Mastermind of the France Attacks

[jkjsooner]

According to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, our very own Anwar al-Awlaki was the mastermind of the attack.


In a video, the group said the late Anwar al-Awlaki masterminded the attack. The U.S.-born Muslim scholar and cleric was spokesman for AQAP before his death in 2011.

Are there still people on here shouting about the drone strike on the American citizen? Are there still people claiming he was "only a spokesman"?

When you go overseas, join a group that is waging war against the U.S., and actively participate in such a war, your American citizenship shouldn't protect you. We have targeted a German Panzer even if we knew there was an American citizen driving it. I imagine there were more than a few American citizens fighting for Germany and Japan during WW2.

The key here is that the killing of al-Awlaki was not a judicial act. It was an act of war. We did not kill him because he was a criminal. We killed him because he was one of the leaders of the enemy.

[FaninAma]

According to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, our very own Anwar al-Awlaki was the mastermind of the attack.



Are there still people on here shouting about the drone strike on the American citizen? Are there still people claiming he was "only a spokesman"?

When you go overseas, join a group that is waging war against the U.S., and actively participate in such a war, your American citizenship shouldn't protect you. We have targeted a German Panzer even if we knew there was an American citizen driving it. I imagine there were more than a few American citizens fighting for Germany and Japan during WW2.

The key here is that the killing of al-Awlaki was not a judicial act. It was an act of war. We did not kill him because he was a criminal. We killed him because he was one of the leaders of the enemy.

Ok, then draw the line on where the President's authority to authorize drone strikes on US citizens stops? For what suspected offenses should this be allowed? In which countries should this be allowed? How much colateral damage in terms of slaughtered bystanders is acceptable?

I honestly would be okay with it if their were safeguards....judicial and prosecutorial review. Although that mechanism evokes a star chamber type of serving justice.

[rock on sooner]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^What he said^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And, yup, there are some who will squawk about the drone strike! My viewpoint
then, as it is now, is that I'd rather have a $6m drone firing a $68k missile to kill
an avowed enemy than have a 4-6 man JSOG tasked with hunting him in enemy
territory and risking capture and beheading on tape for the world to see...

[rock on sooner]

Welp, Fanina got in before I could finish typing...

[jkjsooner]

Ok, then draw the line on where the President's authority to authorize drone strikes on US citizens stops?

It stops when the person targeted is not a member of an armed group who is waging war against the United States.

I'm fine with some type of oversight in these. We could have a judicial panel consider the status of the person we know we may attack. What I am against is the idea that we can never intentionally kill an American citizen on the battlefield.

Frankly, if we knew al-Awlaki's location, we could certainly just inform Britain or some other ally. They wouldn't have any legal concerns on killing a US citizen.

As for your comment on collateral damage - there is nothing new there. We've fought wars with collateral damage for centuries. The same oversight exists that did during WW1, WW2, etc. I'm not sure why people all of a sudden started caring about collateral damage more when they started using drones. Does it really matter whether a pilot is in the aircraft in regards to collateral damage?

[SicEmBaylor]

It stops when the person targeted is not a member of an armed group who is waging war against the United States.

I'm fine with some type of oversight in these. We could have a judicial panel consider the status of the person we know we may attack. What I am against is the idea that we can never intentionally kill an American citizen on the battlefield.

Frankly, if we knew al-Awlaki's location, we could certainly just inform Britain or some other ally. They wouldn't have any legal concerns on killing a US citizen.

As for your comment on collateral damage - there is nothing new there. We've fought wars with collateral damage for centuries. The same oversight exists that did during WW1, WW2, etc. I'm not sure why people all of a sudden started caring about collateral damage more when they started using drones. Does it really matter whether a pilot is in the aircraft in regards to collateral damage?

It is incredibly and unbelievably dangerous for the President to wield the authority to execute an American citizen, regardless of his or her crimes, without due process of law. Especially when put into the context of the 2012 NDAA which designates the United States as a 'battlefield' in the war against terrorism and authorizes the President and military to take actions to combat said terrorism leaving the definition of 'terrorist' entirely up to the Executive.

The specific targeting and authorization of a strike against an American citizen should not only be grounds for impeachment -- it should be grounds for indefinite imprisonment.

