Posted on 10/09/2011 9:48:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is unequivocal: no American shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." No amount of ducking and diving will evade the inescapable fact that, for the first time, U.S. military officials in an aggressive overreach of constitutional authority deliberately targeted an American citizen for killing. And no amount of legalistic wordplay will alter the reality that al-Awlaki was denied due process.
(No, Mr Gingrich, the signing of a death warrant by an American President does not constitute "due process," except perhaps in North Korea or Iran. Our Founding Fathers taught us better than that.)
Al-Awlaki was an acknowledged "bad guy" who incited, trained, and prepared others to commit heinous terrorist crimes designed to inflict death and injury upon his fellow countrymen. He was, assuredly, our self-confessed enemy, and he fully deserved to die -- but not without due process. We don't sanction the use of government hit squads to assassinate U.S. citizens who are responsible for the most unspeakable crimes. We don't do it even when they admit to those crimes. Instead we invoke the moral authority of Constitution to insist on their right to due process, even in cases where the accused is unwilling to offer any defense. Only when due process has been exhausted and the accused is found guilty do we have the moral authority to invoke the ultimate punishment.
The reason for this important Constitutional safeguard is self-evident. In the words of Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU:
The government's power to use lethal force against its own citizens should be strictly limited to circumstances in which the threat of life is concrete and specific, and also imminent.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Alwaki was a muzzi first and always.He just happened to have US citizenship.I dont trust any of them.
Seriously, if you are going to the ACLU to back up your position, you should re-examine your premises.
What's outrageous is that Alwaki should be presumed to have US citizen just because his parents were temporarily living in the US when he was born.
On the battlefield, bullets and bombs are all the due process that terrorists are entitled to — even if they are American citizens.
Al-Awlaki publicly renounced his US citizenship and was plotting terror attacks against America in the mountains of Yemen. Sending in police to arrest and mirandize him would have been stupid and dangerous. The constitution is not a suicide pact. Killing him was the absolute correct thing to do and the goofy Ron Paul/libertarian types arguing otherwise are living in a world of theory and fantasy.
There is no way I’d trust the defense of this nation to anyone who didn’t understand the necessity of taking Al-Awlaki out.
Got a source for that?
When you wage war against America, isn’t that de-facto renouncing your citizenship?
"Aggressive overreach" is certainly an apt metaphor for the Ubama administration.
The Constitution and The Bill of Rights are not a suicide pact. When an American citizen takes up arms against his own country or encourages violence against the same then the privilege ends.
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Cain, May 5, 2011, Regarding the killing of al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki
"He should be charged. And since he's an American citizen, he should be tried in our courts," Cain said of al-Awlaki. When asked if he considered it legal for President Obama to order al-Awlaki killed, Cain said, "In his case, no, because he's an American citizen. If he's an American citizen, which is the big difference, then he should be charged, and he should be arrested and brought to justice."
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Cain, October, 2011, Regarding the killing of al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki
"Asked why he had backed off his opposition to the U.S. military's targeting Anwar Awlaki, the al Qaeda terrorist and American citizen who was killed Friday by a drone strike in Yemen, Cain denied that he had ever opposed taking out Awlaki. “I never said that [President Obama] should not have ordered [the killing]. I don’t recall saying that. I think you’ve got some misinformation," Cain said. "Keep in mind that there are a lot of people out there trying to make me sound as if I am indecisive."
Mr. Alwaki was functioning as an officer, commander, and propagandist for Al Queda, an organization in a state of war with the United States. By doing so he becomes a legitimate military target.
Had he been captured, he could have been tried, convicted, and executed by the civil court system. However, while at large he is a functioning enemy of the United States and was treated as such.
Not according to U.S. statutes, no.
I didn’t think so.
I’m not sure you got the right understanding from my statement. I was saying that, no, your citizenship is not automatically revoked when you wage war against America.
End of story.
Usually once people read through and think about what the Fifth actually says they come around to the position that it was not only OK to shoot Alwaki with a cruise missile, he could have been nuked!
I'd like to see that used on the next puke.
You either uphold and defend the entire Constitution or you don’t. I hate terrorists as much as the next guy, but suggesting that it is okay to kill Americans without due process is a violation of the Constitution, and unless this guy was actually in the physical act of waging war against the U.S. when he was killed, It’s my opinion that his rights as an American to due process were violated. Are you okay with that? Be careful, because it might be you you who is on someone’s secret government hit list the next go round.
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