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> The crux of the debate is how much an "american citizen" can claim the protection of that citizenship while waging war against the U.S. and evading attempts t
by acjohnson55 13y ago
> The crux of the debate is how much an "american citizen" can claim the protection of that citizenship while waging war against the U.S. and evading attempts to bring him to justice for a decade.
This applies to Anwar Al-Awlaki himself, and even then the constitutionality of the killing seems highly suspect to me. But his son (the author's granson), Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, was also killed by a drone strike in Yemen. Nobody has publicly stated a justification for Abdulrahman's death. He was simply an American citizen traveling in the country his family came from, as far as we know.
- tsotha 13y agoThey said he wasn't the target. I doubt they even knew who he was.
- rayiner 13y agoAl-Awlaki's son was killed in a different drone strike a month later targeting different Al Qaeda officials. I don't think he was the intended target. But when you're traveling with Al Qaeda that kind of shit happens, you know?
- tptacek 13y agoIt's a tough situation to parse. On the one hand, if you stipulate that the US is going to engage "Al Qaeda" militarily, drone strikes probably save many lives; every alternative, from manned airstrikes through cruise missiles through (God forbid) boots on the ground --- every alternative is empirically worse. On the other hand, the drone program in essence demands that the US conduct a long-running campaign of assassination. I might not have a moral problem with that in the specific case of actual, bona fide Al Qaeda personnel, but surely this can't be how we deal with all our adversaries moving forward?