October 10, 2011

This weekend's crop of maudlin whining, blame-pushing and moralizing about the "assassination" ofAnwar al-Awlaki al-New Mexico about turned my stomach.

Claims like "worst constitutional violation" and "we're all targets now" and all the moaning over the government killing a US citizen without due process means that the writers are totally unaware of what has been going on in this country for decades, or are hypocritically denying it. The US government kills American citizens without due process almost daily, and they are NOT in the same category as al-Awlaki, or the idiot from North Carolina (actually, a naturalized Saudi who later renounced his citizenship, if informally) who also got killed.

I don't know enough about Samir Khan to be able to say much, but al-Awlaki was NOT a US citizen by any logical standard. If he DID have "birthright citizenship" because he happened to be born in Socorro, he long ago renounced his US citizenship, even if he didn't pay the $451 fee that is now demanded by the State Department (I don’t know if Samir Khan did so).

His words, his actions, and those acting under his orders and with his approval demonstrate not only that he was not an American, no matter his accident of birth, but that he WAS an enemy of the United States.

To claim this is an escalation of the government's war against "its own citizens" is to ignore more than just the lessons of Ruby Ridge and Waco or every time an armed federal employee guns down a citizen in a national park or federal office building or border crossing or coastal waters. It ignores the lessons of the War Between the States, including 94,000 KIA, 34,000 POWs, and 194,000 WIA CSA troops - all (according to Congress and the Supreme Court and "Honest" Abe) US Citizens, to say nothing of the 52,000 Confederate MIA and some large number of civilians. (Or the 164,000 CSA dead from diseases, or the tens of thousands more killed in the illegal occupation of the South until 1876), nor of the US Citizens killed by American forces in the invasion of Canada in the War of 1812. (All US Citizens by the same definition applied to al-Awlaki today, by birthright - the IRS would be trying to force them to pay US income and social security/medicare taxes today.) And this is to say nothing of tens of thousands of Apache, Navajo, Sioux, Nez Perce, Modoc, and others gunned down in combat or in raids, some of which took place in Mexico or disputed lands.

Indeed, al-Awlaki's killing is far more justified than the vast majority of these I list. Should he have been captured and tried for violating international law or for his traitorous actions towards "his former country?" Even I admit that would have been better than just killing him; indeed, if I could avoid killing ANY enemy, whether personal or an enemy of liberty or my community, I would do so - preferring to capture them or wound them or otherwise neutralize them, if I cannot win them to my side. Killing can never be anything but a last resort to protect myself, my family, my community, and my liberty from enemies.

I am NOT, of course, serving as an apologist for the First Citizen, much less for the last president or the various Secretaries of Defense who decided to try and kill al-Awlaki, or for the Congress which (one way or another) approved of their actions, any more than I am justifying the actions of Abe or George A. Custer or Tyler or Jackson.

On the other hand, I am NOT supporting al-Awlaki either dead or alive; and too many of the comments I've read seem to do just that. He was not "just a preacher," any more than Colonel Chivington was just a preacher. The man was the member of one or more terrorist organizations, a leader in those organizations, had spoken out against the United States and encouraged and led those who did (or tried) to kill my fellow-countrymen - but not in self-defense.

Al-Awlaki was not just a preacher, or orator, he was an enemy leader, and his right to free speech (which is a right of ALL humans, and not just Americans, by the way) was not violated by killing him - at least not more than the right of free speech of Tojo or Noriega or others were by their arrest and imprisonment or death.

He was a legitimate target of war for American forces , even using tactics that can be considered "assassination," just as much as General Benedict Arnold, General Santa Anna, General JEB Stuart, or General Thomas Jackson (yes, I know he was killed by friendly fire), General Tojo, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, or many others.

If the shoe were on the other foot, General Marshall, General Eisenhower, even General Pershing and General MacArthur never personally (to my knowledge) killed an American enemy, but they were nonetheless legitimate targets to our enemies.

War is NOT nice, it is to be avoided at almost all costs, and the weapons, the tools, of war are not pretty – they are ugly. People are killed, either to keep them from killing others or to keep them from enslaving others and destroying liberty. Assassination (targeted killing of specific individuals, such as leaders) has been a legitimate method of war since Judith killed the Assyrian general.

What is important?

It is not whether or not it was legal or even moral to kill a so-called American citizen. It is not whether the FedGov has or is or will be killing US citizens without “due process” (as though you are any less dead with due process). It is that this administration, like the last few, with the approval and aid of Congress, has waged a global war, not to win, but merely to fight and kill and spend treasure, to accomplish purposes that have nothing to do with the supposed object of the war and is not justified by the threat of all the bin Laden’s and al-Awlaki’s in the world.

[Editor's Note: Seems that the major difference with this assassination is the simple fact that no real "excuses" were even offered. The "king" spoke, and it was done by his command.]