Mead on Awlaki and the "Assassination" Question

I meant to post this excellent piece by Walter Russell Mead on his blog on the American Interest's website on the question of whether the killing of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was a legitimate act of war or an assassination.  Key quotes:

Perhaps this is just further proof of how mindless I am, but it does seem to me that Al-Awlaki and his buds are at war with the people of the United States and that in war, people not only die: it is sometimes your duty to kill them. . . .

I am neither a lawyer nor a judge, but it does not take much special knowledge to understand that Mr. Awlaki had placed himself well beyond the protections of criminal law. 

I tend to agree with Mead's analysis re: al-Awlaki.  But as I have said before, I also recognize that al-Awlaki was really low-hanging fruit in this debate, whose actions and statements clearly indicated he was actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland, and hence an imminent threat.  There may be other American Islamists in the future, however, where the evidence is neither so transparent nor clear-cut.  Consequently, I think it reasonable to debate whether the al-Awlaki case was a necessary act of self-defense or sets a dangerous precedent that could be abused in the future, or even both.

P.S.  I highly recommend Mead's book A Special Providence, which I used to use when teaching a course on U.S. National Security at Johns Hopkins, for anybody interested in the history of U.S. foreign policy.