George Orwell would recognize this corrupt, lying Administration.
I think Anwar al Awlaki needed killing. Awlaki was an Al Qaeda planner, a mentor to the Ft Hood shooter, and the designer of an attack on an airliner.
Awlaki is the poster child for why we should not be giving “anchor baby citizenship”. He was born to parents here on a student visa who returned to yemen.
IOW, he wasn’t really an American in the sense that we think of it.
It is a bad idea, though, to build legal justification on an exception. Napolitano is right on most of this, but not about Awlaki.
The problem I see with doing this kind of drone hit against Americans is that they seem to be trying to build a justification for doing it against anyone that the president decides is a terrorist threat. I can imagine them declaring the Tea Party to be a terrorist group and then using that as a justification for launching drone attacks on Americans here.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Obama could find a reason to take out anyone who opposed him he would order it done.
The Patriot Act was intended to be used by a law abiding President. Obama is not now nor has he ever been a law abiding President.
He wasn’t an American in much of any sense, but hard cases make bad law. Making an exception for one American citizen (no matter how tenuous his citizenship) means that “exceptions” can be made for others, purely at the whim of the executive. Incidentally, other people in the executive branch are apparently being given the power of deciding who should be killed.
They didn’t have to give him a full trial, simply because it’s unlikely they ever would have caught him. But they most certainly should have charged him with treason and attempted to get him in the normal way, on the battlefield. It’s pretty obvious that he was a traitor, but Obama’s Holder Justice Department hasn’t charged anybody with treason, including the Fort Hood shooter, and one of the reasons for this whole easy-way-out drone tactic is to prevent Muslims from being charged with terrorism or treason, as applicable. It might give them a bad name, ya know...
You are incorrect. He was an American. As such, he gets due process of law.
Paul of Tarsus used the fact of his Roman Citizenship to demand a trial in Rome. That was 2,000 years ago. The rule of law has to be followed. Obama can otherwise decide that the next Paul to come along is a thorn in his side, and order him whacked.
He was born to parents here on a student visa who returned to yemen.
IOW, he wasn’t really an American in the sense that we think of it.
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Obama was born to a parent here on a student visa
and he got to be president of the United States...
Meanwhile the 16 yo son was an American born here with American parents who were born here...
That is serious...
plus his American friend...
And what, pray tell, precluded Obama from getting a warrant from a judge that Al Awlaki was an enemy combatant? There is no possibility that that punk could have taken an action so imminent as to have made the delay problematic when it came to protecting Americans.
The ONLY reason Zero went to all this trouble was because Al Awlaki was the perfect case with which to extend his powers to be used here against Americans.
This means you. That's why it's bad.
It looks like 0bamugabe's justification is that Awlaki "said bad things about America." That doesn't sound much like 'imminent threat' to me.
George Orwell would recognize this corrupt, lying Administration.