In the days since the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the debating lines surrounding him have hardened.  Some have kept the conversation civil; many have not. 

There are, as I see it, two main questions around his death.

1.  Was it legal?

2. Was it wise?  Or, to put it slightly differently, will his death make Americans safer?

Broadly speaking there are three groups weighing-in on these questions: legal scholars, al-Qaeda watchers, and observers of Yemen.*

My opinion on al-Awlaki is fairly well known, but it is also, it seems, a minority one.  Given how many smart people have lined up on the other side of the debate I thought it would be wise to re-examine my thinking and look for things I may have overlooked, which is what I've been doing for the past several days.

Now, I'm obviously not a legal scholar, and while the legal aspects are intriguing, I can't comment on them in any sort of an expert fashion.  However, it reads to me, as if the legal scholars are split.

On one side is someone like Bruce Ackerman, who wrote this piece in Foreign Policy - in many ways a response to this piece in Reuters, which I think everyone should read.

On the other side, at least provisionally, are people like Jack Goldsmith and Robert Chesney, both of whom write at, among other places, Lawfare.  I would also recommend this probing essay from Daniel Bentham.

However, on the second question - was it wise/does it make America any safer? - I do have opinions that are grounded in years of research and scholarship.

There are, as I mentioned above, basically two groups I've been reading on this.  The first group is al-Qaeda watchers (I hesitate to call them counterterrorism experts because of the frauds that use the title).  This group - and I'm thinking of smart people with years of experience like Thomas Hegghammer, Will McCants and Clint Watts - has largely come down in the affirmative.  

Yes, killing Anwar al-Awlaki was necessary, wise, and will likely go a long way towards making the US safer.

Probably the most articulate and comprehensive proponent of this view has been Thomas Hegghammer, who wrote this piece in Foreign Policy countering my NYT op-ed. 

Thomas and I went back-and-forth a bit in private and also here at Waq al-waq.  But his basic point remains that A.) Anwar al-Awlaki is AQAP's Head of Foreign Operations and B.) if protecting the homeland is a priority, then dismantling AQAP's Foreign Operations Unit should be at the top of America's counterterrorism agenda in Yemen.

And it seems that it was.  The Obama administration called Awlaki, as Thomas did, the "head of the Foreign Operations Unit."

Interestingly Thomas makes the argument that the US should seek to arrest Awlaki, which apparently the US came to the conclusion was not feasible.

The third group has been Yemen watchers, and here - although I may have missed some (its a pretty small group of people with both language and experience in the country) - most seem to come down on the other side, arguing that the strike on Awlaki was neither wise nor would it likely make the US any safer.

Now each of these two groups bring their own biases to bear on the question, which is why I have taken so long (re)thinking through the question.

First, as I argued in my op-ed, Awlaki was a threat and someone who called for the death of Americans, but I thought then and I still believe now that he was not the most dangerous individual within AQAP when it comes to US national security.  There are men who are still alive and at-large in Yemen, who represent, in my view, a much greater threat to US national security. 

Does this mean the US should not have killed him?  I don't know, but I do know that I worried that the US would think it could protect itself from an attack out of Yemen by a few well-placed drone strikes.

And now we have this from the Washington Post:

"U.S. officials, in turn, express little interest in the insurgency in Yemen and say their counterterrorism efforts are limited to what they describe as a minority within al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate that is focused on U.S. attacks."

as well as: