kalm wrote:
Sorry, I don't have time right now to keep up with British waifs and the royals. And you questioned my man card.
Waifs? Come on man, they're called "hotties" and yes, I can question your man card when you dismiss hotties as something not worth your time. For shame, man, for shame.
kalm wrote:
Anyhow, I could try to argue the constitutionality of this, but again, Greenwald does it so much better.
That is the mindset of the U.S. Government and its followers expressed as vividly as can be: we can spy on, imprison, or even kill anyone we want — including citizens — without any due process or any evidence shown, simply because we will tell you they are Bad People, and you will trust us and believe us. That was absolutely the principal justification offered by Bush followers for everything their Leader did — I know they’re Terrorists because My President said so, so no courts or evidence is required – and that is now exactly the mindset of Obama loyalists to justify what he does (back in December, 2005, I described that defense as the ”Very Bad People” justification for lawless, due-process-free acts).
That mentality — he’s a Terrorist because my Government said he’s one and I therefore don’t need evidence or trials to subject that evidence to scrutiny — also happens to be the purest definition of an authoritarian mentality, the exact opposite of the dynamic that was supposed to drive how the country functioned (Thomas Jefferson: “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution“). I trust My President and don’t need to see evidence or have due process is the slavish mentality against which Jefferson warned; it’s also one of the most pervasive ones in much of the American citizenry, which explains a lot.
(1) the most ignorant claim justifying the Awlaki killing is that he committed “treason” and thus gave up citizenship; there’s this document called the “Constitution” that lays out the steps the Government is required to take before punishing a citizen for “treason” (“No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court“); suffice to say, it’s not met by the President secretly declaring someone guilty backed up by leaked, anonymous accusations to the press;
(2) a new U.S. military study today finds that Awlaki’s killing won’t impede Al Qaeda’s operational capabilities, so for those of you worried that this killing might impede Endless War, don’t worry: like the bin Laden killing, Endless War will march on unimpeded; that’s why it’s called Endless War;
(3) in the wake of the Awlaki killing, the Obama administration, and the President himself, heaped praised on the Saleh regime in the midst of that regime’s slaughter of dozens and dozens of its own citizens; I suppose condemning Yemen for killing its own citizens while Awlaki’s corpse is not yet cold would be a bit too much even given the extremely permissive standards of American political rhetoric;
(4) some journalists and priests of the National Security State are now calling on the Obama administration to reveal the evidence proving Awlaki’s guilt; while that is certainly better than nothing, evidence presented in a one-sided manner that isn’t subject to review is the opposite of due process; even more so, the idea of executing a citizen and thereafter showing evidence of guilt is precisely what the Queen in Alice in Wonderland demanded when she decreed: ”Sentence first – verdict afterwards!” That we’re reduced to begging the government to at least comply with the standards of Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts is a potent an indicator of the depths to which we’ve fallen.
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That's the best he's got? Actually kind of weak. Jefferson himself made war on the Barbary pirates and their states without any formal declaration of war by Congress (he got a very Iraq-like go ahead by Congress to do what was necessary, without ever actually declaring war), so even Jefferson's quote in the above piece is kinda hollow - if he was so concerned about the "chains of the Constitution" holding back men using power then he had a funny way of showing it. And really, Jefferson is one of the bigger wafflers of all time in these questions - he has tons of quotes that could be shown to hold one position but then as President he did a lot of stuff contrary to those quotes. You have to admit, the man was one heck of a politician.
Back to Greenwald's piece though, he doesn't spend too much time on the Constitutionality of this issue. Sure he talks about the "treason" claim, but he's right in only the truly ignorant would use that as a basis for action here so he's pretty much using a strawman argument there.
His second and third points aren't even arguments, but something more suited to message board postings. We should only kill people in Al Queda who, if we kill them, will bring about the end of Al Queda? Is he really being this simpleton? And the praise by Obama for Yemen and their ongoing internal strife is just a pot shot, not an argument.
And really his 4th argument is the same trite stuff we've heard here. We need to go through a due process (i.e. civil court) here in the US to judge actions by others on the battlefields in other countries? Again, it's not like we need our leaders to tell us who are bad people in these cases (which is mainly the thrust of Greenwald's argument here) - there actually are cases, and this was one of them, when it is very clearly easy to see who our enemy is. Heck, this guy's entire persona was being an avowed enemy of America and everything he did was waging war on us. Just like the German soldier in WWII, we didn't need to apprehend him, handcuff him, and haul him down to the courthouse back in the US to determine if he was a combatant against us or not.
Why go through the bother and $$ of a "trial"? Just revoke his citizenship, then bomb the fuck out of him. They got it right, just forgot the first step. 
