Radical American-born Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the top target on our terrorist hit list, was killed today when a drone-fired Hellfire missile hit his convoy in Yemen.

A senior administration official in Washington said the killing of Mr. Awlaki was important because he had become Al Qaeda’s greatest English-language propagandist and one of its top operational planners.

[…] Mr. Awlaki’s name has been associated with many plots in the United States and elsewhere after individuals planning violence were drawn to his engaging lectures broadcast over the Internet.

Those individuals included Major Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged in the shootings at Fort Hood in which 13 people were killed; the young men who planned to attack Fort Dix, N.J.; and a 21-year-old British student who told the police she stabbed a member of Parliament after watching 100 hours of Awlaki videos.

Assuming his was everything the US government says he was, good riddance.

119 replies on “US Whacks al-Awlaki”

  5. “Assuming his was everything the US government says….”

    What possible justification is there that ANYthing the US government says is accurate? They have been lying from the very beginning about the whole mess, and their actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and here in the US have done far more to promote anti-American jihad than any cleric or extremist movement possibly could have managed on their own.

  6. Actually Goldy, no – not “assuming he was everything the US government says”.

    The US Government saying that someone is a terrorist – without offering any proof of any kind, much less proving that accusation beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law – does not give the US government the right to murder American citizens who are not active participants on a battlefield. Read Greenwald on this. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_…

    There’s _nothing_ complicated about that. Nothing at all. Why is it so hard for you?

    (By the way, the idea that believing in due process means that you want terrorists to go free – that’s bullshit at a level that’s hard to describe, in that it begs the question (in a formal logical sense): without due process, no one is anything but an alleged or accused terrorist. To say nothing of the fact that Constitutional protections of due process on the say-so of the president – that’s not an American value.)

  7. So you support extra-judicial, due process-free executions of U.S. citizens, Goldy? I’m sorry, I meant to say “targeted killings.” There is only one party in this country, the War Party. Just look at the spectacle of a hard lefty like Goldy falling over himself to praise our Nobel laureate-in-chief for this bullshit.

  10. @7 nailed it. This should be the thing that strikes terror in the heart of every American. The government is wiping their asses with the Constitution. It is meaningless.

  12. Goldy, your closing remark has brought the former Stranger intern and libertarian scab Matt Luby back to our humble commt threads. The new year is off to a scabby libertarian start. Hoo boy.

  17. Hell, even assuming only 1/2-2/3 of what’s been said about him was actually true, he was a high-value enemy soldier, serving in the capacity of a controller of domestic covert operatives. If it’s true, droning was thoroughly justified. In general, I have no problem with icing these fucks. Just so long as we keep it overseas.

    I trust this Aministration miles more than the Bush/Cheney kakistocracy. Simply put, they got more cred from the outset by espousing sensible policy goals and they haven’t got caught in a real whopper yet.

  18. While I generally believe in treating captured terrorism suspects exactly like civilian profit-driven criminals, I see a clear bright line between the restraint we’re bound to use in apprehending a civilian target and a military one. If you’re directing covert military action against our soldiers, you’re a military target. Within our own borders, it doesn’t make much difference. You’re a target of law enforcement whose primary directive is to apprehend you for due process. Overseas, it’s not just our government’s right, but their duty to neutralize a military threat by military means.

  20. I only trust the government to murder those people I want it to murder with their extraordinary powers that they just invented for themselves, were never voted on, clearly violate the Constitution, and let them do whatever they want without any oversight, because I’m a proud Democrat and I support my Party dammit!

  21. Goldy, you could not be more wrong than to assume what the government says is true. That’s what we have the Bill of Rights to protect against.

  23. Remember kiddies if a Democrat commits criminal acts its OKAY!! It’s only bad if a Republican does the same thing.

    And that’s how you play Slog!!!

  24. It’s an interesting debate. I certainly won’t shed a tear for the guy, and let’s acknowledge that his killing qualifies as a victory in this war. But it’s also true that it sets a disturbing precedent for the USG killing a US citizen without due process. However, can’t you argue that virtually EVERY killing of an AQ-affiliated combatant/leader falls into that category? I mean, every AQ fighter is a citizen of SOME state, but the US has not declared war on ANY state in this “Global War On Terrorism”. So every time we kill an AQ fighter, we kill a citizen of a state that we are not technically at war with. That Alwaki is American is incidental; his killing is a subset of the larger problem of fighting a war aginst a “non-state actor”. The only similar historical precedent is fighting piracy in the 18th century, when states essentially adopted a policy of “see pirates, kill pirates” and used their naval forces accordingly. I’m sure the Royal Navy “extra-judicially” killed a number of English citizens who had taken up piracy. So what?

