When this president or any other initiates military action, people will die.Many of these people are innocent people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether they are US citizens or not is immaterial. They are human beings. This is the curse of human conflict. Someday may it stop, God willing. So now Sununu wants to except those who directly avow murdering as many Americans as possible. Sununu has the luxury of second-guessing people who are actually in a position of responsibility, for purely political purposes.

Mr. Sununu must have some latent inner fears of his own self control. After all President Bush has the stains of hundreds of thousands of killed American and Iraqi citizens without any true declaration of war. It is true enough that such executive powers represent the darker side of our nature and we would all be better off without it. However it is a policy that is currently broadly supported. What is more important is the evolution of human thought so there is no need for such authority. After 11 years in Afghanistan with many killed and much wealth squandered a hit job here and there brings little peace. Benjamin Franklin: "Never has there been a good war or a bad peace."

This is another breath taking double standard. Had George Bush done this exact same thing, the calls for his impeachment would have been heard on the moon. The same people who have a severe problem with water boarding, seem to believe that assassination OF AN AMERICAN citizen, is just fine. Even Obama himself played this card right up until he took office. No torturing, Gitmo to be closed, the phrase "war on terror" to be retired.....his whole foreign policy was based on using this conflict in naked political terms. NEW PARAGRAPH: As the yahoos played up the "Bush is problem" card, cooler heads had a better understanding. We knew that as president, when faced with tough decisions, President Obama would do about 99% of what Bush was doing. Bush did what felt he needed to keep us safe. As president Obama, would have to do the same. We were proved correct on this.

Although liberal politicians often claim to value "choice," they are quick to use coercive state power in pursuit of their own vision of the "common good" or "justice." Let Holder's speech be a warning to us all. Authoritarian rule can arrive in small increments, not just in a coup d'etat. The U.S. Constitution should be taught to every American child. It was designed to limit federal power and reserve most power for the individual and the states.

John, like most republicans, you feel you can give part of the story and fool most people. Sadly, you are probably right, particularly now with all of the misinformation coming from the right. As you said: "We are winning the fight against Al Qaeda, and we were winning before the assassination of al-Awlaki." That is certain. Know why? Because Obama's military strategy was NOT to send as many American targets to a foreign country under false pretenses in order to send as many Federal dollars as possible to Texas, like the man who never won an election. On Obama's watch, we have a sensible, logical military strategy which actually minimizes American casualties. Further, he got bin laden, whereas his predecessor actually said he didn't care where bin laden was! Identifying and locating those who wish to attack the USA is top secret information, President Obama should not have to ask permission from anyone to order the killing of enemies of our country. That is the central point here. Obama has done an OUTSTANDING job of defending the USA, and protecting the lives of our citizens.

Mr Sununu appears to understand what several commenters do not: the Obama administration's claim of this right is an immediate consequence of the claims of executive power made by the Bush administration almost continuously beginning just days after 9/11. Once the government has claimed the authority to capture and imprison with charge or trial, extending that authority to include capital punishment is really a very small step. Without Jose Padilla, there is no Anwar al-Awlaki. Back when Dicky Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, John Woo and others were so vigorously expanding the power of the executive branch, some liberals wondered aloud how the GOP would feel when a Democrat wielded and expanded that same power. At the time, those liberals were accused of "un-American" or suffering from "Bush Derangement Syndrome". Now they look like the only ones who understood what was happening..

And Obama's successor, whether assuming the Oval office in 2013 or 2017, will also face the same choices, and partisans like Sen Sununu and yourself will sing the praises of those actions you have condemned because they were taken by Obama. Your are welcome to be as partisan as you like; just don't expect to be taken seriously.

And Obama's successor, whether assuming the Oval office in 2013 or 2017, will also face the same choices, and partisans like Sen Sununu and yourself will sing the praises of those actions you have condemned because they were taken by Obama. Your are welcome to be as partisan as you like; just don't expect to be taken seriously.

You are engaging in the same partisanship as Sununu. Are you trying to imply Bush never won an election? While I didn't vote for him and I didn't think highly of his performance in office, Bush was legally elected to both of his terms as POTUS as well as Governor of Texas.

Sen. Sununu you are a hypocrite! Where was your outrage between 2001 and 2009, when Bush was in office? Where will be your outrage when next a Republican will be in office and engaging in the same activities? A terrorist, actively engaged in hostile activities, will always be an imminent threat, regardless of the country of that individual's birth. If that individual is engaged in activities outside of the enforcement of international rules of law or warfare, is that individual to be given carte blanche? The Barbary Wars provided legal precedent for both Bush and Obama to engage in these actions. You know that but choose to ignore it for the sake of making a partisan attack. There is no comparison to FARC or Chechen terrorists, since those groups are hostile to the US, and these groups are recognized as illegitimate and they are not free to operate within our borders.

