Quote:
Originally Posted by TexTushHog
As a practical matter, I'm not terribly concerned with whether Awlaki is a bad actor. He likely is. But once you establish a precedent, it has to be one that can be used no matter how well intentioned or badly intentioned the office holder at the time may be. And it does very much give me indigestion that one man (the President) can make a decision to have a targeted killing of some American, somewhere, with the simple stroke of a pen.
If that's going to be the law, how do you distinguish this situation from the President having a political opponent gunned down while eating breakfast at the Four Seasons. One answer is obviously that practical outrage accompanies one act and not the other. But one can certainly imagine that many killings that would not be lawful might be either 1) popular; or 2) able to be made anonymously; or 3) with out being discovered. And that give me indigestion. Our system is one that inherently has checks and balances. And I really don't see any checks and balance in this context.
Could Congress pass a law outlining a procedure where the President could Constitutionally authorize a procedure where the President could get the equivalent of a warrant from some national security court and accomplish the same thing? I'm not sure, but I would rest somewhat easier with that sort of procedure in place provided that the hurdles to overcome were high and limited to citizens outside the country and actively engaged in substantial hostile acts against the country and in a situation where they could not be otherwise brought to justice. At least we'd have a debate about what circumstances would have to exist first, outline the extreme case that would have to be made, and figure out a way to put some reasonable checks on unilateral action by the executive that would still allow us to defend ourselves in unusual cases, but wouldn't grant carte blanche to the President to go hog wild.
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“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” but TTH, the concern you express is legitimate.
It’s interesting to note that Abraham Lincoln was satisfied to allow former Confederate leaders and agents to flee the country at the end of the Civil War, but things have changed. Perhaps it’s the nature of asymmetric warfare to promote assassination as a means to an end. There’s no doubt Usama bin Laden or Anwar al-Awlaki would have assassinated Clinton, Bush or Obama if given half a chance.
However, there’s also no doubt Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino,
et al, would have been similarly “assassinated” if the U.S. had had the capacity to do so during WWII. Pat Buchannan, I coincidentally discovered this morning, broached this point on Friday:
http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-...olumnsName=pbu When considering Al-Awlaki, WWII’s “Lord Haw-Haw” and “Tokyo Rose” immediately came to mind. “Lord Haw-Haw” - though American born - was a Brit problem. But Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was an American citizen and an American problem. Al-Awlaki is our 21st century equivalent to the “Tokyo Rose” persona.
