I don’t usually follow this particular writer, but this really hit home for me:

Revenge killings don’t pass the test for me. They’re unacceptable under international law. I want to know that any target is selected because there is verifiable intelligence that he’s actively planning a terrorist attack on the United States or its allies; that the danger is pressing; that arrest is impossible; and that civilian lives are not wantonly risked.

That’s Roger Cohen in today’s NY Times, and I want to make it clear that I agree with him: The bar must be set high, and President Obama must not authorize the use of extra-judicial revenge violence in a country we are not at war with, not unless he wants to stand with Dick Cheney and the rest of the war-mongering neocons.