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Awlaki Killing: Constitutional?

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It's the precedence that will be set by using the excuse of national security that bothers me.

Plus, Awlaki would be much more valuable alive than dead.

Using a Hellfire missile to take out American citizens is definitely scary in the long term.
 
Mike said:
It's the precedence that will be set by using the excuse of national security that bothers me.

The precedence had already been set by President Bush back in 2002...


The circumstances of Khan's death were reminiscent of a 2002 U.S. drone strike in Yemen that targeted Abu Ali al-Harithi, a Yemeni al-Qaeda operative accused of planning the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. That strike also killed a U.S. citizen who the CIA knew was in Harithi's vehicle but who was a target of the attack .
 
Kamal DerwishFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Kamal Derwish (also Ahmed Hijazi) was an American citizen killed by the CIA as part of a covert targeted killing mission in Yemen on November 5, 2002. The CIA used an RQ-1 Predator drone to shoot a Hellfire missile, destroying the vehicle in which he was driving with five others.[1]

Derwish had been closely linked to the growing religious fundamentalism of the Lackawanna Six, a group of Muslim-Americans who had attended lectures in his apartment near Buffalo, New York.[2][3]

That an American citizen had been killed by the CIA without trial drew criticism.[4] American authorities quickly back-pedaled on their stories celebrating the death of Derwish, instead noting they had been unaware he was in the car which they said had been targeted for its other occupants, including Abu Ali al-Harithi, believed to have played some role in the USS Cole bombing.[
 
Oldtimer said:
Mike said:
It's the precedence that will be set by using the excuse of national security that bothers me.

The precedence had already been set by President Bush back in 2002...


The circumstances of Khan's death were reminiscent of a 2002 U.S. drone strike in Yemen that targeted Abu Ali al-Harithi, a Yemeni al-Qaeda operative accused of planning the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. That strike also killed a U.S. citizen who the CIA knew was in Harithi's vehicle but who was a target of the attack .



In other words it's George Bush's fault.
 
Oldtimer said:
Mike said:
It's the precedence that will be set by using the excuse of national security that bothers me.

The precedence had already been set by President Bush back in 2002...


The circumstances of Khan's death were reminiscent of a 2002 U.S. drone strike in Yemen that targeted Abu Ali al-Harithi, a Yemeni al-Qaeda operative accused of planning the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. That strike also killed a U.S. citizen who the CIA knew was in Harithi's vehicle but who was a target of the attack .

still illegal..

who wants to rob OT's house.. as long as several of US do it it is OK and we can set a precedence..

Two wrongs do not make it right or a precedence or legal..

if that was the case there would be no crimes as nothing would be a crime... precedence only serves to define compliance with the law, not to justify breaking it..

I don't fault FDR, Reagan, Bush or even Obama.. but the law is clear.
 
I am not sure about the constitution banning the execution or assassination of the thug..

but,.. what part of this is wrong?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
 
What about all the old Wanted posters from the Wild West, "Wanted: Dead or Alive" Was that constitutional back then? Is this really any different?
 
Ben H said:
What about all the old Wanted posters from the Wild West, "Wanted: Dead or Alive" Was that constitutional back then? Is this really any different?
No it was not ...that is why things changed and better law enforcement put in place.
 
Ben H said:
What about all the old Wanted posters from the Wild West, "Wanted: Dead or Alive" Was that constitutional back then? Is this really any different?


wasn't that AFTER charges had been filed and an arrest warant issued? :???:
 
But many patriotic Americans are wondering: Does the President have the rightful power to order the assassination of any U.S. citizen he deems a threat or a danger to society? And if the answer to that first question is yes, what limit can be placed on a presidential license to kill? The Constitution and Anglo-American common law places no firewalls on this pretended new presidential power. And if the President is to be trusted with an unlimited license to kill, why should the United States continue to bother with inefficient courts, juries, and trials at all?

The basic argument justifying Obama's assassination of Awlaki is this: Trust the President with an unlimited license to kill. Putting a video criticizing America on YouTube, as Awlaki unquestionably did, may not be a crime punishable by death. But the President says he has secret evidence Awlaki did more than cheer on terrorists. We must, the President/executioner's supporters argue, trust the President.

But America's whole history, indeed the lesson of the whole 800-year-old Anglo-American common law system, is that chief executives cannot be trusted to be judge, jury, and executioner. The Anglo-American purpose in holding trials was not to confer some benefit upon the guilty, but to sort the guilty from the innocent so that innocents are not punished. Chief executives have long knowingly thrown innocent people in jail (or knowingly kept innocents there, as Bush and Cheney did with some innocents at Guantanamo) or even killed innocents.

Trusting the President with a license to kill certainly makes all courts obsolete. If Americans must trust the President in this case, why should they doubt him in other cases? As noted above, there is no constitutional provision or power to limit this precedent from multiplying. If the President has this power to stop terrorism, then he has it to stop any crime.

Obama's assassination is a direct attack on the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers' vision for America. James Madison argued in The Federalist #51 that the very purpose of government was separation of powers, to prevent the executive from becoming judge, jury, and executioner. He wrote that the purpose of the U.S. Constitution was:

to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty.... In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

Alexander Hamilton agreed with Madison, writing in The Federalist #78 (and quoting Enlightenment author Baron de Montesquieu):

For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers."
 
Ben H said:
What about all the old Wanted posters from the Wild West, "Wanted: Dead or Alive" Was that constitutional back then? Is this really any different?

if a person is wanted dead or alive... the reward will pay even if you kill the person in an attempt to apprehend him... .
 

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