  25. I’m sorry…was there a declaration of war that I missed? I thought the last one happened in December of 1941? Because if Bush or Obama asked for a declaration of war the media certianly didn’t mention it.

  26. @25: So what?! If you should know anything about the history of piracy, it’s that most pirates were escaped slaves, of some form or another. Despite the folklore, pirates were seen as outlaws not because of what they DID but what they WERE. The threat was the notion that people could liberate themselves. Do you say “So what?” about the treatment of runaway or insurrectionist slaves in the 19th century U.S.?
    Yes, the pirate wars are good comparison: it’s an empire distorting reality to justify barbarous acts and expansion of said empire.

    Many go great lengths with appeals to reason to justify the killing of Awlaki, because they cannot justify it morally.

  27. Good Morning Goldy,
    While I agree with you, “Good Riddance”, I am greatly disturbed by this assassination of an American citizen w/o due process. The point is moot but it would be interesting to hear/read how the Left would have reacted had this operation occurred under a Bush or McCain Administration. The question has been posed already by Sloggers but do you agree to kill American citizens extra-judicially whether residing aboard or even domestically?

    For the record, I do recall a similar situation of an American, John Walker Lindh participating in a combat mission against the USA. He was caputured not killed.

  28. As Greenwald says, how will you feel about these awesome new powers Obama has inaugurated when they’re wielded by President Perry or President Bachman?

  31. @27, good points. So we do have a basis of comparison then: the core of “AQ prime” consists of highly-educated and wealthy elites who adopted a radical violent ideology, not runaway slaves. So they’ve been pursued because of what they DID.

  32. And remember, when the government says someone is guilty, like Anwar al-Awlaki, or, say, Troy Davis, or say, the West Memphis Three, you know they must be guilty.

    Especially when a Democratic government says they’re guilty.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinio…

    Goldy’s sentiment in this post is a clear demonstration of how reflexive partisanship is inherently conservative.

  33. There seems to be a lot of evidence Al-Awlaki was actively engaged in terrorism. Let’s assume you are running the government and you are convinced he is hip deep in planning operations to kill Americans. He is in Yemen, hiding among people who don’t like us and isn’t volunteering to surrender for trial. What are your options? You can blow him up with a drone. You can send special forces troops in to arrest him, if he stays still long enough for you to plan an operation. Or you can do nothing, and hope that he doesn’t do much damage before you might have an opportunity to arrest him some time in the future.

    Would those of you criticizing this action really choose to ignore someone you were convinced was actively engaged in plots to kill Americans? I would hope not. Does that mean the only legitimate response would be sending in troops to try to arrest him, in a hostile region, at great risk to those troops, if he can be located somewhere this is possible? It really seems to me that a lot of folks are actually arguing that because he was an American citizen, the government could not take any action against him except arrest and trial, and if he took part in terror operations before that, too bad. I don’t think that’s what the Constitution requires.

  34. @28: that’s a distortion of Lindh’s role in the Taliban – he was a taliban foot soldier and then a bush propaganda scapegoat. lindh was, and is, a fucking idiot. the evidence: he’s a monotheist.

    he was captured by the Northern Alliance, not the US military. his role in a prison uprising was to keep his mouth shut, get shot in the leg, and hide in the basement. it wasn’t exactly a “combat mission against the USA” – they killed a CIA officer, along with lots of Afghanis. his treatment by the american military and media was appalling, bush sr.’s comments about “marin-county hot tubbers” predjudicial, the charges at his trial were overkill (conspiracy to contribute services to Al Qaeda?), the 20 year sentence without parole excessive, and the gag order unconstitutional.

    al-awlaki was al-qaeda 1st, and an american technically. i get the anger at his killing, but i guess we should have shot a big net from the drone instead.

  36. @ #36 – Or we could have had the drone drop a sternly written letter on him. He was an enemy combatant and a traitor; I do not mourn him and could give a fuck about the Constitution in this particular matter.

