Anwar Awlaki Killed by U.S....Ron Paul Responds..
 

I agree with Ron Paul...this is disturbing and will do -0- in this "islamlic terrorist" money transfer scheme....Read on..


http://discussions.latimes.com/20/la...ki-20110930/10

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, on Friday criticized the Obama administration’s action in killing Anwar Awlaki, the American-born cleric who advocated jihad against the United States.

Paul was the strongest critic on the Republican side in condemning the attack, which was praised by other candidates including Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a libertarian like Paul, also questioned the tactic of killing a U.S. citizen without due process.

Awlaki, a prominent voice in Yemen’s Al Qaeda affiliate, and Samir Khan, an editor of a jihadist magazine, were killed in an air attack in Yemen by what U.S. and Yemeni officials say was an operation that involved U.S. military and intelligence assets. The attack is part of a campaign against Islamic terrorists that included the killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in May in Pakistan.

After a campaign stop at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, Paul told reporters that Americans need to think about such actions because Awlaki was born in the United States and was entitled to the same rights as all U.S. citizens.

"No, I don't think that's a good way to deal with our problems,” Paul said in a videotape of the questioning by reporters. Awlaki “was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody. We know he might have been associated with the ‘underwear bomber.’ But if the American people accept this blindly and casually that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys. I think it's sad.”

Paul went on to compare the situation to Timothy McVeigh, convicted of blowing up a truck bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The attack killed 168 people and injured more than 800 people.

“I think, what would people have said about Timothy McVeigh? We didn't assassinate him, who certainly had done it,” Paul said. McVeigh “was put through the courts then executed. … To start assassinating American citizens without charges, we should think very seriously about this.”

Paul argued that the killing of Awlaki was different from the attack on Bin Laden because Bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

“I voted for authority to go after those individuals responsible for 9/11,” Paul said. “Nobody ever suggested that he [Awlaki] was participant in 9/11.”

Paul has been running behind the leaders in the GOP race for the presidential nod, but has been as high as third or fourth in many national polls, running at around 10%. Johnson has been far back in the pack, running in the very low single digits.

In an interview with Fox News, Johnson made the same points as Paul, warning that killing an American citizen without due process set a dangerous precedent despite the need for the United States to remain vigilant against terrorism.

Paul and Johnson represent the neo-isolationist wing of the GOP, but other parts of the Republican Party have advocated a foreign policy based on a more robust U.S. role abroad. Perry, the leader in most polls for the GOP nomination though his star has faded in recent days, praised the attack.

“I want to congratulate the United States military and intelligence communities – and President Obama for sticking with the government's long-standing and aggressive anti-terror policies – for getting another key international terrorist,” Perry said in a prepared statement.

Perry went on to call the death of Awlaki an “important victory in the war on terror.”

[Updated at 10:01 a.m. Sept. 30: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also praised the Obama administration in a prepared statement.

“I commend the president, the members of the intelligence community, our service members, and our allies for their continued efforts to keep Americans safe," Romney stated.]

Ironically, the libertarian opposition to the attack was similar to the argument by the American Civil Liberties Union in its disapproval.

"The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law,” ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer said in a prepared statement. “As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts.

"The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the president – any president – with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country,” he stated.

Did Awlaki ever renounce his American citizenship?

yeah, we should take him prisoner and let him rot in jail, all the while recruiting more members and spreading his "word"

Here you go:

Process: fuel drone->arm drone->taxi drone->get drone airborne->search for target->push red button->land drone->refuel drone....

Goddamn. How long 'til the Govt. decides that "drug dealers" are terrorists and start sending drones after them too? Hell, they've already made that claim in the past...

The reason why this is terrifying, is because the average American citizen doesn't think its terrifying.

I think it is terrifying to an extent, for sure. The question becomes: where is the line? Problem is, if it doesn't cancel Jersey Shore of Survivor, nobody notices.

Uhhh....I'm pretty sure the line is clear here. You don't execute US citizens without them being sentenced to death row by jury trail.

