Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and a radical Muslim cleric, was assassinated by the U.S. last week in Yemen.

Under U.S. law, lethal force can be employed outside of a war zone, as Awlaki was, only in the narrowest and most extraordinary circumstances: When there is a concrete, specific and imminent threat of an attack. Even then, deadly force must be a last resort.

Awlaki’s killing was based on the mere assertion that he was a dangerous member of a terrorist organization. He was killed without due process and without any effort to capture, arrest and try him. The U.S. government knew exactly where he was.

Is this the world we want? Where the president of the United States can place an American citizen, or anyone else for that matter, living outside a war zone on a targeted assassination list, and then have him murdered by drone strike?

Should any government be allowed to order people’s killing without due process?

This killing has dire implications for all of us. There appears to be no limit to the president’s power to kill anywhere in the world, even if it involves killing a citizen of our own country.

Today, it’s in Yemen; tomorrow, it could be in the United States.

Natasha Mayers

Whitefield