[FaninAma]

Stalin, Mao TseTung, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, Bin Laden. All of these individuals are known mass murderers but which one didn't kill tens of millions of his own citizens?

I make this bizarre comparison only to point out the dangers of a totalitarian government that does not have to answer to anyone about how it treats its citizens.

[jkjsooner]

It is incredibly and unbelievably dangerous for the President to wield the authority to execute an American citizen, regardless of his or her crimes, without due process of law. Especially when put into the context of the 2012 NDAA which designates the United States as a 'battlefield' in the war against terrorism and authorizes the President and military to take actions to combat said terrorism leaving the definition of 'terrorist' entirely up to the Executive.

The specific targeting and authorization of a strike against an American citizen should not only be grounds for impeachment -- it should be grounds for indefinite imprisonment.

Okay, I would certainly be against the targeting of an American citizen within the US - unless of course we have a full scale insurrection. I do not agree with calling the US a battlefield. Yemen, sure.


Stalin, Mao TseTung, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, Bin Laden. All of these individuals are known mass murderers but which one didn't kill tens of millions of his own citizens?

I make this bizarre comparison only to point out the dangers of a totalitarian government that does not have to answer to anyone about how it treats its citizens.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We killed an American citizen who had joined our enemy. We are nowhere near Stalin or Hitler here. I'm not buying your slippery slope argument. We have plenty of checks and balances that would stop us from going there.

[SicEmBaylor]

Okay, I would certainly be against the targeting of an American citizen within the US - unless of course we have a full scale insurrection. I do not agree with calling the US a battlefield. Yemen, sure.
1)Why an insurrection? Can an insurrection not be justified?

2)Why should it matter if it's in Yemen or Missouri if the person in question is a 'terrorist' and you feel the President has the authority to kill a citizen? As American citizens, we don't lose our rights simply because we leave the border of the United States. The local government certainly doesn't recognize American law, but an American President is obligated to respect our Constitutional rights whether we are in the United States or abroad.




Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We killed an American citizen who had joined our enemy. We are nowhere near Stalin or Hitler here. I'm not buying your slippery slope argument. We have plenty of checks and balances that would stop us from going there.

An American citizen who joins the enemy is still an American citizen. Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a provision in the Constitution that allows the President to disregard an American's constitutional rights simply because they join a movement that the Executive has determined constitutes 'the enemy.'

[Turd_Ferguson]

So, if a US citizen runs off to Iraq and is fighting for the taliban/aq, whoever, what if he's shot and killed by an American Soldier? What's the diff?

[SicEmBaylor]

So, if a US citizen runs off to Iraq and is fighting for the taliban/aq, whoever, what if he's shot and killed by an American Soldier? What's the diff?

The difference is that the individual soldier in the field is simply fighting the war in front of him. Presumably, they aren't checking the passports of every person who is firing at them. If an American is shot and killed under those circumstances then that's just the nature of warfare. That's fundamentally different than the President of the United States having the name of an American citizen in front of him and personally ordering a missile or drone strike to assassinate or kill that individual.

In the case of the former, the death is the result of normal 'anonymous' warfare; in the case of the latter, a specific individual is being targeted.

[Curly Bill]

SicEm is right on this. Everyone else = some degree of not as right.

[SicEmBaylor]

SicEm is right on this. Everyone else = some degree of not as right.

Story of my life. :D

[SoonerorLater]

When you take up arms as an enemy combatant the game changes. Can you imagine the strategy terrorists could develop if turncoat Americans were off limits? All you would need to do is plant American traitors in various places, announce their presence and you have created an impenetrable fortress. Freedom shouldn't double as a noose around our necks.

[jkjsooner]

1)Why an insurrection? Can an insurrection not be justified?

Whether it's justified doesn't matter. The question is whether the government can suppress your insurrection. The answer of course is yes.

I've had this argument before with a militia type guy. He seems to think he could take up arms and revolt against the government and the government couldn't do anything to stop it. That's an absolutely absurd position.

If your cause is right you better hope you have more people on your side and bigger guns. That's the way it has always been. Our founding fathers certainly didn't expect anything different when they fought the Revolutionary War.



