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Posted on 05/14/2010 1:27:27 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.
The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy.
To eavesdrop on the terrorism suspect who was added to the target list, the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen, intelligence agencies would have to get a court warrant. But designating him for death, as C.I.A. officials did early this year with the National Security Council’s approval, required no judicial review.
“Congress has protected Awlaki’s cellphone calls,” said Vicki Divoll, a former C.I.A. lawyer who now teaches at the United States Naval Academy. “But it has not provided any protections for his life. That makes no sense.”
Administration officials take the view that no legal or constitutional rights can protect Mr. Awlaki, a charismatic preacher who has said it is a religious duty to attack the United States and who the C.I.A. believes is actively plotting violence. The attempted bombing of Times Square on May 1 is the latest of more than a dozen terrorist plots in the West that investigators believe were inspired in part by Mr. Awlaki’s rhetoric.
“American citizenship doesn’t give you carte blanche to wage war against your own country,” said a counterterrorism official who discussed the classified program on condition of anonymity. “If you cast your lot with its enemies, you may well share their fate.”
President Obama, who campaigned for the presidency against George W. Bush-era interrogation and detention practices...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Get Mitch Rapp on the job ASAP.
And what did they think that cloak and dagger espioniage was all about?
Awlaki does not operate on US soil. If Bin Laden held "dual" citizenship would we be hesitant to take him out with a missile strike?
Is this Obama’s fault?
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No different that a police sniper taking out a US Citizen Criminal holding a hostage at gun point....
They get one right and will probably end up apologizing over it.
Awlaki is an active combatant in the WOT. As such, he’s fair game, just as Admiral Yamamoto was when we sent out a hit team of P-38s to whack him in WWII.
Yep. Or even more like a Marine sniper taking out a U.S. citizen spy, in Germany, working for the Nazis.
Last I heard, treason and sedition were death penalty offenses ...
ANYONE betraying their country has forfeited their rights that they were afforded when they were law-abiding citizens of said country ...
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Well, he does have the right to remain silent. His remains will be silent too, I imagine.