Good point - like, why can't we arrest al qaeda suspects and try them for mass murders???
Why is roaming the world and snatching them such a terrible idea? And why shouldn't their crimes be exposed to the public? Trials are about involving the citizenry in justice as much ad they are about determining the truth
BHO and affiliated enemy sympathizers put the ixnay on that with all their pissing & moaning about gitmo and the other CIA detention & interrogation centers. They have painted themselves into the position where it is less
politically and legally risky to kill hundreds of folks (who deserve it, no doubt) via drone missiles along with collateral folk (who may not). Amoral dumbasses who can't think one step beyond the immediate into the unintended consequences, the lot of them. I can not express teh depth of my contempt for them. They are not fit for polite company.
I just want to know Obama's justification. I want to see if Jimmy Carter would qualify for a drone.
Jimmy qualifies
as a drone.
This is a war, not a police action. If it's "supposed" to be "illegal" to go into a foreign country to "kill" AQ thugs, why would it be any more legal to kidnap them?
Yep.
Killing the the hell outta them (and collateral folk) with a missile: OK and legal
Kidnapping & interrogating in an undisclosed location: War crime.
Why didn't anyone have a problem with this when they PUT HIM ON the kill list?
Fine then, right? Carry out what you say you're doing and you're suddenly wrong?
This Aint Hell sums up my thoughts nicely
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=26777
Bottom line. He was a prominent Al Qaeda leader who participated in the planning of murder. Congress voted to authorize military force against al qaeda. He was a prominent member in that organization.
This was an act of war. Not execution. He was a combatant.
Yep. And I have no problem with killing the sorry SOB. There is zero chance he was not making war against America. His own words condemned him many times over. It is the closest thing to absolute existential certainty one can find on Earth.
I do have a problem in the reasoning and legal noodling, however, because:
1. It was un-freaking-necessary. Dude was warring against America and America blew him to Hell. That's the risk you take in war.
2. The legal wrangling and precedent of POTUS "declaring a citizen a terrorist," putting him on a hit list, and then whacking him on those grounds is most definitely a danger to American citizens.
If I were more cynical, I might think that all the pissing and moaning were done just to enshrine such a precedent.