Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 09/30/2011 4:58:50 PM PDT by americanophile
Today in Yemen, U.S. air strikes killed American citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi. Al-Aulaqi has never been charged with a crime. Last year, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights represented Al-Aulaqi's father in a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. We argued that such killings violate the Constitution and international law, but the case was dismissed in federal court last December.
In response to today's killing of Al-Aulaqi, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said:
The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law. As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific, and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the President — any President — with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country. In a hearing before a federal court last November, government lawyers argued the president should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans he has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. As National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner added today: "If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the President does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."
(Excerpt) Read more at aclu.org ...
Pull the crap al unlucky pulled and you deserve the same. It really is that simple.
Would have suited me fine.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
That’s because it isn’t war.
It is political paddycake with people who literally want your head.
There’s very strong evidence that this dude committed treason against America. Yes, he did not get a trial. Perhaps he should have been tried in absentia. Then upon conviction he would have been a legitimate target, based on the points you are bringing up.
I have to refresh my memory about John Walker Lindh, the dude who was fighting for the Taliban. Why exactly is he in prison? He’s an American citizen.
I think our laws need updating to deal with cases in which American citizens are the enemy.
Flip the scenario around. Given that we’re at war with Al Qaeda and Obama is the CIC, if Obama had been shot this morning by someone from Al Qaeda, would we claim he was a ‘combat’ causulty, or would we call it an assassination? Of course we would call it the latter. This isn’t two uniformed armies sqauring off on a battlefield, there’s a clear difference. I don’t see the objection, in a scenario such as this, where we’re aware of treasonous behavior and have plenty of time, to simply trying the man in absentia for treason and either stripping him of his citizenship or condeming him to death through a judicially-reviewable process; i.e., Due Process. That’s what the Constitution requires.
We shouldn’t be afraid to try people for treason in scenarios like this. Lindh was convicted on a host of weapons and conspiracy and other charges.
Due process included painting this Silica Amish terrorist scumbag with a laser and shoving several pounds of C4 up his @$$, long distance. Finally, the US Gubbmint found a way to spend my tax $ that makes sense.
Stunning.
Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass."
Barack Obama, May, 2009. But then, of course, he was talking about Bush's policies toward terrorism.
What I'd say about Al Aulaqi is that he and his buddy are 1 and 2, and the pukes at the ACLU who keep trying to take warfare into a courtroom setting should probably be 3, 4, 5, etc.
Enough nonsense. We didn't put up with this in the Civil War and we don't have to do it now either.
This action was authorized by the President, take it up with him.
It is not a dilemma at all.
He joined and was actively participating in a group which has killed thousands of innocent Americans and is trying to kill as many as they can. We have every right and duty to kill every single one of them as fast as possible.
He didn't show up. He was fair game. So are his advocates. We know which side they are really on.
Only if they’d been rubbed out in the courtroom. There’s no trial because the AlQaida gangsters and their running dog lackeys won’t cooperate so they have to be dealt with where ever and when ever they show up in a decisive manner.
First of all you didn’t state whether that “enemy combatant” was an American Citizen with constitutional rights. What if that “enemy combatant” was a Christian who the government said was trying to overturn government?
In the law enforcement community he would qualify as “bought and paid for” That means he has been responsible either directly or indirectly for the murders of innocents. In this case thousands of innocents.
They basically shoot on sight as long as they are sure of the target. If he came to them with his hands in the air they probably would have been happy to capture him for his intelligence value but as I said, he was bought and paid for.
It was his reality ~ not what somebody simply said about him.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. This guy deserved to die. So do his friends.
1861-1865
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.