We should be protesting war in all forms, not just assassinations.
But we're going to have enough problems domestically in a few years with drones everywhere.
Invading Iraq was done after an enormous amount of public debate, with the broad approval of Congress, the UN, etc. It may not have ever been the right decision but it was unambiguously "okay" from a following the rules in letter and spirit sense. These assassinations are being done in secret by a president who claims he doesn't have to explain himself to anyone.
There isn't a ton of upside in invading a country, compared to the amount of effort and oversight involved. There are easier ways to funnel money to the Military Industrial Complex or distract from domestic political shame. The only real upside is ideological, either rightly or wrongly you think it's a good idea for whatever faction you align yourself with.
But assassination of the local population is so very useful. It's a Dremel that a bad leader can use as a half-ass solution to any problem. For the kind of person who would aspire to be President, the logic of assassination is so clear that you don't even have to be paranoid: "That person is an inconvenience to me. I have the power to kill him. Kill him."
The US basically gave them the finger and invaded Iraq anyway. And yet, here we are years later, with absolutely no evidence of WMDs discovered.
And of course, everybody knew that the rationale given for invading Iraq was pure bullshit, you would have to be an idiot to not see it.
Moreover, the US has always killed foreigners. That presents no problem to our Constitutional framework and is a basic right of any state. Killing of Americans without judicial oversight, however, does pose Constitutional challanges.
Remember Iraq was the "hey let's kill anyone for 9/11" and all the teenagers rushed to sign-up (and then got stop-lossed for years as a thank you).
We had insanely selective justification while ignoring everything else. To rewrite what we did to Iraq as anything less than horrible is a massive lie.
And you wonder why people hate you all over the arab world ? your only strenght is fear, you definetly lost the cultural battle there.
The war in Iraq killed far more iraqis than Saddam ever did, and i'm not even talking about the 1 millions children that died during the oil for food program.
And yes ,they still call you the "great Satan" there. Ironic isnt it ?
Honestly, I agree, but there were millions of people all over the world protesting the war, and it didn't change a damn thing.
[1] http://www3.sympatico.ca/taylormcgreal/speakingtruth.html
Compared to previous wars, which went on for years and killed millions of people before anyone even noticed, the Iraq War has been dogged from the outset by scrutiny and criticism. As a result, abuses have been identified more promptly, denounced more broadly and discontinued more quickly.
Things are actually getting better, but our expectations are changing faster than our institutions are conforming, so it feels like things are getting worse.