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Al-Qaeda joins those questioning legality of U.S. killing of citizen Anwar al-Awlaki
[Washington Post]  Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has confirmed the deaths of American-born holy man Anwar al-Awlaki... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is an Islamic holy man who is a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and UndieboomerUmar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... and Samir Khan, the young American propagandist killed alongside him in a U.S. drone strike late last month. Al-Qaeda has also criticized the B.O. regime for killing U.S. citizens, saying doing so "contradicts" American law. So does slamming airplanes into office towers... "Where are what they keep talking about regarding freedom, justice, human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... and respect of freedoms?!" the statement says, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist Web sites. The B.O. regime has spoken in broad terms about its authority to use military and paramilitary force against al-Qaeda and associated forces, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would find itself hard-pressed to claim the moral high ground in the debate over the killing of Awlaki and Khan. But the killing of two U.S. citizens has prompted outrage among civil liberties groups, as well as a debate in legal circles about the basis for the administration's position. The Washington Post's Peter Finn reported after the strike that Awlaki's killing had been authorized in a secret Justice Department memo, a revelation that later prompted senior Democratic senators and scholars to call for its release. Over the weekend, The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... quoted people who have read the document as saying that the memo found it would be lawful to kill the holy man only if it were not possible to take him alive. The memo, the Times said, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Awlaki's case. Among those who have raised legal objections to the strike: Samir Khan's family in Charlotte, N.C. In a statement, the family said that, Khan was a "law-abiding citizen of the United States" and "was never implicated of any crime." "Was this style of execution the only solution?" the family said. "Why couldn't there have been a capture and trial?" Posted by: Fred 2011-10-11 |
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