It is now reported that an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, offered material aid to terrorists including the Charlie Hebdo gunmen, funding their travel and training in direct violation of U.S. statute. Yet he was neither charged nor tried. He and his son were killed without due process of Law. That presents us four options: 1-Cherif Kouatchi is lying 2-Cherif Kouatchi was deceived 3-our vaunted CIA/NSA spy machine is incompetent 4-president Obama preferred to assert a novel power of extra-judicial slaying rather than let duly constituted courts do the work of Justice. Cherif Kouatchi is dead and we may never get to evaluate the first two options. But the fourth one should keep Americans awake at night. If our president can have the al-Awlakis killed without charge or trial, he can have any one--or all--of us killed without charge or trial. Thats not how the Rule of Law is supposed to work. While we mourn the victims at Charlie Hebdo as martyrs to Free Speech, we need to remember that the al-Awlakis were killed for noxious political speech. Barry Haskell Levine nytimes/2015/01/11/world/middleeast/paris-attacks-anwar-al-awlaki.html
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 16:20:54 +0000
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