American Al-Qaeda collaborator Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a drone plane strike in Yemen two weeks ago. He was accused of stirring up the Jihad against the United States. I’m not saying that he wasn’t a bad guy, but it has set a precedent never seen before in this country. The President of the United States can now issue Executive orders to have Americans killed if he thinks that they’re a threat. Think about that for a minute. There is no more due process. There’s no more proving someone guilty and giving them a chance to defend themselves in a court of law. It’s now one man’s decision as to whether or not you’re a danger and he can have you killed.
The system that our forefathers labored so hard to create is slowly dwindling away. We’re becoming a government that is now overreaching its power to new extremes. I thought the previous President George W. Bush’s practice of keeping people in prison, without offering them a lawyer, and water-boarding them was pretty bad, but President Obama has taken our country down to a new level of self-righteousness. Instead of capturing someone you think is guilty of treason, we’ll just kill them instead. After all, the court systems are backlogged with so many other things. We have all of those divorce cases to deal with. If you think the guy is guilty of treason just go and kill him already.
Joseph Stalin once said, “Death is the solution to all problems. No man-no problem.” It feels like we’re starting to head down that road. When one person can arbitrarily take away another’s personal liberty, by stripping them of their right to due process, then what can’t they do to them?
I fully understand that we are fighting terrorism in this country. It’s a non-stop battle that will be waged for the rest of our lives. And I’m also okay with eliminating foreigners who threaten our safety – like Osama bin Laden. While we sleep, and while you’re reading this, some enemy leaders are being exterminated covertly in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s fine as long as they’re not Americans. I know some people might consider that a little selfish or hypocritical, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and it has always been that our government does not kill Americans. You capture them and bring them to justice in a court of law. Anything else is constitutionally lazy. We didn’t use drone planes to kill the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. We arrested them and presented our case to bring them to justice.
Some will argue that the President’s executive order only pertains to killing Americans who are on foreign soil. That’s very convenient as it would probably upset people to see a drone plane drop a bomb in their neighborhood in order to eradicate someone. Could you imagine the reaction if people were watching “Wheel of Fortune” and witnessed a bunch of guys dropping out of a helicopter, with black ninja outfits on and guns loaded? I suspect it would be viral in two minutes and would be severely frowned upon by the citizens of this country. What we should do, if the person lives within the United States, is just tell the them that they’ve won a free, all expenses paid, trip to the Bahamas and when they land we eliminate them. It’s more convenient that way.
Has our country become so dissatisfied with how our legal process works that we’ve come to this point or are we just taking advantage of our powers that make us feel like we don’t have to be held accountable? Probably a little bit of both. You don’t see Great Britain or Germany killing their people. Syria and Libya do, though. Are we becoming like the oligarchy countries were fighting in the Middle East? I sure hope not.
Many people already think that United States is self-destructing in so many ways, but allowing the President to kill another American without due process is leading us down a path where there might be no coming back.
Was al-Awlaki a bad guy that deserved to die? Maybe. To be honest with you, I never even heard of him until the President had him killed. If we captured al-Awlaki and tried him in a court of law, I’d have a much better idea of what transpired, and I’d have a much more informed opinion. But, apparently, that’s not going to happen. We’ll just have to trust the President to decide for everyone who is good and who is bad.
Like Santa Claus – he’s got a naughty list. Just pray you’re not on it.
