Awlaki Assassination Too Complex For Partisan Memes
Reaction to the news that an American-born, militant Islamist cleric was killed by an American drone strike in Yemen has broken down on predictable partisan lines.
From the far left has come hyperbolic hyperventilating about “due process free assassination.” According to this version, the killing is a blatant violation of Awlaki’s constitutional rights. While anti-war advocates like Greenwald rarely make this explicit and always refuse to defend it against counter-arguments, the tacit argument is that American citizenship means immunity from the normal procedures that are applied to those engaged in a war against the United States. Instead, the U.S. government is somehow supposed to suspend military operations any time an American citizen might be in the ranks of the enemy and send in lawyers with subpoenas instead. The logical holes in this proposal are rather obvious. If American citizens were found in the ranks of Nazi soldiers, even Glenn Greenwald and Code Pink might be willing to acknowledge the necessity of targeting them as enemy combatants.
But the claim that Awlaki is simply an enemy combatant isn’t an automatic winner either. Claims from the far right that Awlaki was “more dangerous than bin Laden” are just as overheated and ridiculous as Greenwald’s feigned swooning. Does merely making Youtube videos qualify for classification as a combatant? It may be true that Greenwald’s fixation on Awlaki’s American citizenship is misplaced and unworkable, but the right-wing fixation on his militancy as expressed through speech alone may be just as dangerous a precedent to set. Is the United States claiming the right to bomb anyone who expresses support for al-Qaeda? If so, perhaps Greenwald should be shoring up his own air defenses! At a minimum, the killing presents disturbing questions about the threshold at which the U.S. is willing to employ deadly force to suppress the propaganda campaign in addition to interdicting actual military operations by al-Qaeda. Much depends on whether Awlaki was actively directing operations or merely adding voluminous rhetorical support.
The partisan noise machine cannot parse this situation.
9 Responses to “Awlaki Assassination Too Complex For Partisan Memes”
Logan is right in that the partisan political system is taking a complex situation and forcing simplistic a “good” vs “bad” meme onto it. The only real issue I have is the implication that this is somehow unusual. This is business as usual for a political system that doesn’t address the issues.
Good balance, LP. They are spinning this to make him a bigger and more hands-on/leader terrorist. I don’t think he was, but I think he was still dangerous as a recruiter of terrorists.
Alawaki ? Screw him if he can’t take a joke !
A terrorit is a terrorist, period. When you denounce the U.S., and then tape yourself bragging about killing Amercians and your intent to kill more, plan on someone taking you out.
Category:American Nazi collaborators
As you read each case, you’ll observe that we did not assassinate them, that most of got tried in a court of law.
But then again Americans were better people back then.
Have you got any proof that he actually killed any Americans? Anyone?
Denounce the US? What does that mean? If you claim that the US government is full of mass murdering criminals, which it is, is that denouncing the US.
QF
The Germans and Italians look like your neighbor. The Japanese are more like Arabs, they don’t look like your neighbor.
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/waronterrorism/Arabs01.htm
Really?
Here is a list of famous Arab-Americans, can you tell me how they don’t look like my neighbors or yours?
Makes for good press for Barry Obamama, but will this really make us safer?
From the NYT:
Now this one is OK:
Barry’s lying, I hope it isn’t because he’s in campaign mode…