I am not a Paulbot. I can’t stand the guy. But even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
By the way, I am not even saying this should not have been done. But in typical Obama fashion he did it feeling no need to justify it to the American people.
Awlaki was put on the hit list in 2010. There was plenty of time at that point to provide a Constitutional basis for that decision. Pres Bush provided legal and Constitutional basis for Gitmo and water boarding.
See this opinion by Jed Babbin, former Pres Reagan administration, writer for Am Spectator. Note it was written in Feb 2011.
“To wage such a war, the president should ask Congress to amend the Immigration and Natu-ralization Act to deprive terrorists of their citizenship. And, announcing his action in a major speech, the president should rewrite Executive Order 12333 to permit the assassination of any member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization whom the president designates-secretly-as a clear and present danger. That would accomplish the objective: the intelligence agencies, in secret presidential determinations shared with a limited number of the intelligence community’s congres-sional overseers, would be specifically licensed to kill the designated terrorists.
Terrorists — whatever their nationality — should not be able to hide behind their citizenship or American law to save them from the fates they have earned by their actions.”
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/02/12/whacking-anwar/print