Over the years and, in particular, since the tragedy of 9/11, there have been a passel of "bad guys" listed as the world's most wanted and dangerous men—ones that our government has identified, targeted, and murdered.

On July 30, Pres. Joe Biden announced that—almost 21 years after the destruction of the World Trade Center— the U.S. had successfully killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, a man who took over al Qaeda after the 2011 death of Osama Bin Laden. Standing on the balcony of his Kabul, Afghanistan safe-house—while his wife and family roamed inside—he didn't suffer, and his death was instantaneous.

Thousands of miles from the U.S., an unmanned Predator drone had launched two high-tech Hellfire R9X missiles, known in the intelligence and defense sectors as the "Flying Ginsu," or "Ninja Bomb." Unlike other devices that rely on an explosion—and which kill anyone unlucky enough to be nearby—the R9X is limited in its killing radius to a mere three feet. It uses only its weight, speed (400 mph) and its slice-and-dice, razor-sharp blades to fulfill its mission, mostly eliminating the risk to those nearby.

Somehow, we and the rest of the world have barely raised an eyebrow at the al-Zawahiri strike—believing that death is what happens to bad people.

"Murder" is a strong word, but the reality is that, in the absence of equitable jurisprudence and the fair application of criminal laws, it can be described no other way. Our country's proliferation of executions of people deemed world threats is a consequence of the fear instilled by the Twin Towers attack on our own soil—something that Americans had never before seen.

Considering the staggering losses of life—including the number of Americans killed each year by gun violence—the World Trade Center event pales among the greatest tragedies of our time. But, while each of those individual deaths was horrifying, the bigger loss was our belief in our own national security, something Americans had enjoyed, uninterrupted, for so long before.

Sadly, the U.S. used that attack to dismantle the time-honored standards of the law: It imprisoned suspects without evidence, held prisoners for years without the benefit of charging documents or a trial, tortured those who were believed to have valuable strategic information and made a mockery of both U.S. and international law. Only the immensity of U.S. power could have allowed the horrors that followed 9/11.

The killing of al-Zawahiri showed us, once again, that the U.S.'s reach is not limited by physical presence and that, like a god, it can snuff out life virtually anywhere on our planet. The art of tele-killing has been finely tuned and honed, so we're now able to "take out" our adversaries without endangering the lives of our countrymen.

I don't know about you, but I view these killings as a failure of our democracy to live up to its ideals of apprehending, charging, trying and convicting those who deserve the full consequences of the law. Oh, yes, that may be impractical and financially prohibitive, but I feel concern over the trend—that of substituting convenience for justice. Sadly, our country, by declining to participate in the international courts, has made the apprehensions and prosecutions of the guilty almost impossible.

The idea that we can, contrary to our growing rejection of the death penalty, take away the gift of life at our pleasure is really not the American way. While most of us take some satisfaction in knowing that a dangerous person has been removed from our world, murdering our enemies is, at best, a failure of our due-process system. Obviously, it's much riskier—and enormously costly—to do it right, but there really is something intrinsically wrong—whether domestic or abroad—about summary tele-executions.

Because the more recent, state sponsored murders are conducted—largely—from a safe distance and without the involvement of vulnerable friendly personnel, killing the enemies has become a highly-sanitized kind of operation. Our people aren't there to see the horror or get splashed with the blood of the target. In a sense, the superior technology of modern killing has turned murder into something akin to a child's video game.

Americans—as well as most of the world—are able to view these state-sponsored murders as perfectly acceptable. Somehow, perhaps supported by our lifetimes of watching the shoot-'em-ups and crime movies, we've been able to dull our humanity, just a bit, and accept the notion that it's really OK to kill the bad guys.

I'm not pronouncing a verdict, I'm only presenting my take—that this is a moral question, yet unanswered and inadequately addressed.

The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist, and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He lives in Riverton, Utah with his wife, Carol, and the beloved ashes of their mongrel dog.

A Poet on State Street

Citizen Revolt: Week of August 11

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