In May 2013, as President Barack Obama delivered a major foreign-policy speech in Washington, I managed to slip inside. As he was winding up, I stood and interrupted, condemning his use of lethal drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.

“How can you, a constitutional lawyer, authorize the extrajudicial killing of people—including a 16-year-old American boy in Yemen, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki—without charge, without trial, without even an explanation?”

As security dragged me out, Obama responded, “The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.” Perhaps my questions touched a chord in his conscience, but the drone attacks did not stop.

Just before that incident, I had returned from Yemen, where a small delegation of us met with Abdulrahman’s grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki—a dignified man with a PhD from an American university, someone who genuinely believed in the values this country claims to represent. He looked at us, grief etched into his face, and asked, “How can a nation that speaks of law and justice kill an American child without apology, without even a justification?”

Under Obama, drone strikes killed thousands of people. Entire communities lived under the constant terror of buzzing drones—never knowing whether a flash in the sky meant death for them, their children, or the neighbors who ran to help.

We heard these horrors firsthand in 2012, when CODEPINK traveled to Pakistan to meet with victims’ families. A tribal leader from Waziristan described attending a peaceful jirga—a gathering of elders—when a US missile obliterated the meeting. Dozens were instantly killed. As survivors rushed to help the wounded, a second missile struck.

Forty-two people died, including elders and local officials. No one in Washington was held accountable. Not one person.

Faced with mounting outrage, Obama eventually scaled back the drone program—not because the killings were illegal, immoral, or strategically disastrous, but because the political cost was rising. The truth is that Obama’s drone war normalized the idea that the United States can kill whoever it wants, wherever it wants, without due process or oversight.

That normalization is the bridge to where we are today.

The Trump administration is now carrying out extrajudicial assassinations at sea, including “double taps.” With the latest December 15

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