any court. ("There exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations.") According to the white paper, the government has the authority to carry out targeted killings of U.S. citizens without presenting evidence to a judge before the fact or after, and indeed without even acknowledging to the courts or to the public that the authority has been exercised. Without saying so explicitly, the government claims the authority to kill American terrorism suspects in secret.

WASHINGTON -- A 16-year-old American boy killed in an Obama administration drone strike "should have [had] a far more responsible father," Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs says in a new video released by the group We Are Change.

During the Bush years, when Bush refused to disclose the memoranda from his Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that legally authorized torture, rendition, warrantless eavesdropping and the like, leading Democratic lawyers such as Dawn Johnsen (Obama's first choice to lead the OLC) vehemently denounced this practice as a grave threat, warning that "the Bush Administration's excessive reliance on 'secret law' threatens the effective functioning of American democracy" and "the withholding from Congress and the public of legal interpretations by the [OLC] upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government."

But when it comes to Obama's assassination power, this is exactly what his administration has done. It has repeatedly refused to disclose the principal legal memoranda prepared by Obama OLC lawyers that justified his kill list. It is, right now, vigorously resisting lawsuits from the New York Times and the ACLU to obtain that OLC memorandum. In sum, Obama not only claims he has the power to order US citizens killed with no transparency, but that even the documents explaining the legal rationale for this power are to be concealed. He's maintaining secret law on the most extremist power he can assert. link

Never mind the thousands we've killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by more conventional means.

Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen

The condition that an operational leader present an `imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future," the memo states.

This definition makes sense to me.

When someone tells me that the delivery of my new t.v. is imminent, I can know that what that really means is that there is no clear evidence that I will receive delivery in the immediate future.
OK.

I think I'll try that when the phone company is on my back. I'll tell them that a check is imminent. Love it. This opens a whole new world of chicanery. I can't wait to try it out. Personal relations: "I really love you. Our marriage is imminent". Business relations: "Your promotion is imminent".

On a more patriotic note, it is a step into the great wild west of our glorious past when we was slaughtering the indigenous population. As the good Book says, "Do unto others before they do it unto you."

What the hell. You can tell by the way they look that they're up to something. They just don't look right. No point in capturing 'em. Shoot the s.o.b.  That way, no imminence ain't goin' to be taking place any time soon - you can take that to the bank.

1. The Geneva conventions define the Law of War to only apply on the actual Field of Battle. Every where else the ordinary civilian laws and police powers apply.

2. The AUMF authorized the use of force only against the Taliban and the original Al-Qa'ida.

3. The Field of Battle was defined in the AUMF as only extending to Afghanistan and other places where the Taliban and the original Al-Qa'ida are located.

4. The Taliban and Al-Qa'ida only are to be found in Afghanistan and the mountains on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

5. In order to qualify under the laws of war as a "co-belligerent" a group would have to have signed a treaty with the Taliban or the original Al-Qa'ida or to have made public statements joining or giving allegiance to the Taliban or the original Al-Qa'ida. The only group that did so was Al-Qa'ida in Iraq and even they only did so several years after the war in Iraq started.

6. All other Islamic armed groups in any other nation are not included. They may be terrorists and they may hate the US, but they are not co-belligerents with the Taliban or the original Al-Qa'ida.

7. Anyone who is not a co-belligerent and is not actually attacking the US is not [Legally] part of the state of war authorized by the AUMF. Any use of force against such person is subject to normal civilian law and not the Law of War.

8. The use of "Imminent Threat" in the DOJ memo is contrary to how "Imminent Threat" is defined in both US Law and the Geneva Conventions. For someone to be an Imminent Threat to the US there must be close proximity in both time and location between the threatening person, an act of violence expected to be committed by that person and the US or US forces [who must also have a right to be where they are].

9. The US only gains any rights to use force against a person claimed to be an Imminent Threat when the person is "Within Reach" of US forces. Nobody in Somalia, Yemen, or in some village in western Pakistan is "Within Reach" of US forces, so they cannot be an Imminent Threat. Also, a person can never be an Imminent Threat to a Predator Drone.

10. Speech can never be an Imminent Threat, only acts of violence count as an Imminent Threat.

11. The Geneva Conventions only allow a "kill without any attempt to capture" mission on an actual battle field, everywhere else such a mission is illegal. Civilian Law forbids such missions entirely.

12. As a consequence, all of the Drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and western Pakistan are subject to civilian law and under civilian law they are acts of Murder in the First Degree. Everyone who participates in, plans, orders or writes legal memos justifying such acts are guilty of Murder, Conspiracy to Commit Murder or Accessory to Murder.