I think the opposite conclusion should be true. Make any other extrajudicial killing as transparent and visible as this one and you’ll get the same level of “fuss”
While any extra judicial killings are a very bad direction IMO, most people would agree that democracy should protect journalists but not terrorists.
Tl;Dr - supposedly if we took the people who get drone strikes to court they would be found guilty in the states anyway, a journalist wouldn't be so there killing is considered unjustified
Also, luckily everyone in the world agrees who the terrorists are, so it's not a problem.
Furthermore, it's awesome that governments never use the terrorist label on people they just don't like.
Thought experiments:
Are the people that Kim Jong Un calls "terrorists" good guys or bad guys?
Are people that drop explosives remotely from miles away "terrorists" or "good guys?"
Why do we bother with trials in this country? Since those people would probably be found guilty, wouldn't it be better to just find them guilty from the offset? Especially when issuing lethal sentences!
This is not meant to be snarky, at least not a lot, just trying to show that things aren't this clear cut.
Why should everyone in the world have to agree who the terrorists are? This sort of relativism is corrosive and it's not a luxury terrorists and dictators indulge in. They're clear who the bad guys are, and it's us. That's what makes them our enemy, regardless of how they happen to percieve their own interests and the langugage they use to describe them.
I'd imagine some terrorists and dictators like beer and chocolate-covered pretzels as much as I do. If so, I agree with terrorists and dictators about that too.
But we do have a difference of opinions when it comes to deliberately blowing up children or building theocratic states, for example.