  37. @17, “I trust this Aministration miles more than the Bush/Cheney kakistocracy. Simply put, they got more cred from the outset by espousing sensible policy goals and they haven’t got caught in a real whopper yet.”

    You fundamentally do not understand what the rule of law means. If you’re not going to object when Obama does it, then the next president – who might be more like Bush/Cheney than Obama – will feel free to do it as well.

    The laws apply to all – including every president – or else they only apply to the weak. There are no other choices.

  39. South America called to say we’ve been doing crap like this for decades, probably longer. The Middle East concurs.

    It’s not like America has every truly or fully lived up to its professed values. I guess we’re left with two questions:
    * Is there a way to improve the system and properly check the government’s power and still protect our interests?
    * Does this somehow absolve us from the imperative to make our government the least evil we can achieve?

  40. @ 38,

    … could give a fuck about the Constitution…

    Why should you? No Serious Person does.

    It’s an even bigger fraud than the eCONomy.

  41. @35 Nicely put, and thank you. I don’t think that there are many people, even among all but the wingnuttiest of wingnuts, who would favor extrajudicial execution to trial, if the option is available to bring him to trial (i.e. he was captured in combat, or could be arrested by a foreign country’s intelligence or police service and extradited to the US). In the real world, none of these options were available to us, and certainly not without a tremendous risk to American servicemen. I don’t particularly care for the precedent, but I have no doubt that this man would have cost many American lives if he was given the chance, and weighing America lives to terrorist ones is a simple equation for me.

  42. The only question I have is why didn’t we revoke his citizenship? Is it really that hard, even when an individual is a loud and proud traitor?

  44. Would it be just and right for Iran to send a missile strike onto the Pentagon to murder Iranian defectors helping the US Gov’t plan attacks within Iranian borders? Would that not be an act of war?

    This whole “I approve of the US Gov’t murdering people WHEN they murder the people who I don’t like” is the highest possible perversion of the rules of law, of ethics, and a complete embrace of hypocrisy. “It’s right when we do it, but it’s wrong when they do it.” Fucking nonsense.

  45. Yep. Goldy, when has the US government EVER lied to us? Oh, and just where is the evidence that this guy was heavily involved in any crime or involved in direct hostilities with that drone? Still can’t find it huh?

    Liberal handwringing over Troy Davis over the past week or so is pathetic. It’s interesting, we call this guy a traitor when there’s a strict specification for that which was not met. But nobody gives a shit about the Constitution, right @38? Well, I am sure your turn will come soon enough.

  46. @48 You have the best avatar, ever. God, I loved that game. One of my favorite SNES titles.

    Anyway, a bad guy died? I dunno. I don’t see what the problem is. I shot people who may or may not have been terrorists – hell, they were shooting at me, so I didn’t stop and ask – and no one ever had a problem with it, aside from my hippy niece.

    I mean, is it because it’s targeted? Because of the drones? Where’s the problem?

  48. @50 Yeah, win-win for us when we can bomb people who aren’t shooting at us. It’s not analogous at all to your situation. I guess the main problem is…why the fuck are we even doing that, much less with a CITIZEN? What business do we have over there and when will people realize we are the Empire when we claim we can do this actions while expecting no consequences.
    Let’s just play the conventional wisdom game and say we’re supposed to be a free country, recognizing the rights of all. It’s not freedom if we only recognize it part of the time with a million provisos thrown in and because our tribe is the most awesomest ever.

  49. @Yes, in this particular matter! I won’t forget sir! Nevermind, it’s NOT a fucking war and IF we want to follow the rules (which I am seeing less and less reason to do as a citizen, since no one takes them seriously), then they apply all the time–we don’t abandon them so you can have a bloodcult circle jerk moment of self-gratification.

  50. @50, you made an excellent point. They were shooting at you. This guy was telling people to shoot at you. He wasn’t commanding them. He was saying he approves of it. In a free society, that’s not a crime. In a free society, even if it could be construed as a crime, the accused has a right to a trial.

    Last week, the government killed a guy they claimed was a murderer, after giving him a trial, and everyone here was horrified. Yesterday, the government killed a guy they claim encouraged murder, without giving him a trial, and many of those same people approve of it.

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