Credit where credit is due. The White House made the right call. It announced today that it is rejecting a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union asking that terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki’s name struck from the administration’s list of individuals targeted for assassination.
The ACLU suit argued that Awlaki, as an American citizen, is entitled to due process under the law. The Justice Department in a court filing invoked the state secrets privilege, adding that if the case were to be tried in a civilian court, classified information on the military’s operations against worldwide terrorism would be made available to the enemy.
While the administration’s practice of maintaining a “kill list” that includes names of Americans remains a troubling and dangerous precedent, administration officials argue that the list is a necessary expedient in wartime. In the case of Awlaki, a sworn combatant and enemy of the U.S. who leads recruitment efforts in al-Qaeda, their argument has some merit.
Awlaki has been conclusively tied through e-mails to the Army psychiatrist accused of the killings at Fort Hood, Texas, last year, and to the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. In response to this second plot, Awlaki said in an interview this past May that "No one should even ask us about targeting a bunch of Americans who would have been killed in an airplane," adding "Our unsettled account with America includes, at the very least, one million women and children. I'm not even talking about the men."
Even though Awlaki’s words indict him as a war criminal and enemy of the state, the Justice Department noted in their filing that should he choose to surrender to the proper authorities, “legal principles with which the United States has traditionally and uniformly complied would prohibit using lethal force or other violence against him.”
In other words, the ball is squarely in the terrorist’s court.
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Comments
He's an American citizen.
He not only has free speech to say what he wants, he is entitled to due process if accused of a crime. We don't make exceptions just because he's a Muslim.
Where is this conclusive evidence? If the government had any, he woud be behind bars already.
I'm still waiting for proof that there is an Al Qaeda, instead of a buzzword the government uses for people that are trying to throw off zionist oppression in their homelands.
It's not too hard to paint such people as an enemy when they're angry at us for helping zionism take their lands and murder their people.
Maybe it's time to address their grievences?
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"If the government had any, he woud be behind bars already."
Wrong. They aren't even sure of where he is.
"I'm still waiting for proof that there is an Al Qaeda."
Remarks like that just prove you can't be taken seriously.
They can't find Osama either.
Face facts. He's either dead or being fed breakfast by some corporal every morning.
Al Qaeda used to be something. But it was gutted years ago by us and others. Now they wear the skin to sneak up on sympathizers. In a war they started.
We're involved in the Middle East for two reasons. Oil. Which we need. And Israel. Which we don't...
Why is everybody afraid of asking the Muslims of the Middle East how they feel about all this?
Because they're witnesseses. Witnesses to the atrocities and intimidation Israel is known for. It's the Israel they don't want "Christian" Americans to see.
As you're the only suckers they can find to underwrite their society based on the idea of Jewish supremacy.
If you keep funding them, someday, they'll have Israel all to themselves.
And you, fellow citizens, will have the blood of another holocaust on your hands.
And this time, you can't blame the nazis for it.
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Nice incoherent rambling, seasoned by a nice dose of Jew-hating gibberish. You are sick and pathetic.
I'd pity you if you weren't such a wretched, poor excuse for a human being.
Prove I hate Jews. It's a simple request. Let's see the evidence.
Zionism is NOT Judaism. It's a 100 year old philosophical movement that has morphed into a supremacist movement instead.
Israel was founded by these fakers. They run it to this day. Intelligent as hell, but spiritually cold.
Islam is in the way of their plans to expand in the Middle East. The fact that we're helping fund this religious fraud is amazing to me.
But that's why I'm not like you.
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The fact that you write the misguided hate-filled garbage that you do is amazing to me. You stick up repeatedly for the murderous Islamofascists who stone women to death on a city street, and then you spout your conspiracy theories about Israel.
Thank GOD I'm not like you. I'd kill myself if I were.
The fact that you desire to kill something is worrisom enough.
I have no religion. I stick up for no religion. But what I do is give insight to the other side of the story. The parts the western media won't tell you.
You need to connect the dots with about Israel and Islam and us.
You can't do that with what you're fed through the western media alone.
You need more news sources and indigenous points of view. Like this:
http://www.imemc.org/index.php
http://www.wrmea.com/links/
So you can make intelligent decisions rather than the one's you've made up until now.
You can't vote accordingly unless you know the whole story.
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Unbelievable how full of yourself you are! Here you are, wrapped up in your self-delusion, educating the world by sending them to sites that promote Islamofascist propaganda.
If only YOU understand what a sad joke you are. Tell you what, clown. You vote for who you want, and I'll vote for who I want. And in the end, I'll win and you'll lose. And as for "the whole story," I think you know where you can shove that.
I don't vote. Why should I participate in a system I know has been compromised?
Why are you adverse to people having a well rounded view of things? These are not Islamofascist sites. They're news sites with an Middle Eastern take on things.
How can you expect to fix this problem if you don't care to understand the people involved in it?
Democracy rots from the head down. If the news and information you use to make critcal decisions at the polls is contaminated, the results will be "dirty".
Just like the past half dozen presidents have been.
Legally put into office because people vote according to the rubbish they're fed off the evening news.
That's not democracy. It's a cardboard cutout that the people who really run this country hope you won't challenge.
I suggest you do.
But until you get out there and dig for the real stories, you'll be the nice, tame sheeple you've always been.
Cause knowing what I know would make you mad as hell.
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Knowing what you know what make me a delusional idiot. News site with a Middle Eastern take on things? Says who. An America-hating, Jew-hating idiot?
Thanks for your guidance, bozo, but as I said earlier, you lose--and there's not thing one you can do about it. And I'll bet that makes YOU mad as hell.
Hardly. I'm not the one responsible for this trainwreck in the making.
At least I'll know when to jump...
And prove I hate Jews. You people mouth off to me like this all the time. You've produced ZERO evidence to back it up.
Because it's all you've got.
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The ZIonist vs. Jews argument is pure bunk, as is the Nazi argument. You have been brainwashed by imbecilic propaganda.
I wish someone would ban this troll. Why is he aloud to come here and vomit out all this hatred. If you don't like the country, get out.
Mike, wrong. Let him post and have his say. Each time he opens his mouth, he makes a more and more compelling argument for voting the current bums out of power. Other readers should get a chance to see what's at stake if the loons maintain control.
I didn't put the current bums in power. Why should you use me to remove them?
As to the charges of troll. I'm not a troll. I'm somebody who's pointing out the dangers of something that most of you don't know enough about to see as a threat.
It's time you did. Because history is set to repeat itself. And all those horror stories from the history books concerning WWII will rise from the dead once again.
Because it's the same people. Not the Nazis. Not the Jews. Not even Israel.
But the same people.
And the United States is right in the middle of it.
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