One has to give credit where credit is due: this policy of Obama’s, and quite a bit of his overseas anti-terrorist tactics, are most goodness
The Obama administration has authorized operations to capture or kill a U.S.-born Muslim cleric based in Yemen, who is described by a key lawmaker as Americas’s top terrorist threat, officials said on Tuesday.
The decision to add Anwar al-Awlaki, of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to the target list followed a National Security Council review prompted by his status as a U.S. citizen.
Officials said Awlaki directly threatened the United States. “Awlaki is a proven threat,” said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He’s being targeted.”
The only thing that doesn’t make all that much sense is the announcement of this. Why tell your target you are going to kill him? Perhaps this is an attempted warning to other terrorists to take a chill pill, but, regardless of the motives, let’s hope Obama succeeds in this venture. As Rusty Shackleford points out, Obama has pretty much given the CIA a free reign, and should be thanked for it.
Unsurprisingly, some people have a problem with this
- Solves the problem of court venue if they were just caught, doesn’t it? I would not vote for Obama again solely on this issue.
- Obushma.
- a few more incremental steps and all of us will be green lighted to be ki-lled.
- This news has to be the most chilling and disturbing revelation to all thinking Americans about the core values of President Obama, about the steady signficant erosion of the US Constitution, and the ominous growth and encroachment of the SeeEyeAgency over the lives and deaths of citizens of this fragile disintegrating democracy.
- How long do you think it will be before these measures will be used on your home soil? It’s a very tiny step. If this goes on within a few years, “shoot first, ask questions later” will be your police officer’s *officially sanctioned* modus operandi.
- Death by the US government. Proof no longer needed.
- Obama, like Bush, seems to think the executive branch can do whatever the fu(k it wants to with no oversight from anyone. Even assas$inate American citizens. You want to claim there is evidence that this person is now actively participating in “attacks on the US”, let it be determined in court.
- The president orders a man to be killed? Isn’t that something you’d expect from a banana republic, or perhaps–that country the US loves to hate–Iran?
And it keeps going on and on and on and on…..Another cesspool
- No Israelis on the list? It figures.
- Who gets to target the traitors that did 9/11? www.ae911truth.org
- More made up BS! The bomber was helped on the plane by a sharp dressed man! THE SHARP DRESSED MAN WHO AIDED MUTALLAB ONTO FLIGHT 253 WAS A U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENT.
- Slippery slope… killing prayer leaders. Isrealis are happy. We are at war with the Muslim world to consolidate their Apartheid regime of Warsaw ghettos.
- Anwar al-Aulaqi is perhaps the first US citizen put on a death list by the CIA/White House but there another 310 million American citizen available to be put on this list, and rumors will have it that US Presidents have been on this list together with other heads of states. President Harding was however not killed by official police organization but by his wife in San Francisco.
That USA is a killer nation have been known since time immortal and remember well around 1954 when there was a riot at the Sing Sing prison and police from the surrounding areas was called in to suppress the ungrateful inmates. The police managed to kill outright 47 people, but when checking the identity of the dead it was found that 43 of the dead was prison wardens. - This story sure brings out the loons.
It’s rather amusing, since the Washington Post was just complaining about their comments being a cesspool, and blaming the Right. Anyhow, I’m hoping soon to read their outrage over al-Aulaqi being terminated with hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse. Or precision guided missiles. Whichever.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU
Sorry to say this, but I have problems with this as well.
As conservatives, we have talked long and hard about how the Constitution is the law of the land and here is an American citizen that is being targeted for assassination without regards to any of the rights found in the Constitution.
I agree that the guy is a scumbag and that the world would be better off without him. At the same time, if we say “gee, the Constitution doesn’t say we can’t whack American terrorists,” then we have bought into the leftist view of the Constitution. We have bought into the idea that “good ideas” can trump the Constitution.
I am not going to agree with that.
I have no problem with going after the guy to capture him. But if you want to impose a death sentence on him, you’d better convict him of something first. If you want to convict him of treason, fine. Do it. If you want to convict him of murder, fine. Do it. If you want to convict him of sedition, fine. Do it.
But do it before you authorize his execution.
The Constitution and the rule of law trumps the warm feeling of this guy going to hell now.
Well, that is certainly some food for thought, gitarcarver, and you have some very good points. I have to disagree with you, though. My thought is, once you take up arms against the United States while in a foreign nation, you have renounced your affiliation with the USA and its laws.
But, that is a slippery slope, one which I will have to think a bit more about.
My thought is, once you take up arms against the United States while in a foreign nation, you have renounced your affiliation with the USA and its laws.
Mr. Teach,
I would hope that we can agree that if Anwar al-Awlaki is caught, he should be tried, convicted and executed for the crime of treason. I would not shed a tear at his demise.
However, his demise in a legal execution, or as a result of activities on a battlefield (such as it is) is legally and morally different from a death resulting from an order of assassination.
You make the point that anyone who takes up arms against the US has renounced their citizenship. I can see that point. I would ask, “is a person guilty of robbery at the moment they rob someone, or at the moment they are convicted?” Morally it is at the time they rob the person. Legally it is at the time of the conviction.
The Constitution and the US Codes are clear that a person must be convicted of treason.
What is peculiar to me about this situation is that if you remember, Bush was eviscerated over legal wire taps that were in place to monitor calls made by non-US citizens. Obama campaigned on the idea that Bush’s actions were against the Constitution and his administration would never do that. Obama slammed the “secret courts” that issued legal warrants. He claimed that Bush was acting as a “cowboy” in the way he “shot first and asked questions later.”
Here we have Obama in effect holding a trial behind closed doors, coming to a verdict and issuing a death sentence all by his lonesome.
It is blatant hypocrisy and a blatant disregard for the laws of the land. It once again illustrates the hubris of Obama in thinking that he, a supposed Constitutional scholar, is above the very document he swore to uphold.
(And it goes without saying that the response from the main stream media is being drowned out by the chirping of crickets.)
Even though his actions are worthy of a conviction for treason and execution, Anwar al-Awlaki is still an American citizen according to the Constitution. He is guaranteed the rights contained therein.
We both agree that the world would be a better place if Anwar al-Awlaki were atomized or food for worms.
My concern is not only a “slippery slope,” but we have seen this administration and this Congress do what they think is right even if it is outside of the law and the Constitution. Obama thinks that assassinating Anwar al-Awlaki is a great idea. Representative Phil Harris of Illinois thought that voting for Obama care was a great idea.
The one commonality shared by both men is that they “don’t care what the Constitution says in this case.”
We are a nation of laws, not men. As much as it pains us at times to adhere to the Constitution, we should because the alternatives are much, much worse.
Sorry for the long post.
PS – By the way….. love your blog.