2)Why should it matter if it's in Yemen or Missouri if the person in question is a 'terrorist' and you feel the President has the authority to kill a citizen? As American citizens, we don't lose our rights simply because we leave the border of the United States. The local government certainly doesn't recognize American law, but an American President is obligated to respect our Constitutional rights whether we are in the United States or abroad.

Your rights are being respected. A soldier doesn't have a right to due-process before he's killed on the battlefield. Again, this isn't a punishment. It's an act of war.

If the soldier (and terrorists are considered soldiers in the US's eyes since 9/11) waves the white flag and we take him into custody he's a prisoner of war. If we want to charge him with a crime then he is given due process.

If he doesn't wave the white flag he gets killed.




An American citizen who joins the enemy is still an American citizen. Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a provision in the Constitution that allows the President to disregard an American's constitutional rights simply because they join a movement that the Executive has determined constitutes 'the enemy.'

Are you saying that if we knew Hitler was on a plane along with a top general who just happens to be a US citizen, we would not be allowed to shoot down that plane? Ridiculous. It's a war and you are allowed to engage the enemy. The constitution does not forbid our army from fighting wars.

You don't want to be killed on a foreign land by your own government? Then don't join the enemy in areas that are considered war zones. Pretty simple.

[olevetonahill]

I think most yall need to STFU if ya aint ever seen the elephant!

[8timechamps]

It is incredibly and unbelievably dangerous for the President to wield the authority to execute an American citizen, regardless of his or her crimes, without due process of law. Especially when put into the context of the 2012 NDAA which designates the United States as a 'battlefield' in the war against terrorism and authorizes the President and military to take actions to combat said terrorism leaving the definition of 'terrorist' entirely up to the Executive.

The specific targeting and authorization of a strike against an American citizen should not only be grounds for impeachment -- it should be grounds for indefinite imprisonment.

I agree for the most part with what you've stated. However, there is almost no situation (really, no situation) that would depend on the president making the call to strike a US citizen within the US. If it were discovered that there was a terrorist (that was also a US Citizen), the matter would be turned over to the US Marshall, FBI or CIA. Even a dumb president would realize the blow-back from a drone strike on a US citizen, on US soil.

[SoonerProphet]

From a policy perspective the real question should be "what has it accomplished, been effective, advanced national security, etc". Clearly the assassination of Awlaki in particular and targeted attacks on number threes in general has failed.

[FaninAma]

So, if a US citizen runs off to Iraq and is fighting for the taliban/aq, whoever, what if he's shot and killed by an American Soldier? What's the diff?
And whose word do we take on the charges against al-Awlaki....just the governments(i.e. the prosecutor's)? That is a very slippery slope.

BTW, was al-Awlaki's 16 year old son, who was killed in a separate drone strike 2 weeks later, charged with all the same crimes?

[jkjsooner]

And whose word do we take on the charges against al-Awlaki....just the governments(i.e. the prosecutor's)? That is a very slippery slope.

BTW, was al-Awlaki's 16 year old son, who was killed in a separate drone strike 2 weeks later, charged with all the same crimes?

Nobody was ever charged with any crime. Their deaths were not punishments. They were a consequence of war.

[FaninAma]

Nobody was ever charged with any crime. Their deaths were not punishments. They were a consequence of war.
So when and against whom was this war declared? I assume it was declared by the Congress since that is the only Constitutionally recognized method of declaring war. Silly of me to have forgotten when this happened.

[TAFBSooner]

Sic'Em: 1)Why an insurrection? Can an insurrection not be justified?

Whether it's justified doesn't matter. The question is whether the government can suppress your insurrection. The answer of course is yes.

Can suppress your (Sic'Em's) insurrection.
DID suppress your insurrection.
And will totally suppress your insurrection again if need be.

[TAFBSooner]

BTW, was al-Awlaki's 16 year old son, who was killed in a separate drone strike 2 weeks later, charged with all the same crimes?

The only person I've heard defend the son's killing is the a$$-whole government mouthpiece who smirked and said the kid should have picked better parents.

[SicEmBaylor]

Can suppress your (Sic'Em's) insurrection.
DID suppress your insurrection.
And will totally suppress your insurrection again if need be.

