I was having lunch with someone today (name being withheld in case he doesn't want this broadcast) and we were musing over the contradiction in the average American's mind. On the one hand, if you asked Americans to rate professions in terms of their morality or decency, politicians would come in at or near dead last, and if they beat out lawyers, that wouldn't be much help--most politicians are lawyers.

But at the same time, when it comes to the life-and-death decisions that U.S. politicians make, most Americans give them the benefit of the doubt--often ridiculously so. Sure, they might have made a mistake in, say, invading Iraq, but it really was always about protecting Americans and freeing Iraqis from a brutal thug. The CIA guys just goofed, that's all.

So anyway, my buddy asked something like, "At what point are Americans going to wake up and realize they can't trust their government?"

My answer, "When it's too late for them to do anything about it."

Note that I wasn't just trying to say something dramatic, at which point the snare drums kick in and lightning cracks in the background. I meant it quite seriously: The people in charge have to keep up appearances so long as it's necessary for the overwhelming majority to actually trust that the system basically works. In contrast, in more totalitarian regimes, the average person a large portion of the population knows full well that the rulers are evil, and they are kept in place by fear and helplessness. (They also might think there are no better alternatives.)

So with that in mind, let's quote from today's post by Glenn Greenwald. We have already learned that Americans won't revolt--heck, won't even vote against an incumbent--just because of worldwide CIA secret prisons and systematic torture of POWs. OK fine. What about this?

The Washington Post's Dana Priest today reports that "U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people."...

But buried in Priest's article is her revelation that American citizens are now being placed on a secret "hit list" of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed...

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations. Amazingly, the Bush administration's policy of merely imprisoning foreign nationals (along with a couple of American citizens) without charges -- based solely on the President's claim that they were Terrorists -- produced intense controversy for years. That, one will recall, was a grave assault on the Constitution. Shouldn't Obama's policy of ordering American citizens assassinated without any due process or checks of any kind -- not imprisoned, but killed -- produce at least as much controversy?

Obviously, if U.S. forces are fighting on an actual battlefield, then they (like everyone else) have the right to kill combatants actively fighting against them, including American citizens. That's just the essence of war....But combat is not what we're talking about here. The people on this "hit list" are likely to be killed while at home, sleeping in their bed, driving in a car with friends or family, or engaged in a whole array of other activities. More critically still, the Obama administration -- like the Bush administration before it -- defines the "battlefield" as the entire world. So the President claims the power to order U.S. citizens killed anywhere in the world, while engaged even in the most benign activities carried out far away from any actual battlefield, based solely on his say-so and with no judicial oversight or other checks. That's quite a power for an American President to claim for himself.

Sure, if you want to argue that we're not there yet--after all, people would flip out if they learned that the CIA was killing people in their beds in Hackensack--go right ahead and make that point. But we're sure a lot closer now, than any of us would have guessed 10 years ago, wouldn't you say? Could you possibly have imagined 10 years ago, that in a decade it would be common knowledge that the US tortured its prisoners, and that the president drew up lists of American citizens to be killed without any kind of process or review? Oh and that after he made up his list of who's naughty and dead, that the president would then review the balance sheet of the two Detroit car companies that he owned?