4 ms·
An important note (that doesn't justify US government in any way, just completes the picture) The father of the boy was Anwar al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.or
by runn1ng 13y ago
An important note (that doesn't justify US government in any way, just completes the picture)
The father of the boy was Anwar al-Awlaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
from wikipedia:
U.S. government officials said that he was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved in planning terrorist operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.
With a blog, a Facebook page, the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire, and many YouTube videos, the Saudi news station Al Arabiya described him as the "bin Laden of the Internet."
U.S. officials say that as imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia (2001–02), which had 3,000 members, al-Awlaki spoke with and preached to three of the 9/11 hijackers, who were al-Qaeda members. In 2001, he presided at the funeral of the father of Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who later e-mailed him extensively in 2008–09 before the Fort Hood shootings. During Al-Awlaki's later radical period after 2006–07, when he went into hiding, he was associated with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who attempted the 2009 Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner. Al-Awlaki was allegedly involved in planning the latter's attack.
According to the original article though:
The government repeatedly made accusations of terrorism against Anwar — who was also an American citizen — but never charged him with a crime. No court ever reviewed the government’s claims nor was any evidence of criminal wrongdoing ever presented to a court. He did not deserve to be deprived of his constitutional rights as an American citizen and killed.
- aet 13y agoI notice that this guy is tied to 9-11 and the Fort Hood shooting.
- runn1ng 13y agoYes. And for that, US has this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit... IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. ...which, in my opinion, includes the father and maybe those other person killed in the drone attack on the boy. So there is a legal justification for the killings, in my opinion (I am not a lawyer and I am not a US citizen).
- streptomycin 13y agoWriting nasty things about the US on a blog is not illegal. Helping plan a terrorist attack is, but unfortunately there's no evidence that Awlaki actually did that except some heresay from the government. The question is, should we allow the government to assassinate Americans without any trial or oversight just because they claim to have some secret evidence?
- runn1ng 13y agoWhat I wrote to your ... sibling?... there is an authorization to use military force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit... Again I am not sure if this is enough legal justification to kill a US citizen without a trial.
- streptomycin 13y agoApparently it is enough legal justification since there hasn't been anything close to a serious legal challenge it. The more interesting question is whether it is morally justifiable.
- sarutahiko 13y agoIt's funny that our bar has lowered so much that when we go from "The U.S. Government said this guy was bad" to a paragraph allegedly explaining a rich criminal history, we change our tone from "woah, wait, that's not a fair trail!" to "well I guess that makes more sense..." If this guy did all of this shit on U.S. soil and was a while, natural born U.S. citizen he could have slaughtered an entire mall worth of people on Black Friday and we'd /still/ give him a trial and we'd /still/ not execute him (unless it was in a capital punishment state). People are getting really worn down and used to this whole extra-judiciary killing shit.