These drone strikes are pretty worrisome

Particularly ominous are Jordan’s findings about groups that, like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, are religious. The chances that a religious terrorist group will collapse in the wake of a decapitation strategy are 17 percent. Of course, that’s better than zero, but it turns out that the chances of such a group fading away when there’s no decapitation are 33 percent. In other words, killing leaders of a religious terrorist group seems to increase the group’s chances of survival from 67 percent to 83 percent…

But in this case the price we pay goes far beyond failure. If Harold Koh — the State Department lawyer assigned the job of justifying Obama’s strategy — carries the day, America will be telling the world that it’s O.K. to lob missiles into countries that haven’t attacked you, as long as you think a terrorist may live there. Do we really want to send that message to, for example, Russia and China, both of which have terrorism problems? Or India or Pakistan?

And are we sure we want to say that, actually, due process of law isn’t really guaranteed all American citizens so long as there’s a war on terrorism — which, remember, is a war that may continue for eternity?