Of course. The topic of US presidents authorizing operations that result in the death of American citizens, particularly outside active battlefields, is a complex and highly debated issue that sits at the intersection of national security, legal authority, and ethics.

The most cited modern examples involve the use of unmanned drones. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all authorized drone strikes that killed American citizens abroad who had become operational leaders within terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The most famous case is that of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and U.S. citizen born in New Mexico, who was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen in 2011 under President Obama’s authority. The administration justified the strike by asserting that al-Awlaki was not just a propagandist but a senior operational leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) actively plotting attacks against the United States. Crucially, the administration argued that due process, a constitutional right guaranteed to all citizens, was satisfied not through a judicial trial but through a rigorous internal executive branch review process that determined he posed an imminent threat.

The argument that such acts could constitute murder hinges on a strict legal and philosophical interpretation. From a domestic legal standpoint, the Fifth Amendment states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Critics argue that the executive branch acting as judge, jury, and executioner for a citizen—no matter how grave the alleged crimes—fundamentally violates this principle. They contend that “due process” must involve some form of neutral adjudication, not a secretive internal deliberation within the very branch ordering the killing. If this executive action is deemed a violation of the Constitution, then the unlawful killing of a human being could legally be defined as murder. Furthermore, in the absence of a formal declaration of war against a specific nation-state (the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, being a much-debated substitute), critics question the legal framework that places a citizen permanently outside the protection of the law, arguing it sets a dangerous precedent for extrajudicial killings.

Ultimately, the government’s position rests on the doctrine of a global war against a non-state enemy, where the battlefield is everywhere and the president’s wartime powers as Commander-in-Chief are paramount. They frame these actions as lawful acts of war targeting combatants, not criminal executions. However, the opposing view sees them as summary killings that bypass the judicial system, a power that, if left unchecked and unchallenged, risks normalizing what might otherwise be considered state-sanctioned murder under the color of law. This tension remains one of the most profound and unresolved legal dilemmas of the post-9/11 era.