Really shouldn't be executing anybody at this point, but hey, that's another thread.

so you're an above average american citizen, lol

So let me be devil's advocate: say someone is hanging around with someone known to be responsible for hundreds of deaths and the person hanging around with said scumbag is a sympathizer with the aforementioned scumbag.... Wrong place, wrong time or "let's capture the smaller fish so the bigger fish can get away and kill more people"?

Not taking either side, just curious.

Here's what gets me... The gubment is sitting around letting KSM rot in jail for 8 years, trying to decide if they should try him in civilian courts or via military tribunal... and they just drop a fucking bomb on this guy... So while we try to figure out what's most fair for a foreign enemy combatent who's list of crimes is as long as the post whore thread, we drop a bomb on an American citizen who hasn't been directly involved in any crimes... I don't disagree with killing the fucking guy, per say... BUT, there's a bit of hypocrisy swimming around this whole thing...

And Kaneman's right... it seems as though the government can really do anything it wants with no regard for logic or good sense and without any sort of repercussions...

This article makes the assumption that Presidential approval was obtained or even required.

I would think that any decisions to bomb people in Yemen, would have to go pretty high up the food chain.

If Presidential approval was needed to kill Bin Laden, it was likely needed in this case.

JC

I'm pretty sure America had about the same legal right to go in to Yemen and arrest him as they did to bomb him in Yemen, none without permission from the Yemeni government. It would appear the Yemeni government was OK with one of those options, the one our government took. It isn't like he was going to get arrested for driving without a license plate and having an invalid firearms permit in Oklahoma like Paul's example McVeigh. I'm not exactly sure how Paul expected Awlaki to be brought to his vision of justice from outside America's jurisdiction in a foreign country that may or may not have been willing to allow Awlaki to be grabbed and extradited to the US.

I think if you self-identify as a member of enemy group, like AlQeda you wave your right to due process.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/exclusiv...161008956.html

props to big O if the story is the truth

:bowtome: lol

We are a country based upon the rule of law. Every U.S. citizen is fortified due process under the Constitution unless that person is a DIRECT and IMMINENT threat to the national security of the United States. Many do not believe this to be the case.

Don't like it? Go live under Dictatorship rule, because this is what will become of of this country if we keep giving our government more and more rope.

You kill this guy and 6 more will take his place. We would not have terrorists with any sort of power if governments didn't train them and prop them up financially.

When are we (let's negate the money transfer scheme here) going to realize that killing Muslims is not going to change an ideology. We need to quit fucking around in these Arab countries and quit worrying about whether Iran is going to blow up Israel. Why should America give a shit? Oil? World domination? We like Jews? It's about money folks and people here are dying over it..and ironically lining up in droves to do it.

Let's face it people...we are fucking BROKE with a capital B and we continue to bleed money overseas for no other reason then to make a select few rich in the name of "security".

It isn't an assumption. It has been reported multiple times that Obama put Awlaki on a targeted killings list toward the beginning of 2010, to the point that Awlaki's father sued the government to get him removed from it. Obviously this was unsuccessful. For what it is worth the Yemeni government also issued a capture or kill warrant against him quite a while ago. From what I understand they also promised that if he was turned in they would not turn him over to America.

He knew the US and Yemeni governments were after him. He could have turned himself in to either government and used the opportunity to attempt to prove his innocence. Instead he decided to hide out and continue to call for Muslim violence against and within America. That it didn't work out so well is his tough shit.:shrug:

I wonder how Americans will feel when Islamists (Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, palestinians, pick one) decide to execute the "terrorists" in America, on American soil, like a mall, transport hub, or sporting event, who have invaded their lands and killed their people?

Will we be OK with getting what we have been giving?

It is not a matter of who started what and when, it is a matter of where and how it will end.

We fire Hellfire rounds at "targets" without regard for who else may be there, but it is not acceptable for them to detonate backpacks or vests in public here?

