I respect those who have problems with the extra-judicial execution of an American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, though admittedly I have a little less problem with it than most of those folks. I admit there's some (well, more than some) situational ethics involved but I really don't think I'm as bothered by this one as say the "judicial" execution of Troy Davis, or just the reliance upon death by drone in general.
And this doesn't exactly
make me feel worse:
U.S. intelligence indicates that the top al-Qaida bomb-maker in Yemen also died in the drone strike that killed radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, two U.S. officials said Friday.
Ibrahim al-Asiri is the bomb-maker linked to the bomb hidden in the underwear of a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
The FBI pulled al-Asiri's fingerprint off that bomb. Authorities also believe he built the bombs that al-Qaida slipped into printers and shipped to the U.S. last year in a nearly catastrophic attack.
Rising Hegemon
6 comments:
A full-throated three cheers, and al-Zawahiri next, please.
But this is the part where a declaration of war would be really helpful.
Why try 'em? I have complete confidence that O'Blowme and Dumbya got the right guy and could have proven it. Great idea, this killing people without trials or any other guarantees that we're not just, well, murdering people. Fuck the (former) Constitution, As quaint in its way as the Geneva Convention.
I have a problem with murder. I have a problem trusting "authority." I have a problem understanding how an open-minded, progressive, thinking person could not have a problem with these problems. I have a problem.
start small & local with your outrage... local police have been killing suspects or random people for years and get a mild rebuke and the full backing and protection of their departments... if you want to change something, you'll have better luck on a local level...
fwiw, Presidents (or their people) have been ordering the assassination / elimination of people for as long as there have been presidents... it just wasn't openly talked about...
and NO, I don't think it's right or constitutional .... it's still murder whether it's an American citizen or a Pakistani citizen.
what if we called him baby osama. or mini bin laden?
Ah, we know that it was al-Asiri because we know that the government never lies about anything.
Just ask Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman.
Quite apart from that, wouldn't al-Asiri be a suspected terrorist, and wanted for attempted murder, since, after all, the government had another fingerprint recently which caused quite a stir....
Nope. This is what happens when the government decides to militarize the response to a class of criminal activity. This is what happens when a cowed and feckless Congress writes a resolution to allow the President to do whatever he pleases, for an indefinite period of time.
This is what happens in banana republics.
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