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Arabia
Al-Qaeda joins those questioning legality of U.S. killing of citizen Anwar al-Awlaki
2011-10-11
[Washington Post] Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has confirmed the deaths of American-born holy man Anwar al-Awlaki
... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is an Islamic holy man who is a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list...
and Samir Khan, the young American propagandist killed alongside him in a U.S. drone strike late last month.

Al-Qaeda has also criticized the B.O. regime for killing U.S. citizens, saying doing so "contradicts" American law.
So does slamming airplanes into office towers...
"Where are what they keep talking about regarding freedom, justice, human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
and respect of freedoms?!" the statement says, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist Web sites.

The B.O. regime has spoken in broad terms about its authority to use military and paramilitary force against al-Qaeda and associated forces, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would find itself hard-pressed to claim the moral high ground in the debate over the killing of Awlaki and Khan.

But the killing of two U.S. citizens has prompted outrage among civil liberties groups, as well as a debate in legal circles about the basis for the administration's position.

The Washington Post's Peter Finn reported after the strike that Awlaki's killing had been authorized in a secret Justice Department memo, a revelation that later prompted senior Democratic senators and scholars to call for its release. Over the weekend, The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
quoted people who have read the document as saying that the memo found it would be lawful to kill the holy man only if it were not possible to take him alive. The memo, the Times said, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Awlaki's case.

Among those who have raised legal objections to the strike: Samir Khan's family in Charlotte, N.C.

In a statement, the family said that, Khan was a "law-abiding citizen of the United States" and "was never implicated of any crime."

"Was this style of execution the only solution?" the family said. "Why couldn't there have been a capture and trial?"
Posted by:Fred

#5  ...while they are committing perfidious acts.

"Perfidious"

nice.
Posted by: Skidmark   2011-10-11 23:55  

#4  There should also be a long and very wide awake execution for outlaws if we catch them.
Posted by: Creregum Glolump8403   2011-10-11 18:47  

#3  A Judge should be able to declare someone an OUTLAW.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2011-10-11 18:01  

#2  It makes no sense to me to offer legal protections to to people who gain US citizenship just to make it "illegal" to blow their a$$ up on the battlefield in another country while they are committing perfidious acts.

Perhaps a distinction that hasn't been considered much is that in a "typical" alleged traitor's case, getting our hands on him involves wading through a bunch of our own citizens. It is possible that our general population is on the traitor's side to a significant degree, so the traitor need to have protections so that the government would have to answer to this general discontent.

In Al-Unlucky's case, getting our hands on him involves would have involved significant cost and risk because our agents would have to wade through hostile forces in another country, who nobody's government, especially our own, should have to answer to.

I suppose an answer to all of this would have been to call for him to surrender himself. If he had surrendered voluntarily at our embassy in Yemen, or had surrendered to Yemeni authorities, or if we had been able to go out and arrest him by force on American territory, then, he should have had the usual legal rights. But since he had made himself inaccessible without significant risk to Americans and also declined to surrender himself, then he has waived those protections.

Also, in cases like this, it would make sense for there to be some sort of review of the decision-making process to make sure that the traitor truly was significantly aiding a significant enemy, that he was not on American territory, that arresting him would involve significant risk above what would be found if he were in American territory, that we had publicly called for him to surrender in a meaningful way, that he had failed to surrender in a reasonable time, and that the decision to have him whacked was justified and done with due process.

And this should probably be done before the fact if possible rather than after, but there's always a first time for everything.
Posted by: gorb   2011-10-11 09:48  

#1  Those that pledge allegiance and are loyal to the U.S., are treated one way. Those that join a foreign army, kill Americans, and are not loyal, are treated another way. Too bad, so sad.
Posted by: whatadeal   2011-10-11 02:32  

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