Is it going to be OK for Islamists to execute people in America who are on their "hit Lists?"

Let's say a general of the US Army decides to side with the enemy. Let's say Stormin Norman decided he wanted to side with Iraq and flew to Iraq and started directing Iraq troops against American troops. Do we allow him to walk around the street with out worry becuase he knows we have to extract him and not kill him so he can be put on trial?

I don't know much about this guy, but I'm guessing that taking the effort to go to Yemen to work with terrorist organizations against the United States is renouncing your citizenship and opens you up to the same bombings as every other person gets. Regardless if you have official documents from the government or not.

Let's say the government decides you, a citizen are a threat to national security. Would you like a trial like the constitution says you get as a citizen, or just a pre-emptive strike where we totally discard your rights and wipe you out, even though you haven't really done anything and nobody really thinks you have? Think carefully before you answer...

You are speaking like this is some kind of hypothetical. I'd say this has been happening for quite a while.

You present it like these are the only two alternatives.

Personally if I were deemed a threat to national security I would select the trial. I'd do so because I know I probably won't see the inside of a courtroom anytime soon, if ever. What the trial really means is I chill in Yemen for the foreseeable future, protected by my "tribe" from the US and Yemeni governments.

In short, I'd choose the trial because I know the trial will probably never happen.

He is the commander in chief. If people are taking this type of actions without his knowledge, he should of been out screaming this is NOT what we do to American citizens and people took action without his knowledge. This is HIS responsibility as the biggest boss of the military.

OK, maybe since this was a US citizen, he was consulted, but otherwise.......I suspect that a large percentage, or even most, of the people we've killed with drones weren't even on the most-wanted list. He isn't going to know about those people, nor does he need to. Stuff like this has been happening almost every week for the past 5 years.

As I said, I don't know that many details about this guy. I'm assuming that he was big enough of a deal that the President was willing to drop bombs in another country that we aren't warring with to get this guy. I'm assuming this guy is a bad mama-jama

This guy didn't just give aide and comfort to the enemy by taking some nice pictures and hugging a tank. He became the enemy and started driving the tank.

Now if this guy surrendered to the US or just happend to somehow get captured then yes, he deserves his trial and to be executed if convicted. Since he didn't, he deserved the bombing he got.

I think President Obama did the right thing.

Sort of like Obama and Biden refering to TeaParty folks as terrorists?

When did this happen?

This. Holy crap, this.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60421.html

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/poli...to-terrorists/

As a point of law, or a footnote in some romantic notion of fairness, the killing of Awlaki was wrong.

You could argue that he never picked up a gun and shot somebody, never strapped on vest and blew something up. He merely "counseled" people. He was al-Qaeda's Charlie Manson, (he never killed anybody either).

The thing is, he joined the other team. Citizen or not, if you declare war on your own country, I don't see how you can claim the protection of that country's laws. The man was a self proclaimed terrorist, and there was no doubt of his intentions, yet some of you want to hold him up as an "American".

Some things are wrong on principle, yet right in practicality.

Anwar Awlaki was, in part, responsible for the events that led up to TSA agents feeling up your junk at airports.

As far as I'm concerned, that's reason enough to bomb the prick. Fuck him. American or not, I'm glad he's dead.

JC

I think his death sets a bad president

Accidental or intentional?:lol:

Goddamn spell checher!

JC

Zoomie, this is not really a precedent. "We", have killed plenty of Americans without due process.

At least this time we killed one we can feel good about.

I hate ferret faced motherfuckers like him, much more than I do the actual shooters/bombers.

Asshole sits there with a web cam, and tells everybody else that THEY should go die. Cowardly piece of shit, you go first if it's such a great idea.

Look on the bright side, we didn't torture him.

JC

ferret faced :lol:

:lol: damn android.

No, I understand. And, I don't necessarily disagree with you. It just seems to all be in the name of our liberty. That is, when OUR liberty is not actually at risk.

No, excuse me. Our liberty left the building with common sense.