Why is this biased bloviator given space to vent? It's almost enough to stop my subsciption. I did not read, but suspect his hypocrisy and selected memory is evident.

My, my, what a tolerant response. If you didn't read his piece, then why comment at all?

It's nice that a Republican is willing to publicly recognize this administration's success in battling Al Qaeda.But then he goes and ruins it with this high school debater's rhetorical question: "Would the United States condone Russia targeting Chechen rebels in Paris or Chicago, or Colombia taking out FARC members in Mexico City or Miami? Holder papered over these dark images by insisting that local governments must consent — as if leaders in Yemen or Pakistan had a choice." He compares the targeted strike on an avowed enemy of this nation in a totally lawless part of a nearly failed state to an assassination in a major metropolis where there are legal methods of apprehension available. Apparently Mr Sununu and his supporters would like to hold terrorists who are American-born harmless until such time as they would make themselves available for arrest by the duly appointed law enforcement personnel who can Mirandize them. Until that time, it is is their right as Americn citizens to plan and actively coordinate the death of their fellow Americans free from interference from our armed forces. Al Qaeda would be impressed by your ethics and no doubt cheer if you get your way. They could send their best and brightest here to have American children who would be bulletproof on the battlefield in the coming years. Since Mr Sununu values American life so deeply, I'm sure that his next column will be on the American teenager with no prior arrests in Florida who was shot down steps from his home by a neighborhood watchman with a concealed weapon permit.

JLErwin: The outrage is that Bush never did this, ever. His expansion of executive power in the war on terror was excoriated by the loony left. But now that a Democrat is weilding, and using the same power, the left is silent. I always knew that Obama would be on America's side once he became president. But he was the most ardent Bush hater in the world, when President Bush was protecting us as best he could.

So what? The radical right was silent under Bush and now the loony left is silent under Obama. Partisanship by both sides is still partisanship, of no worth in the grand scheme of things.

This is a very dicey issue. On one hand you can see a serious constitutional issue in question. On the other,the battle against terrorists require quick action. I do agree with Mr Sununu that Obama should go thru the FISOR court. God forbid another attack,but if it did happen, all of America would be screaming - "Why didn't you do SOMETHING??!!" Not an easy job.

Richmond12 writes: I always knew that Obama would be on America's side once he became president.

You are laughing out loud again while alone in you mom's basement. Please tell us it's a metaphor. Your mom is nervous. mw

Very well said! Mr Sununu is a man who has zero responsibility when it comes to safeguarding anyone other than his family. I'm sure that he does that well. But his attack on the elimination of a very real threat to all Americans has the strong tinge of political motivation. If President Bush or President Romney took the same step, would there be a column in the Herald attacking it? Hell no, he'd be in Washington helping to write the releases that justified it. The releases that would articulate the same rationale as our current President: regardless of where you happen to be born, attack this nation and its people and you will become a target.

So you agree that President Obama is pretty much doing everything that he can to keep our nation safe. Thanks for that acknowledgment! Perhaps I had you wrong all along. Wait.... when YOU say that WE were proved correct on this, who is the WE? I thought that you were the lone, thinking for himself/herself, had enough of Massachusetts liberalism poster. You don't mean that you represent a larger group of people? Perhaps you meant what we used to call the Imperial "we", sort of like the philosopher kings who knew how things should be run. Like Governor Romney, say. Is that it?

Oh Ozark, if only you had been around during the Bush/Ashcroft years, perhaps we wouldn't be in this mess now. Little did we know how liberal the Patriot Act was in its intent. It's always the liberals who steal your personal freedoms. That's why the ACLU is such a hotbed of conservative freedom-mongering. Justice for Trayvon Martin!

Sununu's nonsense is so illogical and hypocritical I have no idea where to begin, so I won't waste more of my time in commenting further.

Truly, your ambivalence, or bad coaching, are getting very difficult to follow. But your (their) phrase about President Bush doing the best he could to protect us is particularly dissonant. His best would have been to have finished Afghanistan when we had half a chance. His best would have been to let Saddam stew for another year or five, and let matters run their course. His best would NOT have been the colossal CF we have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan, at untold losses of American, Iraqi, and Afghan dead and maimed, all while mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren. Do you feel safer for his efforts? Well, do ya?