RE: Killing people on the battlefield is entirely different from what Obama is doing.
Let’s talk about Anwar Al Awlaki, an American citizen.
He was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.
As imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia (2001-2002), which had 3,000 members, al-Aulaqi spoke with and preached to three of the 9/11 hijackers, who were al-Qaeda members.
In 2001, he presided at the funeral of the mother of Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who later e-mailed him extensively in 2008-2009 before the Fort Hood shootings.
During the period of Al-Alwaki’s later radical period after 2006-2007, when he went into hiding, he was associated with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who attempted the 2009 Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner.
Al-Alwaki was involved in planning the latter’s attack.
The Yemeni government began trying him in absentia in November 2010, for plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of al-Qaeda. A Yemeni judge ordered that he be captured “dead or alive”.
In April 2010, Obama placed him on a list of people whom the United States Central Intelligence Agency was authorized to kill because of terrorist activities.
The CIA operatives found him to be hiding in Yemen and he was taken out by a drone.
Yemen was not a battlefield and Awlaki knew that (that is why he chose that place to hide ).
Given all the evidence against him, Was it wrong to take him out then?
If not, knowing that he was where he was, should the US government just let him be to continue what he was doing?
Follow the constitution, or amend it. If a US military tribunal was convened and he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death- use a drone. Otherwise no.
Everyone knew Bin Laden was guilty too, but we didn’t send a drone to kill him. We sent a team to capture him. He resisted and was killed - he chose death over trial.
Yes, because this was not an incident in which an American happened to be a soldier among enemies in battle, but the deliberate targeting of an American citizen not engaged in actual warfare. Hence, Zero could have easily taken his ample evidence against Al Awlaki to a judge and obtained a finding and a warrant. Given how few are such cases, there is no excuse for doing otherwise.
This isn't a question of whether he should have been killed, but how the process should work.