Tapper vs. Carney: Was Awlaki Death Constitutional? (Video)

ABC News ^ | 9/30/11 | Jake Tapper

[Bokababe]

Tapper to Carney: "Do you not see at all... does the Administration not see at all how a president asserting that he has the right to kill an American citizen without due process and that he's not going to even explain why he thinks that he has that right, is troublesome to some people?"...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=14642685

[IdratherbeatPemberley]

We fought to free ourselves from a capricious king over two centuries ago. When we have a president acting like a medieval monarch, we have a problem. “Off with their heads,” is not the way our founders envisioned the powers of the presidency.

Terrorist Awlaki needed to go, no doubt. We need to think, however, about the fact that Jay Carney et. al. weren't prepared for the question Tapper posed here. To assassinate someone who was considered an American citizen and feel like you wouldn't have to give an answer to the American public is the pinnacle of arrogance.

[nathanbedford]

I think al Awlaki was in all likelihood a total scumbag who deserved no better than what he got.

But when a president plays judge, jury and executioner of an American citizen without due process of law -- and in fact actually denied Awlaki his right to even be represented by an attorney so that he could challenge the reasons for being put on this hit list -- that president better prepared to make his case to the American people to let them know why they are safe and why they aren't also in danger of being next on his list.

Thank you for posting this article and for articulating a principled position which very much needed to find a place here on Free Republic. Someone once said that first you give the accused a fair trial and then you hang him and it is kinda important to do it in that order. I read a lot of reactions on this thread confiding to us that al Awlaki has somehow forfeited his citizenship, or his rights as a citizen, or, and this has not been expressly articulated, his right to equal protection of laws.

The framers quite consciously created a divided government of checks and balances precisely to prevent the coalescence of legislative, executive, prosecutorial, and warmaking powers in one individual or even in one branch. If we have come to a place where the president of the United States can order the assassination of American citizens by merely invoking a label, "war" we are on the verge of abandoning the Constitution.

At the very least, as you point out, Obama owes the country some sort of explanation, an articulation of an Obama "doctrine" if you will, about the power of the Executive to kill Americans.

I applaud your courage in taking what you must have known would be an unpopular stand. I looked up your about page and read some of your posts in the forum. I would like to say that you're to be complemented for your clarity of expression, which only comes as the product of clear thinking, and for your resolute determination to eschew the ad hominem.

I share much of your opinion about Ron Paul even though I have published many replies dismissing him as a potential candidate on the basis of electability but not, certainly, because he lacks constitutional principle. Even as I dismiss him, I have always been careful to point out that it is the Republican Party and now the Tea Party which is coming to Ron Paul and not the other way around. This is especially true concerning the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I fully agree with your observations that these wars are not making us safer. You are absolutely correct that our ability to project power abroad will be severely reduced by economic realities at home and, further, that will be strong abroad only as much as we are economically healthy at home. These are not necessarily my desires but my reading of reality.

Further, I hope Paul stays in the race as long as possible because his very presence shapes the debate in a very healthy direction.

If, as your name suggests, you are from Boca Raton, you are very brave indeed.

[Noob1999]

Whatever!

I’m just glad that they offed this A-Hole!

As a CIA operation, I wonder if Petreaous will get the credit for taking out these ragheads, or will Zer0 push him off the stage????

[SECURE AMERICA]

The President did not kill anyone. The US military who is at war killed an enemy in that war.
Get over it and move on...

[PETENICK1]

Let’s just assassinate Nidal Hussan. Why be troubled with these trials? Get the shoe bomber and the under wear guy out here and lets blow them up. Why are we not doing that to save the taxpayers money? This guy did internet stuff. Did he kill people? Is there evidence of that? Tapper is bulls eye on.

[logician2u]

Whether or not this creature is or was an American citizen, and whether his killing was justified by the threat he posed, there's another question that I believe needs to be asked.

Did the United States declare war on Yemen and it wasn't reported in the media?

Yeah, I know, President George W. Bush declared a "world-wide war on terror" and that got a lot of attention at the time. But what are the implications as far as national sovereignty, international law, and America's liability for collateral damage resulting from occasional mistargeting? (You all remember the accidental bombing of a Chinese embassy during one of Clinton's wag-the-dog wars, don't you?)

Let's reverse the scenario just to get a different perspective. Say the Russians have been seeking a terrorist implicated in the Beslan school massacre. He has been located to a place within the United States by the KGB's successor agency. Let's say he's holed up in Dearborn, Michigan. Yeah, Dearborn, not Detroit.

Now, the Russians dearly want this cretin dead for what he did a little over seven years ago. However, knowing the U.S. is going a little soft on aiding the Kremlin in their reprisals against Chechnyan rebels, and knowing 0bama is not very trustworthy, the Russians launch a clandestine hit on Dearborn to remove the terrorist from the face of the earth. It could be a bomb, a missile or a CD agent, it doesn't matter.