I understand what you're trying to hint at, but your usual ignorance of the subject is once again palatable as that was not an insurrection. But, it's cool, you don't know what the definition of an insurrection is along with your many other failings. Please, carry on doin' what you do best.

[TAFBSooner]

I understand what you're trying to hint at, but your usual ignorance of the subject is once again palatable as that was not an insurrection. But, it's cool, you don't know what the definition of an insurrection is along with your many other failings. Please, carry on doin' what you do best.

"an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government. "

And the events of 1861-1865 don't meet that how, exactly? I'm sure there's an important distinction in there somewhere for intellectual apologists for the Confederacy.

[SicEmBaylor]

"an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government. "

And the events of 1861-1865 don't meet that how, exactly? I'm sure there's an important distinction in there somewhere for intellectual apologists for the Confederacy.

Because the individual states were sovereign. There was no rebellion or insurrection against civil government since the state governments were the civil government. An insurrection and rebellion would be a group or organization waging conflict against the existing government without legal authority; secession was not without legal authority. It was one government entity dissolving an existing political alliance with another government entity attempting to prevent that other government entity from exercising their legal and political authority. There's a big fundamental difference.

I really can't help the fact that your knowledge of colonial charters, state sovereignty, and Constitutional theory are so limited but please know that this isn't just an intellectual exercise or quibbling over semantics -- the distinction is important and not an example of a 'Confederate apologist.'

The whiskey rebellion was an insurrection.

[jkjsooner]

So when and against whom was this war declared? I assume it was declared by the Congress since that is the only Constitutionally recognized method of declaring war. Silly of me to have forgotten when this happened.

I never once said the conflict was a war officially declared by Congress but it is a war. The US Constitution does not have sole authority to define the term "war".

We can argue semantics about how we define the term "war" all day long but I don't see how that is relevant to the legality of the case. The fact is that we're fighting a military conflict against an enemy (who by the way has declared war on us) and we killed one of the enemy's leaders on a foreign land.

Don't want to get killed then don't go to a foreign land and fight with our enemy. That goes for someone wanting to join the Nazis, someone wanting to join the NVA or Viet Cong, Al-Qaeda, or ISIS. It also goes for someone who is in a leadership position in the fighting force.

[TAFBSooner]

Because the individual states were sovereign. There was no rebellion or insurrection against civil government since the state governments were the civil government. An insurrection and rebellion would be a group or organization waging conflict against the existing government without legal authority; secession was not without legal authority. It was one government entity dissolving an existing political alliance with another government entity attempting to prevent that other government entity from exercising their legal and political authority. There's a big fundamental difference.

I really can't help the fact that your knowledge of colonial charters, state sovereignty, and Constitutional theory are so limited but please know that this isn't just an intellectual exercise or quibbling over semantics -- the distinction is important and not an example of a 'Confederate apologist.'

The whiskey rebellion was an insurrection.

Maybe too much larnin' can can be dangerous . . .

I'm not sure how you can read the Constitution and infer that the states were the only sovereigns under discussion. Start with "We the People . . ." - not "We the States."
Art. I, Sec. 10 - more transfer of sovereignty from states to federal.
Art. VI, 2nd paragraph.

I would even go so far as to believe that the monopoly on foreign policy and military forces would indicate that the federal government had a bigger "share" of the sovereignty than did the states. (Anticipating the quibble that "shared sovereignty" is an oxymoron, but that was the plan in 1787.)

Also, if the colonial charters are an important part of the discussion, so would be the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.

The Civil War was an insurrection.

[SicEmBaylor]

Maybe too much larnin' can can be dangerous . . .

I'm not sure how you can read the Constitution and infer that the states were the only sovereigns under discussion. Start with "We the People . . ." - not "We the States."
Art. I, Sec. 10 - more transfer of sovereignty from states to federal.
Art. VI, 2nd paragraph.

I would even go so far as to believe that the monopoly on foreign policy and military forces would indicate that the federal government had a bigger "share" of the sovereignty than did the states. (Anticipating the quibble that "shared sovereignty" is an oxymoron, but that was the plan in 1787.)

Also, if the colonial charters are an important part of the discussion, so would be the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.

