Is anyone else seriously disturbed about the assassination of Anwar-al Awlaki? He is a United States citizen who was Living in Yemen. The President deemed him a radical muslim cleric and an enemy of the state and killed him via unmanned drones in Yemen.

Awlaki didn't kill anyone, he wasn't even a terrorist. He promoted jihad against the U.S. but technically never hurt anyone. He had no trial there was no due process, Obama was judge juror and executioner.

How does everyone feel about the President murdering U.S. citizens no matter who they are in foreign nations far from the battlefield? Another unnamed U.S. citizen was killed with him too.

They were Aborted,so no problem,,

Maybe he had unpaid parking tickets or library fees.

They are just working though their inbox of [email protected]

a Traitor is a Traitor and desevre a Traitor's death

Silly of me expect reasonable responses here
:P

American Karma got him...right between his eyes.


The guy was a scumbag and you should be ashamed of sticking up for a person that wished the deaths on Americans and plotted to do so.

You want your kind of reasonable response? Go back to the DailyKOS!

I find it to be a horrific precedent. I've heard arguments that the war powers act of 2001 gives him the authority to do this but he is a US citizen.

I don't like it.


And after the Bin Laden incident I doubt that this was even him. Everytine poll numbers go down they drag out a dead terrorist to keep people gungho.

I'm not sticking up for him I'm sticking up to the 5th Amendment of our Constitution is all. It sets a scary precedence is the point I was getting at.

I'm definitely not a liberal by the way I just like to think the Bill of Rights matters.

Take it up with Owebama then!

I'm glad the guy is scattered all over the Yemeni highway.

Certainly wasn't looking for someone here to take it up with I was just looking for peoples thoughts on the precedence being set. Everyone deserves a trial before they are killed or put in prison. He certainly was a scumbag, but some charges and a conviction wouldn't have hurt anyone.

He knew he was wanted, thus if he was worried about a his 5th amendment rights he could have easily recieved his trial by jury but chose to continue his jihad and justice was served.

Sooo anyone wanted should be killed?

I think I read a book about some country called the USSR that sort of went that way.

Traitors need to be dealt with accordingly, Maybe it wasn't the best way to handle it but he knew it was coming at some point and did nothing but press forward with his twisted philosophy and justice was served. Saying anyone can be killed is a bit of a stretch. Anyone who tries or actually does plan to cause the deaths of INNOCENT Americans or their allies, yes go get your 70 virgins or whatever they promise them.

which book would that be ?

And who decides?

Slippery slope that at the least bears a discussion.

It was more of an exaggeration about the book. But just because someone advocates killing Americans doesn't mean they deserve to be executed. And Z is right. Who exactly do we appoint to make these decisions. That's why we have due process, so people are judged by a juror. The way it was handled just fuels the fire against us and makes our job harder. He now has been made into a martyr and will likely add to his cause. It's called blowback and the U.S. sure knows a lot about that.

And actually now to think of it "We the Living" By Ayn Rand would answer wheelrites question.

I don't really know who decides, but here I have to say the proper agencies had enough information to make the call. Was he plotting to do harm to our country and it's people and a decision was made. The way these wackos are planning to do things to us these days isn't the same as previous threats to our country and it has changed the way we need to deal with them. When other countries harbor these people and let the plan and carry out their plans from within then I believe someone has to make that call. I think this administration probably has a hard time doing this but when Clinton dropped the ball on Bid lADEN years ago they do not want the same thing hanging over their head down the road.

I have fears above and beyond everyday safety of a government unrestrained... I fear it from any party in control, but I am not an anarchist. That said, this individual was more than a loud mouth spewing anti-American rhetoric. I do not wish those types be killed, I wish they had their own cable network! But this fellow goes beyond chatter.

He was actively using the internet to recruit Americans and others into Al Qaeda, he had dealings with the Ft Hood shooter and other terrorists (yeah, I am wary of guilt by association too), but it wasn't the scary words, he was a major leader of an active Al Qaeda group and made the "list". He knew he was on the list, his family knew also. His was the first such killing by our gov since 2001...not that that lessens my fears of things along the lines of ZRX posts above. The door being cracked scares me admittedly. But at least there has not been a decade of random applications.

But there are a few differences here that make me a bit more comfortable that this is an isolated and legally justifiable act rather than a horrific precedence, though the argument against is certainly strong and valid and may never be closed. In this case, info from editorial in today's Boston Globe, the ACLU (the group everyone loves to hate) filed suit per his father saying due to Awlaki's presence outside a war zone eg Iraq/Afghanistan the US should be limited to apprehending him via law enforcement. The suit was dismissed as the gov cited enough evidence subjecting him to military force under a post 9/11 law.

No one pulled a surprise move here while legality was being debated.

I have paraphrased the editorial. And I am not totally at ease with what happened, but I am not totally against the rationalization either. But the debate must be kept alive for our own individual protection.