No, he is not missing the main point. Rather, he is addressing part of the issue. All his post says is that it does not--and should not--matter whether the person in question is an American citizen. This is a fact which stands regardless of your opinion on the rest of the problem, and so it makes sense not to address that.
In more explicit terms: if you believe this sort of extrajudicial killing is illegal (which many, including me, do), you should believe it illegal for citizens and non-citizens alike. Similarly, if you believe it legal, it should still be legal for both citizen and non-citizens.
Not having citizenship does not magically make it fine to kill you and, similarly, having citizenship does not protect you if you are an enemy combatant.
Since the same logic applies in both cases, it's completely independent of the rest of the issue and should not be unnecessarily conflated.
(a) an person is declared a terrorist in secret by a bunch of secret govt folks, basis which he or she is 'approved' for assassination by the US state,
(b) the person may or may not be a US citizen, though the former confers significantly better chances of not being assassinated.
While not disagreeing with the import of your argument, namely that "citizens and non-citizens" ought to be treated alike (it is a welcome change to hear that, because in the post Snowden era we are witnessing a clear difference in the rights of US citizens and maybe those of their 'Five Eyes' allies versus the rest of the world), I don't think its something that can ever be expected in any country. Compared to their own citizens, most countries will always place lower value on the lives of foreigners. By extension there will be a lower bar on their assassinations too.
So instead, its better to challenge the secrecy that surrounds how a person is classified as a terrorist, instead of hoping the US govt starts treating everyone in the world with the same consideration.
what i don't get is why the classification of terrorists must remain secret. I'd like to apply the logic of "if you aint got nothing to hide..." to these sorts of things, and see how they respond.
> Having citizenship does not protect you if you are an enemy combatant.
Actually in that case you loose your citizenship:
Although a person's enlistment in the armed forces of a foreign country may not constitute a violation of U.S. law, it [may cause] loss of U.S. nationality if an American voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship enters or serves in foreign armed forces engaged in hostilities against the United States or serves in the armed forces of any foreign country as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer.
> with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship
Note well this. And it's not just a statute, it's controlling Supreme Court precedent. That's actually why the language that gets used is so consistently weird -- old laws have basically had "with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship" forced into them by case law.
For a citizen to wage war against the United States is treason, but not even treason is punished by loss of citizenship. You could steal Putin's job and launch Russia's nukes at the US, and you'd still have your citizenship so long as you did not intend to relinquish it.
In more explicit terms: if you believe this sort of extrajudicial killing is illegal (which many, including me, do), you should believe it illegal for citizens and non-citizens alike. Similarly, if you believe it legal, it should still be legal for both citizen and non-citizens.
Not having citizenship does not magically make it fine to kill you and, similarly, having citizenship does not protect you if you are an enemy combatant.
Since the same logic applies in both cases, it's completely independent of the rest of the issue and should not be unnecessarily conflated.