The Civil War was an insurrection.

I wish I had caught this post sooner. Let me walk you through this...you're clearly in need of it.

1) Let's get this out of the way immediately: Slavery was, by far, the single most important and determining factor that led to the decision to secede by the southern states. There is absolutely no denying that. Slavery was the most important issue and formed the apex of the south's grievances with the north.

2)Slavery was a component of states' rights. Slavery was neither illegal nor did the United States Constitution ban its practice or enumerate a power to the Federal government to regulate the institution of slavery outside of regulating the interstate trafficking of slaves; therefore, slavery was quite clearly a state issue falling under the 10th Amendment.

3)Slavery was certainly not the only issue with which the south found cause for disagreement with the north and the Union. Northern industrialists and capitalists who long had the Whigs in their pocket also had their Republican successors in their pocket as well. Northern banking interests, capitalists, and industrialists were resentful of the fact that south could get by with using slave labor. The south had no industrial base to speak of, so the south would ship their raw products to factories in the north and factories in Great Britain and France to turn into finished products. In turn, the south favored free-trade agreements with those nations since they were having to pay an export tax to send their raw materials overseas and an import tax on the finished products. The north favored these tariffs which protected northern factories. So, imagine if you will, the southern reaction to northerners favoring the tariff while threatening the institution of slavery. The south saw this as a threat to their entire economy, their entire society, and as a means for the northern states to suppress the southern states. Likewise, midwestern farmers resented the competition with slave labor for the very same reasons.

4)States evolved from their colonial predecessors. Before we were a nation, colonies were formed by groups of individuals receiving a charter from the Crown to establish a colony in the New World under specific terms and conditions. They arose independently and were, under the terms of their charters, relatively free to govern their own affairs. The violation of the terms of these colonial charters was a contributing factor to the Revolution.

5)The United States is predicated upon the belief that a people have a right to choose their own government. We fought a Revolution justified with the declared reasoning that people, any people, have the right to abolish and/or sever ties with the existing government and reform/establish a new government of their own choosing. The colonies declared their independence as sovereign colonies organized under their colonial charters, and they affiliated themselves with one another for the purpose of separating from Great Britain. They then, as separate sovereign entities, joined together in national unity organized under the Articles of Confederation ceding only that sovereignty they wished to delegate to a central authority.

6)Weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation (namely issues arising from extraditing debtors across state lines) led the individual states to send delegates to convention to amend the Articles of Confederation; the decision was made to hold what became the Constitutional Convention concurrently with the Congress organized under the Articles of Confederation. We must be clear here -- the Congress, the government of the United States, did not call for or organized the Constitutional Convention. The individual states decided to do so independently, and they went to great lengths to keep their proceedings secret from the Congress leading to some interesting cloak-and-dagger incidents with the former trying to gain insight into the latter.

7)The individual states, at convention, wrote a new Constitution delegating only a small fraction of their sovereignty to the Federal state. The powers of this government were specific, limited, and clearly enumerated in: Articles I, Section 8 and Article II, Section 2 and 3, and Article III. The Constitution did not enumerate a power to the centralized government to regulate slavery; however, the Interstate Commerce Clause did give them authority to regulate the import of slaves and the interstate trafficking of slaves. The Constitution did not provide the central government with the authority to decide when a state may leave the union; therefore, under the 10th Amendment, that power is vested with the individual states. Furthermore, the right and sovereignty of the states was never questioned at the Constitutional Convention nor was there ever any discussion that entering the Constitutional compact meant individual states were forever bound to remain in that Union under the force of arms. Had most states known, at the time, that entering the compact meant no state could leave under the threat of coercion and violence by the Federal government -- it’s unlikely most (if not all) would have rejected the Constitution.

8)Regarding the grievances of the southern states that led to secession, they are absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether a state *can* secede regardless of whether one believes in the reasons or the wisdom of the decision. The most fundamental foundational principle in this nation is that a people have the right to abolish existing political ties and form a new government of their own choosing. It was the view of the southern states that remaining in the Union was no longer the best way to secure the future for its citizen; therefore, they exercised their absolute and fundamental sovereign right to exit the Union they themselves created and freely entered into. The Constitution is, if nothing else, a contract between states. The terms of that contract, in the southern view, were breached which led to secession.

