The U.S. Case Against Awlaki

[LilOlLady]

The U.S. Case Against Awlaki

Anwar al-Awlaki was, until earlier today, chief of external operations for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most active al Qaeda affiliate outside Afghanistan/Pakistan.
In 2010, the Obama administration ruled that it had the rights to target for assassination Awlaki, an American citizen born in Las Cruces, N.M,. in 1971, because he was a terrorist.
The government has not presented evidence against Awlaki. But government officials said that the cleric played a significant operational role in any number of terrorist plots against the United States, and called for violence against American men, women and children.


The Justification: How does the U.S. government have the right to target for killing a U.S. citizen?

Some of his career lowlights, according to the U.S. government, include the following operations:

* The U.S . government claims that Awlaki has tried to obtain weapons of mass destruction – specifically poisons such as cyanide and ricin – for use in attacking Westerners.
* Awlaki specifically directed Umar Faruq Abdulmutallab in December 2009 to detonate the “underwear” bomb on board a Christmas Day Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. The government said that Awlaki told Abdulmutallab to detonate the bomb while over U.S. airspace so as to maximize casualties.
* In October 2010, AQAP attempted to explode two U.S. cargo planes by detonating explosives hidden in ink cartridges mailed to synagogues in Chicago. The U.S. government said that Awlaki directly supervised this failed terrorist plot.
* In 2010, Awlaki communicated with Rajib Karim, then a British airlines worker, seeking a way to get a bomb aboard a plane at Heathrow Airport. Karim was convicted in March 2011 in a British court on terrorism charges, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The U.S. government also said Awlaki incited terrorism:
20 Days Out: Good Morning Iowa - ABC News ... st-awlaki/

We will still have hateful racist self righteous right claiming Awlaki and hw son was on holiday when they were killed by dromes.

 

[LilOlLady]

We kill U.S. citizens daily without due process
of a trial. The man in the bunker with the child was killed without due process. The police officer on the run for kill two people now will be shot down without due process. Why is there a problem with killing a U.S. citizen that has join up with terrorist that are always an imminent threat because they are constantly planning attacks on Americans.
Hypocritical to compare water boarding a unarmed alleged terrorist in custody without due process of a trial to the killing of know American terrorist Alwaki and Al Qaeda whom we are at war with and is always an imminent threat.

 

[waltky]

Another one o' dem Mooslamic wannabes `bout to get the Shiite kicked outta him...

Source: U.S. debating targeted killing of American terror suspect overseas
February 10th, 2014 - The Obama administration is in high-level discussions about staging an operation to kill an American citizen involved with al Qaeda and suspected of plotting attacks against the United States, a senior U.S. official tells CNN.

The official, who declined to disclose any specific information about the target or the country the suspect presides in, was confirming information first reported by The Associated Press.

The debate about whether to undertake a mission is being held with various commanders in the U.S. military, as well as the U.S. national security agencies. The discussion centers on the risk involved and the importance of the target.

Before military force against an American is approved, there must be an imminent danger and no reasonable prospect of capturing the target. Ultimately, the President would need to sign off on the decision.

The U.S. has targeted an American before, most notably Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a key member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was killed by a U.S. drone in 2011. Another American, Samir Khan, was killed in the same strike, though he was not the target of the operation. Khan was behind al Qaeda's English-language Inspire magazine, which aimed to influence jihadis and wannabe jihadis around the world.

Source: U.S. debating targeted killing of American terror suspect - CNN.com

See also:

Obama officials weigh drone attack on US suspect
February 10, 2014 - WASHINGTON (AP) — The case of an American citizen and suspected member of al-Qaida who is allegedly planning attacks on U.S. targets overseas underscores the complexities of President Barack Obama's new stricter targeting guidelines for the use of deadly drones.

The CIA drones watching him cannot strike because he's a U.S. citizen. The Pentagon drones that could are barred from the country where he's hiding, and the Justice Department has not yet finished building a case against him. Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.

Two of the officials described the man as an al-Qaida facilitator who has been directly responsible for deadly attacks against U.S. citizens overseas and who continues to plan attacks against them that would use improvised explosive devices. The officials said the suspected terrorist is well-guarded and in a fairly remote location, so any unilateral attempt by U.S. troops to capture him would be risky and even more politically explosive than a U.S. missile strike.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday he would not comment on specific operations and pointed to Obama's comments in the major counterterrorism speech last May about drone policy. "When a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against America and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens, and when neither the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot, his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a SWAT team," Carney said, quoting from Obama's speech last year.

Under new guidelines Obama addressed in the speech made to calm anger overseas at the extent of the U.S. drone campaign, lethal force must only be used "to prevent or stop attacks against U.S. persons, and even then, only when capture is not feasible and no other reasonable alternatives exist to address the threat effectively." The target must also pose "a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons" — the legal definition of catching someone in the act of plotting a lethal attack.

MORE

 

[TemplarKormac]

Now, if we could simply try our criminals before killing them. He was an American, you know. 14th Amendment and all that.

For all of you self professed Constitutionalists, even he deserved a trial. Spare me your "well he was a terrorist, he deserved to die!" nonsense. Should we start executing murderers willy nilly and without a trial, just what precedent would we be setting?