Self-defense is legal, except when it's not

For Cliff May, nationalism is fine for Americans, but not for those living elsewhere.

Fox headline just now:

CIA Director Pulled the Plug on “Secret” CIA Assassin Plan

But shouldn’t the media — not least Fox — be discussing (now that the cat is out of the bag) whether it’s a good idea to pull the plug on plans to eliminate Osama bin Laden and others dedicated to slaughtering Americans by the thousands?

On a BBC radio show the other night, the interviewer asked me: “Wouldn’t such a plan be illegal?”

I replied that I was pretty sure that defending Americans — and even using force to do so — is not illegal, at least not yet.

Um, I'm pretty sure that efforts by American agents to target and assassinate someone in another country we are not at war with -- even if it's Osama bin Laden -- violate the law of that country as well as our own. That's why this program -- whether it was just a PowerPoint presentation, as some have suggested, or something more actionable -- was kept secret from Congress.

Further, I wonder what May would squeal if we learned that Cuba had plans to "eliminate" this guy in Texas.

And, by the way, I doubt very much we've taken "eliminating" Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders off the table. For all their dubious morality and international legality, those predator drones are still buzzing around, I believe.