9)No person in American history could ever or has ever suggested that the goal of the Confederate states was to destroy the American Union via force of arms or otherwise. There was no intention of invading or making war upon the Union states. Every southerner and every Confederate politician made it clear their desire was to leave peacefully and be left alone. Leaving the Union, contrary to both period northern rhetoric and contemporary orthodoxy, did not equate to destroying the Union. The Union would have been smaller, to be sure, but those northern states desiring to remain in that compact were perfectly free to do so.

10)When a sovereign state left the union, it became an independent political entity free to remain independent or enter a new compact among other independent and sovereign political entities. Any United States troops or possessions sitting on sovereign territory without the permission of the sovereign host state did so both illegally and as a passive-aggressive act of war. The reinforcement of those garrisons was an act of war. The calling of troops to invade and ‘quell’ the rebellion was an act of war. The Lincoln Administration did all three. The southern states may have fired the first shots, but the war was most certainly started and sparked by the Lincoln Administration’s failure to peacefully evacuate its troops from sovereign southern territory.

11)Lincoln made it clear time and time again that the purpose of the war was to preserve the existing Union. The calling of troops was done so with the war-goal of preserving the Union. Very few in the Union went to war with the intention of freeing the slaves, and some states may have revolted or even seceded if that had been a war aim of the Lincoln administration. The triggering cause of secession may have been slavery, but the Union did not go to war over the issue of slavery; the Union went to war over the issue of secession.

12)The myth that the Union was full of anti-slavery zealots with modern notions of racial harmony and that the Union army was on an anti-slavery crusade is pure revisionist history and an absolute myth. The north were as racists as most people believe the southern states to be. After the war, northern factory workers resented the influx of former slaves taking their jobs. Conditions in northern factories were as bad, if not worse, than conditions on a southern plantation. Furthermore, the housing and care of the average northern factory worker was below the conditions and standards of the average slave quarters. Lincoln himself, on numerous occasions, spoke words that would be equated with the absolute worst sort of white supremacist in contemporary times.

13)The result of the War Between the States on the United States Constitution was absolutely disastrous. The sovereign states delegated only a limited amount of their sovereignty to the national state and reserved all other rights and privileges unto itself. The Constitution was a beautifully crafted and brilliantly balanced document that ensured every power had a check, every branch had a check, and the power between state and Federal was checked. The Federal government was seen from the very beginning as an institution crafted by the states in which the states could jointly govern. This is evident when one looks at Congress. The House of Representatives were the directly-elected representatives of the people; Senators represented the interests of the states as whole political entities and were elected by the various state legislatures. Thus, the Congress balanced the interests of the people with the interests of the states. The President was tasked with executing the will of the people and of the states as expressed by the actions of Congress. The War Between the States destroyed this balance by placing the Federal government in a position of supreme centralized power over the states and by the illegal and unconstitutional ratification of the 14th Amendment. It laid the foundation for the increasing and encroaching power of the centralized Federal government for the next 150 years -- a situation we still, to this day, struggle with. It’s a situation that even liberals and progressives should lament. The individual states were intended to be laboratories of social change. Instead, we have an incredibly large and very diverse population governed by a single centralized authority with ‘one size fits all’ law. Our states never relinquished the power over the domestic affairs of its citizenry to the centralized states -- it was taken from them by Lincoln as a result of the War Between the States. Several northern governors recognized this and the potential consequences as early as the first shots.

[olevetonahill]

I never once said the conflict was a war officially declared by Congress but it is a war. The US Constitution does not have sole authority to define the term "war".

We can argue semantics about how we define the term "war" all day long but I don't see how that is relevant to the legality of the case. The fact is that we're fighting a military conflict against an enemy (who by the way has declared war on us) and we killed one of the enemy's leaders on a foreign land.


Don't want to get killed then don't go to a foreign land and fight with our enemy. That goes for someone wanting to join the Nazis, someone wanting to join the NVA or Viet Cong, Al-Qaeda, or ISIS. It also goes for someone who is in a leadership position in the fighting force.

So yer sayin we can Legally Kill hanoi ****in jane?