Posted on 10/01/2011 2:06:09 PM PDT by airedale
The American government at the direction of the President targeted and killed an American citizen who was an unlawful combatant and a terrorist. This was a good thing in this case, but it also opened the barn door for the President deciding to kill an American citizen acting as prosecutor, judge, jury and in effect executioner without any judicial review or due process (especially interesting considering the President and his administrations instance on treating other terrorists as common criminals and giving them full due process and civilian trials== until that blew up and the Congress told them they couldn't bring them in to the US from Gitmo for a civilian trial)
Without rules and the force of the Constitution and law this power that Obama has used is open to all kinds of abuse as time goes on. Consider what the administration, Democratic members of Congress and the media have called members of the Tea Party: Terrorists, UN-American, Hostage Takers, Racists, Fascist and lots of other things. They have accused the Tea Party of violence and other illegal activities (all untrue). The same applies to people like Rush Limbaugh. What's to stop Obama from taking action against them? It might not be actually killing them rather interning them like Woodrow Wilson and FDR did. For you Democrats who read this remember you won't always hold the Presidency and the Republican who holds the office will now have apparently unlimited power to kill American citizens without due process.
The Obama administration has refused to give it's legal reasoning and justification on how this action complies with US law and the US Constitution. It's also notable that the MSM that would be screaming if a George Bush had done this and they'd even become more incensed if he refused to release the legal justification for the actions, but this is a Democrat and a god to the MSM so they'll blindly accept it.
I don’t have a problem with traitors in foreign countries being targeted and killed myself. I am surprised the msm is trying to tarnish obama this way myself.
Al-Awlaki was a 14th. Amendment citizen. No allegiance to the USA- he goes overseas to fight against Americans. How many American troops are dead because of him. But then, what sort of justice did David Koresh and 90 men, women and children get? What sort of justice happened at Ruby Ridge? People are now whining about Al-Awlaki???
Excellent questions about a man with no honor or morals.
I am peeing in the swimming pool on this, Obama is a Moslem, he isn’t a definitive and legally proven American “Natural Born Citizen”
But he has suckered America into electing him and now he thinks he will gain back lost popularity by killing Moslems, even if the are Americans.
And it may continue here in America, its a far fetched vision but who really knows what is cooking inside his head?
“I am surprised the msm is trying to tarnish obama this way myself.”
The precedent is what scares them. If Obama gets away with this, then President Cain could have a field day in really cleaning US traitors.
Probably the only thing OPbama has done right since he was elected.
The Media or anyone else will have a hard time convincing me that this turd didnt deserve just what he got.
He was no more American than Joe Stalin. He needed killing the job got done, End of story.
I don't believe this is a true statement. I noticed last night that even the state run "media" is backing off and referring to him has being "american born". There was a post here last night in which the poster shot down the "U.S. citizen" BS. It appears that this clown was a citizen of Yemen. He didn't even meet the anchor baby qualifications prior to his parents returning to their home country of Yemen once their business here was completed.
If Americans don't survive, our system doesn't survive.
This was not a U.S. citizen operating within the jurisdiction of the United States legal system. This was a murdering terrorist openly at war with the United States and, really, all of civilization. The leaders of terrorist organizations who murder innocents without mercy, and do so, from foreign soil, are enemy combatants, whether or not they are U.S. citizens.
They are due no legal process and should be killed without warning wherever they walk, ride, fly or rest.
From that standpoint I don’t either, but as an American citizen by birth who hasn’t been stripped of his US Citizenship, legally found to be a traitor (he is one but that’s not the point), he wasn’t on an actual battle field or in an organized enemy military unit (a legit target in time of war). You need to see the legal reasoning and justification and how it squares with the constitution. Part of the reason given in the press conference was there was no chance that he could be arrested. Would you buy killing a criminal by the police with that kind of justification? No civil liberties person or court would allow it even if they were planning a crime that would cause casualties when it was executed. The person would have to put the officers or the public in eminent threat of injury or death at the time he’s killed. If that wasn’t the case the officers would be tried and found guilty in our courts.
The guy was scum and I’m glad he’s no longer around but the issue is what can escape from that barn that Obama just left the door open. Over time it’s going to become much broader and more flexible regardless of who is in power. We need to understand the legal underpinnings of the action against an American citizen even if he’s scum.
If he’s tanking in the polls and seen as a weak sister, American citizens are fair game, it seems.
I think there were two u.s. Citizens killed, and it’s never the end of story with this regime.
He was born in as Cruces New Mexico in April 1971 (FBI as well as the media have his birth certificate and have examined the official state of New Mexico records). He moved to Yemen where his parents were from when he was 7 and stayed there for 11 years. He came back under a Yemeni passport and student visa. He applied for a Social Security card using his Yemeni passport as a foreigner. This allowed him to get scholarship money he wasn’t eligible for as an American citizen. He later applied for and got a US passport as an American citizen by using his real birth certificate. He used the social security card as part of the passport application.
He committed fraud when he applied for the passport because of the fraud on the social security card where he denied he was a US citizen. That’s a felony. He left the country before they could arrest him since he had ties to the 9/11 hijackers. Then it gets really weird. Apparently the warrant for his arrest was pulled the very day he flew back into the US. Customs had him in custody and he was on the Terrorism Watch list and no fly lists. The FBI told Customs to let him go. Fox had a show on him today
How can you fight a war without killing the enemy?
What is all the fuss about killing Al-Awlaki? Why was he any different from bin Laden?
“Supreme Court precedent (the World War II era Quirin case and the 2004 Hamdi decision) hold that American citizens who fight for the enemy in wartime may be treated as enemy combatants, just like aliens.” http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/197534/obama-oks-targeted-assassination-awlaki-us-citizen-andrew-c-mccarthy
As to Obama being in the White house when it occurred, so what? I cannot stand Obama, but the fact that Al-Awlaki was killed on his watch does not make me worry for my safety.
However, the type of people who have surrounded Obama does cause me to worry. Soros, Rahm Emmanuel, Geithner, Hillary, etc.
I've been away for a while, just when was it that Congress declared war?
The poster last night said that Yemen does not allow dual citizenship. I think the fraud he committed went pretty deep. I guess it’s one of the flaws attached to the whole idea of the anchor baby thing. The 14th Amendment, as it has recently been interpreted, is being used as a weapon against American citizens, IMHO.
Your legal authority for those statements are? Why doesn’t the Constitution and protections apply to him? What court has removed them? What legal grounds did they have? The legal basis for this action is really important, without a really sound legal basis for the action every American citizen is now at risk down the road.
If the Foreign Surveillance Court had ruled that it was OK in this case to whack him I’d be a lot more comfortable but I’d still want to understand the legal justification for the ability to whack an American citizen at the discretion of the President.
It is an interesting intellectual debate, but these things ultimately solve themselves, at least in an armed society such as ours.
Basically, the President can kill a US citizen, right up until it is seen by the (armed) populace as a threat to liberty. If he crosses that line, the populace threatens revolt, the politicians deal with it to placate the populace, and the problem is solved, in some fashion.
This happens in every war. During the war, politicans do what it takes to win, people grit their teeth and bear it in the search for victory. After the war, somebody goes overboard, politicans revoke the powers, and we start over again, until the next war when the cycle repeats.
I suspect the scale of the issue will keep any President from going overboard for some time, though. This isn’t nearly as bad as much of the other stuff this administration has done, which will be abused even worse in the future.
“The guy was scum and I’m glad he’s no longer around but the issue is what can escape from that barn that Obama just left the door open.”
I’d hate to be White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly right now. That’s the guy the admin sent to Iraq so he couldn’t talk to Issa.
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