But when a president plays judge, jury and executioner of an American citizen without due process of law -- and in fact actually denied Awlaki his right to even be represented by an attorney so that he could challenge the reasons for being put on this hit list -- that president better prepared to make his case to the American people to let them know why they are safe and why they aren't also in danger of being next on his list.
Thank you for posting this article and for articulating a principled position which very much needed to find a place here on Free Republic. Someone once said that first you give the accused a fair trial and then you hang him and it is kinda important to do it in that order. I read a lot of reactions on this thread confiding to us that al Awlaki has somehow forfeited his citizenship, or his rights as a citizen, or, and this has not been expressly articulated, his right to equal protection of laws.
The framers quite consciously created a divided government of checks and balances precisely to prevent the coalescence of legislative, executive, prosecutorial, and warmaking powers in one individual or even in one branch. If we have come to a place where the president of the United States can order the assassination of American citizens by merely invoking a label, "war" we are on the verge of abandoning the Constitution.
At the very least, as you point out, Obama owes the country some sort of explanation, an articulation of an Obama "doctrine" if you will, about the power of the Executive to kill Americans.
I applaud your courage in taking what you must have known would be an unpopular stand. I looked up your about page and read some of your posts in the forum. I would like to say that you're to be complemented for your clarity of expression, which only comes as the product of clear thinking, and for your resolute determination to eschew the ad hominem.
I share much of your opinion about Ron Paul even though I have published many replies dismissing him as a potential candidate on the basis of electability but not, certainly, because he lacks constitutional principle. Even as I dismiss him, I have always been careful to point out that it is the Republican Party and now the Tea Party which is coming to Ron Paul and not the other way around. This is especially true concerning the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I fully agree with your observations that these wars are not making us safer. You are absolutely correct that our ability to project power abroad will be severely reduced by economic realities at home and, further, that will be strong abroad only as much as we are economically healthy at home. These are not necessarily my desires but my reading of reality.
Further, I hope Paul stays in the race as long as possible because his very presence shapes the debate in a very healthy direction.
If, as your name suggests, you are from Boca Raton, you are very brave indeed.
