President Obama knows how to read the law, having received a diploma from Harvard Law School.  Even though he doesn’t seem to have actually, ahem, practiced much law, still he knows how to read the statutes, and besides, he has a gigantic staff of lawyers at his beck and call.  So he can’t plead ignorance.

Mario Loyola, writing in National Review, points out what the statutes regarding terrorism say:

(1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum. (emphases added by Loyola)

Case closed.  If Obama were still at Harvard Law, he would get an F.