I’ve often said that at times the left becomes how it is caricatured by the right and at times the right becomes how it is caricatured by the left. Sometimes left and right seemingly blend. That’s what seems to be occurring in the controversy over the targeting and drone killing of U.S. born terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen. To hear Republican conservatives tell it, it was a no brainer . To hear the some on the Democratic left joined now by Republican Presidential nomination wannabe Rep. Ron Paul, it’s a violation of American law. Some critics suggest we are now in a new era where maybe this could lead to Americans being taken out on other issues.
The reality of what happened is reported by The Washington Post: there was a comprehensive review process and this was not a decision taken lightly:
The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials.
The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said.
So President Barack Obama and his team didn’t just wake up one day and says. “We have him our targets. Let’s do it now!” It was not a simple decision and it was one grounded legal advice.What constitutes due process in this case is a due process in war,” said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closely held deliberations within the administration.
The administration has faced a legal challenge and public criticism for targeting Aulaqi, who was born in New Mexico, because of constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens. The memorandum may represent an attempt to resolve, at least internally, a legal debate over whether a president can order the killing of U.S. citizens overseas as a counterterrorism measure.
So, no, it was not a no brainer. It took some thinking.
The operation to kill Aulaqi involved CIA and military assets under CIA control. A former senior intelligence official said that the CIA would not have killed an American without such a written opinion.
I hate to guess who the unnamed “former senior intelligence official is” but (just saying it, mind you) isn’t there a certain Secretary of Defense who used to have a little gig at the CIA?
A second American killed in Friday’s attack was Samir Khan, a driving force behind Inspire, the English-language magazine produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. An administration official said the CIA did not know Khan was with Aulaqi, but they also considered Khan a belligerent whose presence near the target would not have stopped the attack.
The circumstances of Khan’s death were reminiscent of a 2002 U.S. drone strike in Yemen that targeted Abu Ali al-Harithi, a Yemeni al-Qaeda operative accused of planning the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. That strike also killed a U.S. citizen who the CIA knew was in Harithi’s vehicle but who was a target of the attack.
The Obama administration has spoken in broad terms about its authority to use military and paramilitary force against al-Qaeda and associated forces beyond “hot,” or traditional, battlefields such as Iraq or Afghanistan. Officials said that certain belligerents aren’t shielded because of their citizenship.
“As a general matter, it would be entirely lawful for the United States to target high-level leaders of enemy forces, regardless of their nationality, who are plotting to kill Americans both under the authority provided by Congress in its use of military force in the armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces as well as established international law that recognizes our right of self-defense,” an administration official said in a statement Friday.
But the way our increasingly predictable politics works, no matter what the administration says, it’ll make no difference.
Some on the right will still suggest that killing an American who is or might be suspected of being involved in terrorism, at war with the United States, or a serious threat to national security is as simple as trying to decide whether to have mushroom or pepperoni pizza.
And some on the left will continue to play into their caricature etched by the right as people who’d blast an administration if they killed someone whose finger was on a button to blow up the entire country without first reading them their rights, questioning them, offering them a cup of Starbucks and a public defender.
President Obama and various administration officials referred to Aulaqi publicly for the first time Friday as the “external operations” chief for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a label that may be intended to underscore his status as an operational leader who posed an imminent threat.
In the case of genuine terrorist threats and the need to seriously respond to them and remove them, Ron Paul and some on the left have come to resemble this old famous comedy line from the old Jack Benny radio show where the comedian who portrayed himself as a cheapskate is out for a walk when a robber pulls a gun on him:
But the difference this time: it can’t be said Obama is not taking action. It is (once again) Obama against parts of his party’s liberal wing. He most likely won’t politically benefit from this due to the economy, but the bulk of Americans of both parties most likely agree with his action and the Post piece indicates it was taken after having sought and received legal advice.
For other blog reaction to this story GO HERE.
UPDATE: One standout comment in blogs from the link above comes when you go to conservative Michelle Malkin’s site:
Obama’s far left flank will be unhappy if the mission to kill Awlaki, an American citizen, was successful. They will again decry such drone strikes against American citizens as unprecedented and lawless.
On this, I will come to Obama’s defense.
Awlaki’s membership and leadership in al Qaeda is undisputed.
We are at war.
The Supreme Court set the precedent for Obama’s and our military’s actions in 1942.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.