Posted under Interventionism
So — some goons huddled in the darkened safety of a control room in California twiddle their joysticks as they stare at wide-screen monitors, push the “Fire!” button, and thousands of miles away, a drone launches a Hellfire rocket that scorches a convoy in Yemen. And I’m supposed to get misty-eyed and puffed up over this? From Fox News:
Senior Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen early Friday morning by a CIA-led U.S. drone strike, marking the highest-profile takedown of a terror leader since the raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound.
Fox News has learned that two Predator drones hovering above al-Awlaki’s convoy fired the Hellfire missiles which killed the terror leader. According to a senior U.S. official, the operation was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of the CIA.
Count me in with those who are not only unimpressed by this long-distance execution, but just a little worried about its wider implications.
Obama has not only expanded the president’s power to unilaterally declare war, but to eliminate enemies, citizen or no, at home or abroad, by executive order. Anwar al-Awlaki, whether we like it or not, was an American citizen with certain rights, including a right to a trial. Instead, he was snuffed by remote control. That’s something to cheer? Rather than making me think of how George Washington defeated Cornwallis, this makes me recall how Stalin got Trotsky.
The greatest enemies of our freedom lurk in the District of Corruption, not in the gritty back roads of Yemen. So this is one victory celebration I’ll have to pass up.
RonL on 30 Sep 2011 at 6:38 pm #
The Stalin killing Trotshy comparison is obscene. This is not an internal party fight. A better analogy would be the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto.
If you wanted us to invade Yemen to capture these people, I would have supported it.
Kirt Higdon on 30 Sep 2011 at 7:19 pm #
Tom Engelhardt has an excellent essay on the emerging robot/drone warfare which appears in both The American Conservative on-line and antiwar.com.
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/09/29/sex-and-the-single-drone/
“Obama has not only expanded the president’s power to unilaterally declare war, but to eliminate enemies, citizen or no, at home or abroad, by executive order.”
Exactly. This power will be passed on and expanded yet more by future presidents. Drones (so far for surveillance only) are already in the hands of US law enforcement and it is only a matter of probably not much more time before they are used on troublesome US dissidents at home.
Woden on 30 Sep 2011 at 7:27 pm #
Anwar al-Awlaki was not American. He may have been born in America, and had a piece of paper that said he was ‘American’, but still, he was never American.
He was no more American than these guys were ‘Germans’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/05/pakistan-militants-killed-drone-attack
HarrisonBergeron2 on 30 Sep 2011 at 9:05 pm #
Kirt Higdon,
Yes, this enforces the precedent that anything can be done by the CiC in the name of national security.
Drones are already being used in the endless war on drugs. How long until torture and assassination are part of that war?
Then there’s DC’s growing concern about what to do about “racists” …
HarrisonBergeron2 on 30 Sep 2011 at 9:06 pm #
RonL,
Admiral Yamamoto was an American citizen? I didn’t know!
C Bowen on 30 Sep 2011 at 10:28 pm #
To add a different angle, this chap, as reported by Fox News, dined with Pentagon brass a few months after 9/11.
The people who arranged such a thing, presumably, still draw a paycheck or a pension check. This chap had been in a PBS documentary and attended a school with close CIA ties.
Anyone think this smells?
Kirt Higdon on 30 Sep 2011 at 10:56 pm #
Tortue and assassination have long been part of the war on drugs. Note, for example, Mark Bowden’s book Killing Pablo. The next step is using drones to carry out the assassinations.
Sempronius on 01 Oct 2011 at 12:07 am #
“If you wanted us to invade Yemen to capture these people, I would have supported it.”
“Us” Ron? And how exactly would you have “supported” it?
RonL on 01 Oct 2011 at 8:34 pm #
HB2,
I never said that Yamamoto was an American. I merely gave a rational analogy in comparison to that of Stalin killing Trotsky.
I happen to believe that if you declare war on America and help attack it, you lose any and all privileges protections and rights as an American. And so long as you operate on a foreign field and are involved in attacks on America, you will be treated like any other enemy combattant and leader.
Had Al-Awlaki wanted to contest the charge and to act as an American, he had every chance to go to the American embassy in Yemen and turn himself in. Barring that, he could have reached out to the media or simply uploaded videos to youtube where he denounced Jihad against America and Americans and re-affirmed his loyalty to America. He did not do this, because he was at war with America. And he died an enemy of America. His status as a traitor should have a been a shield and he never used it as such.
C Bowen,
It does smell. We have an incompetent political correct government, that has banned any serious discussion of Islam and Islamists. A set of rules prohibited that DOD from talking to the FBI and CIA about American citizens. Thus they were ignorant and willfully ignorant. But for heads to role, such a policy of internalized treason would need to be discusses and our ruling class, especially the Hussein Obama administration will not allow this.
Sempronius,
I would support an invasion of Yemen just as I would do any other action. Or would you have America be a Sparta or something out of Heinlein where only soldiers have rights?
C Bowen on 01 Oct 2011 at 8:39 pm #
See, RonL, that whole thing ‘it smells’ is the issue. Now that Osama is dead, for example, there is no reason not to release the file of evidence Bush promised in Sept 2001–we both know that isn’t going to happen.
And here again, if they have a file that this chap was more then an extreme exerciser of the 1st Amendment, please, let us see it. And if he was killed just because he did nasty pod casts…well, lets all think that one over a minute.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 02 Oct 2011 at 1:38 pm #
RonL,
So whenever our beloved CiC declares someone to be an enemy of the people, you passively accept that that person should die?
Mindless obedience pleases the lying murderers in DC.
RonL on 02 Oct 2011 at 5:09 pm #
The publicized actions of Samir Khan and Al-Awlaki, declaring war and renouncing citizenship to take up arms against us, made them enemies of the United States. There is prima facea case taht by taking up arms against the US, they stopped being citizens.
C Bowen on 02 Oct 2011 at 7:26 pm #
RonL,
If you have a link to where he took up arms against the United States, please share.
I keep reading about the Christmas Day bombing attempt, but anyone familiar with the case knows the holes in the government’s story.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 02 Oct 2011 at 9:07 pm #
RonL,
I also heard that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction he was going to use to enslave us.
RonL on 04 Oct 2011 at 8:00 am #
HB2,
1. WE have Al Awlaki’s youtube videos. And no leader made the argument you just said.
2. Pat Buchanan agrees with me.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/was-awlaki-an-american