>Another U.S. administration official speaking on condition of anonymity described Abdulrahman al-Awlaki as a bystander who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time," stating that "the U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki's son was there" before the airstrike was ordered.
I'm not for drone strikes, but it seems to me if your dad is an armed militant working against the US and killed in a US military operation, and then you go around associating with even more armed militants working against the US, you're asking a lot of your US citizenship to protect you from getting droned.
From the article, it seems like he was collateral damage and not the intended target - the drone strike was targeting Ibrahim al-Banna. That sucks, very much a wrong place wrong time, but I would say that a fairly effective strategy for not being collateral damage is to not hang out with internationally wanted terrorists.
I don't really see the problem with this either. It seems like they would have liked to capture him, but it was infeasible. The guy essentially declared war on the US with his actions. What special steps should they take because he is an American citizen?
A little different, but imagine if an American decided to go fight for Germany during WWII. Should he receive any special consideration above what native-born German soldiers got, before Americans start shooting towards him?
> What special steps should they take because he is an American citizen?
The due process afforded in the constitution. With, you know, trials and juries and such.
> A little different, but imagine if an American decided to go fight for Germany during WWII. Should he receive any special consideration above what native-born German soldiers got, before Americans start shooting towards him?
I would say that an operation specifically to assassinate that person without a trial should be viewed as unconstitutional.
It's illegal to assassinate even mass shooters in the US. It's only legal to kill them in defense during an active situation.
And just going to through out there that Anwar al-Awlaki isn't accused of taking up arms, just publishing political speech that the US government didn't approve of.
> It's illegal to assassinate even mass shooters in the US. It's only legal to kill them in defense during an active situation.
A drone strike feels like a pretty active situation no?
I'm not being pedantic, just pointing out that there is a ton of grey area that your statement doesn't account for, and we'd need to dive into the details of this situation to determine whether the assassination was justified or not. Even then, it would mostly be a qualitative judgement.
For example, let's say you had credible information indicating someone was going to bomb and elementary school, and you saw them running down your street towards one such school. Would you shoot?
What if, same situation, but you saw them riding a bike or driving a car toward the school? What if you had no idea where they were, but someone told you they'd be in a certain location before the attack and you could only get a drone to the location in time?
I'm not saying the gov was wrong or right with Anwar, just that the arguments presented here fail to account for real world complexity.
> A drone strike feels like a pretty active situation no?
Following that logic, drone striking you in your house is an active situation. No constitution needed.
No, I obviously meant that you're allowed to kill as LEO _in response_ to an active situation.
> For example, let's say you had credible information indicating someone was going to bomb and elementary school, and you saw them running down your street towards one such school. Would you shoot?
> What if, same situation, but you saw them riding a bike or driving a car toward the school? What if you had no idea where they were, but someone told you they'd be in a certain location before the attack and you could only get a drone to the location in time?
The real world is not the TV show 24. The purpose of the constitution is to constrain such actions even if extrajudicially drone striking every person with a modicum of 'credible evidence' against them would be easier or might lead to less tragedies.
Additionally, you're ignoring that there was no active situation Al-Waki was accused of participating in. Just political speech the government didn't approve of.
> Following that logic, drone striking you in your house is an active situation. No constitution needed. No, I obviously meant that you're allowed to kill as LEO _in response_ to an active situation.
My point was that you haven't defined what an "active situation" is. I could say "we should only kill people when we have to" and that'd be accurate, but that'd be useless for the point of this conversation, which at this point seems to be defining "have to".
> The real world is not the TV show 24. The purpose of the constitution is to constrain such actions even if extrajudicially drone striking every person with a modicum of 'credible evidence' against them would be easier or might lead to less tragedies.
Indeed, however, such things happen and people are forced to act during them. I also highly doubt the playbook the military uses is "do we have at least a modicum of evidence? then kill them."
>Additionally, you're ignoring that there was no active situation Al-Waki was accused of participating in. Just political speech the government didn't approve of.
I am ignoring no such thing as I made no comment on his situation other than to say I do not have enough information to make a judgement.
It's common enough that states have statutes regarding the use of deadly force when someone is believed to pose a threat, whether or not they are a threat in that moment. "Fleeing Felon" statutes for instance.
At the time of the assassination order, he had been out of the US for over 6 years, and was a public leader in a war against the US that had already killed thousands of American civilians.
He was convicted and ordered to "capture dead or alive" by a Yemeni court.
Should the US conducted the formality of convicting him of treason in absentia? Sure.
None of this remotely excuses killing his children.
Many American officials were public leaders in war that already have killed about a million. Would it be ok for foreign governments to liquidate those people, or should they conduct the formality of convincing them first?
Once again - you’re assuming US was the good guys there. Which is quite an absurd assumption if you look at the numbers instead of propaganda.
Americans are afforded due process rights under the Constitution. I'm not saying he wasn't a bad guy, he clearly was. But it's not the same as a soldier (or police officer, or anyone really) shooting someone who's actively shooting at them. This was a straight up execution of a citizen without due process.
Nobody, including the President, has the right to do that. It was blatantly unconstitutional.
What other due process is there, relative to the Authorization for Use of Military Force act of 2001? Congress gave POTUS the power to go after people like al-Awlaki with it. It's been on the books for 20+ years, the Supreme Court has essentially ruled it is a constitutional giving of power by Congress to POTUS e.g. in Hamadi vs Rumsfeld. If the US military could have captured al-Awlaki without incident, then drone striking him would probably not be considered "necessary and appropriate force". But, it wasn't reasonable to capture him, so what alternative is there?
How about simply not murdering people on the other side of the world?
Here’s a mental experiment for you: what would you do if Russia, lawfully (according to Russian laws) executed people in US? Because that’s exactly what US is doing to the rest of the world.
Well, that sounds like a great idea. But, it needs to be a two way street. Convince terrorists planning terror attacks to not murder people on the other side of the world, then I'm sure America would drastically cut down on the number of people it killed on the other side of the world.
> what would you do if Russia, lawfully (according to Russian laws) executed people in US? Because that’s exactly what US is doing to the rest of the world.
Well, that depends - is the US government a failed state incapable of enforcing its own laws? Or did the US government give permission for this to happen? Then sure, go right ahead Russia. The Yemeni government gave the greenlight for the US to drone strike al-Awlaki.
Number of victims of terrorist attacks on the other side of the world is orders of magnitude lower than number of victims of American invasions. Even 9/11 was a minor episode compared to the invasion it served as an excuse for.
Essentially, you’re assuming US are always the good guys. And the easiest way to explain this is the foundation of all US politics: racism.
Having said that, US _arr_ the good guys at the moment, and let’s hope it stays that way.
If Russia executed people that were waging war against Russia from within the US, that the US had already convicted of making war on Russia, was the US also trying to capture or kill at the same time?
There’s no conviction involved in either of those situations. Just Russia - or Iran - executing people inconvenient to Russia, on US soil, obviously against US will. Exactly what US is doing to other countries.
Yeah that analysis of if he could be captured alive feasibly was his crappy version of due process.
Not enough for my taste, but it at least caused a hiccup in the meat grinder. And it diminishes Obama's legacy in an objective way that can be repeated ad nauseam, legitimately. He lives on past the bullets as a bullet-point in presentations, discussions, debates and speeches.
Salutations, fellow United States citizen Mr. Al-Awlaki.
If you're in a foreign country aiding what is essentially a terrorist group or directly fighting for them on the front lines, why do you expect they would get due process?
EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Thank you Jaywalk for the correct link