This is a diary in response to Semdem's How many terrorists does Obama Have to Kill?
This isn't a contest, I hope.
By order of Barack H. Obama, President of the United States of America, a drone strike was carried out in the mountains of Yemen on Friday to kill a top al-Qaida tool used for propaganda here in the west. They also suspected him of helping to plot with the new recruit, the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the attempted bombing of 2009 Christmas Day bombing of an airliner heading to Detroit.
al-Awlaki was an American citizen.
He was suspected and thus "eliminated" with little deliberation about the consequences of assassinating a fellow American with the use of the CIA's new mechanized arm of death.
This is what we've come to. A Democrat in the White House, more assassinations and a broadening of the Bush policies on War on Terror™. Barack Obama has relied on and expanded the use of Drone strikes to enter sovereign air space and take out targets suspected of plotting and speechifying against the United States and its interests in the Middle East.
In New York, the Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt told interrogators he was “inspired” by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet. WAPO
Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, also exchanged up to 20 emails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, alleged killer of 13 people in the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at Fort Hood. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki’s Internet sermons, and approached him for religious advice.
Al-Awlaki’s East-West cross-appeal was seen as a potential model for the next generation of al-Qaida leaders. But his rise to prominence also drew the attention of the CIA, and landed him on its capture-or-kill list, the first American so targeted.
No trial or charges or evidence delivered to the American public on why we should assassinate a fellow citizen other that his status as an al-Qaida mouthpiece to the West and his charisma as a preacher.
If anyone truly believes that this works to our advantage as a net result of fomenting more anti-American and anti-Obama sentiment in the world because we've eliminated one more lieutenant in al-Qaida's operation, they are deluded. Martyrs have a way of multiplying for the cause and their sermons gain even more cover of a legitimate cause against American aggression. They now have more immediate proof.
But if that's not important as a self-defeating tactic, how about the assassination of Americans abroad? No issues there? The War on Terror™ has no room for any ethical and moral questioning of its conduct for sure. We've surrenderer those luxuries of a civilized nation long ago. We've learned much through the British and the Israelis about how to deal with our enemies. And treaties on torture? Our own military codes on the handling of prisoners? We are the United States after all. Exceptions to our own Exceptional standards. Get the lawyer up here and pull a memorandum out of his ass justifying it all. Done.
Now we've cast aside even one foundation of what in the West was determined to be a Rubicon: You don't assassinate your own citizens. Whether they deserve it, or can be suspected of plotting against their country, their status is considered to be something apart from their persons that calls for "exceptional" rights in respect to the nation itself.
No more. Quaint, I realize like all the other things we've learned to accept this past decade about our illusions of what America's promise is to the rest of the world. Nothing stands anymore in the Blitzkrieg to "smoke 'em out" and get Democracy™ done in our image across the globe. Of course this now means that Democracy demands assassination of its wayward children without the due diligence of the demands of justice between fellow citizens.
I don't know if al-Awlaki was a threat to our shores. None of us will ever know. Top secret stuff and reports "he was believed to have been" is all we'll ever have proof of as American citizens. We will just have to trust in America and its stewards in the intelligence services from now on. We have to because it's looking like we have no other options in this age of endless War on Terror™ and domestic surveillance unparalleled by cost and secrecy. We have an unchallenged paradigm that U.S. presidents not only have the option of assassination abroad into sovereign nations but have no political room to hesitate doing so even when it's a fellow American.
What's truly sad is to see this become a contest of the manhood of the Commander-in-Chief and an opportunity to fly the Red Meat of "Tough on Terr'sts". If this is what we will always demand of our leaders you can count on the fact that eventually you will lose the Oval office to even more blood thirsty potentiates than a Bush or Cheney.
Those excuses to eliminate American citizens abroad will eventually expand to domestic varieties also "suspected" without trial. The lie that it "can never happen here" exceptionalism is exactly what will lead to a loss of vigilance over our government, it's secrecy and its claim over lives.
Goodbye Republic.