Now, is this attack justified? Should the United States retaliate or let it go? Russian never gave warning, never declared war. They just took action where they wanted to take out a terrorist.

This may not be hugh, but it could be series. Nuke series.

[tobyhill]

Being he was wanted dead or alive after the indictment I don't see anything wrong with this killing.

Oops, there was no indictment.

Even Bin Laden was indicted and he wasn't even an American Citizen.

[cruise_missile]

I think Obama is desperate to be re-elected he is willing to kill Americans. Just to prove he is tuff enough.

A few years ago this would have been outrageous. Especially if Bush had have done this.

I would like the Left to explain why it is OK now.

[KoRn]

I’m glad the guy is dead but in all actuality, he should have been extradited from where he was, charged with whatever crimes he’s suspected of, put on trial, and executed if found guilty. He was an American citizen, not a foreigner. We are a nation of laws with a justice system for our citizens, and the government doesn’t have the right to kill someone just because they don’t like them.

[Carry_Okie]

I agree that the traitor should have been killed. But Obama should have the guts to come out and tell why it was done and why it was the right thing to do.

I also agree that he should have been killed, but I want to see a judicial process in place that precludes the executive branch from operating independently and capriciously. We've already seen Janet Napoletano deeming conservative "extremists" as "potential terrorists," and in writing. The existing process is a line that is just too thin.

No person shall ....be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;

All citizens either have a Fifth Amendment, or we don't. This is an awful precedent, especially in the hands of a Marxist.

[Plutarch]

Jake is acting like a real journalist here.

Exactly. Everybody else in that room are just so many Obama shills.

[Bellflower]

Not being an American himself he doesn’t even understand his base. Now his base can be revealed as real believers in all the stuff that they have espoused for years by being genuinely upset with him or by not hardly flinching be revealed for complete hypocrites. Liberals being supposed “peace lovers” sure have put up with a lot from him so far.

[Bellflower]

All citizens either have a Fifth Amendment, or we don't. This is an awful precedent, especially in the hands of a Marxist.

Right. We have to be careful as we could be being set up.

[okie01]

All citizens either have a Fifth Amendment, or we don't. This is an awful precedent, especially in the hands of a Marxist.

This isn't the first time a turncoat has been, ah, terminated with extreme prejudice, to be sure.

But it is the first time that an administration has publicly bragged about it.

And therein lies the problem...

[Bellflower]

How is this killing any different than the killing of Bin Laden?

My gut reaction to the Bin Laden take out was that something wasn't right about it. First of all because he wasn't armed we should have taken him alive like we did with Saddam Hussein, on general principle, as a civilized country with standards on how we treat prisoners of war. We take our enemies as prisoners of war during war if we are able to capture them. We don't execute them. This is how the Bush administration behaved with Saddam Hussein. Think about the Nuremberg trials. Those people were guilty of millions of deaths and yet a civilized world put them on trial. Trials are good for many reasons, for and even especially for the most heinous of criminals.

Second, Bin Laden should have been extensively interrogated to find out everything he could possibly have known. We have no idea at all the information that we let slip though our fingertips. Ideally he should have been captured as quietly as possible and instantly interrogated so the info would have a chance of not being made unreliable.

Also, he should have been tried and convicted in a world court as an example to others and for better closure for those who have suffered because of his murderous crimes. He then should have been executed.

I think that it is very possible that BL had some kind of connection to OB. In the least he knew things about OB. I think that BL was taken out in the fashion that he was not because of his crimes against humanity but because he was the man who knew too much.

The whole thing seemed "fishy". They didn't let any photos out and supposedly buried him in just hours at sea where his body could never be resumed. Also, I heard on the news when our seals went down in the helicopter that they were the same seals involved in the BL death. That was the first news I heard but then a little while later it became that they were not. I just wonder about that too. Were they the seals that had seen too much?

[Bokababe]

A few years ago this would have been outrageous. Especially if Bush had have done this. I would like the Left to explain why it is OK now.

Listen to what's happening here, even here on FR -- it's because no one is making him explain. If the Right isn't even pressuring him, why should the Left?

[onona]

Guffawing. Seems like you can’t swing a dead cat these days without running into someone’s poster name :o)

[radu]

Thanks for posting this info!
There are several folks on my email list who need to see this and will find this in their inboxes tomorrow......er, later today.

[xzins]

I don’t intend to be difficult, Bokababe, but by Congressional action of Sep 19, 2001, we are authorized constitutionally to kill anyone who aids, abets, gives comfort to Al Qaeda. That would be no different than killing Benedict Arnold on the battlefield in the raid at Groton, Connecticut where he led British forces. He was part of the enemy force.

The truth is that Awlaki is THE poster child that exposes the “anchor baby” citizenship for the fraud that it is. He was no more an American than was bin Laden.

[StAnDeliver]

"You see, even though al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, his parents were not American citizens."

Oh, the irony.