While the kinetic rearrangement of Al-Qaeda cleric (and Fort Hood instigator) Anwar al-Awlaki is hardly breaking news, Hope n' Change Cartoons doesn't want to pass up one of the very rare occasions when we can say something nice about Barack Hussein Obama. Nice, in this case, being that he didn't prevent the CIA from turning this asshole into a smoking grease spot.
There is debate in some quarters (hello, Ron Paul!) about whether our government had the legal or moral authority to blow the living crap out of a U.S. citizen like al-Awlaki. But in Mr. Obama's words, al-Awlaki "took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans," which seems to us to trump the need to capture him alive, or take up Eric Holder's valuable time arranging hotel accomodations and theater tickets in New York for a show trial.
Besides, the Constitution calls for a "speedy trial," and it's hard to imagine anything speedier than a Hellfire missile coming through your window.
Amusingly, a second American traitor - North Carolina born Samir Khan - was also killed by the drone strike. Khan was an important Internet presence, radical blogger, and editor of Al-Qaeda's magazine "Inspire."
Which, owing to the increasing number of deadly drone strikes, will now be called "Perspire."
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23 comments:
I want to be fair and give Obama credit for continuing to run these vermin to ground and turning them into fish or dog food, but...the facts of his life, his actions and his own words lead inexorably to the cynical conclusion that this is for public consumption. He desperately wants to be reelected and he has nothing in the plus column but a few dead terrorists. As gratifying as that may be, in and of itself, it doesn't put food on the table, gas in the car, help pay the mortgage or add to the listings in the local help-wanted ads. Since he took office I have agonized over all of those. A whole boatload of ignited, segmented Jihadi's won't alleviate that pain.
So, congratulations Barry, now get the f*** out!
One of my leftie associates refuses to believe there's a spending problem - "Well, let's start buy cutting all the ridiculous expense of Afghanistan and Iraq"
Sorry, sweetie, that *is* a constitutional pervue of the Federal gov't... Health Care >koff, koff< SSec, Welfare, Unemployment, etc, etc are NOT...
And +1 to AHD...
Good article in today's WSJ by John Yoo regarding "assassination" of U.S. citizens. He makes many important points in support of targeted actions against this country's enemies including the use of drones. Yoo stated, "American citizens who join the enemy do not enjoy a roving legal force-field that immunizes them from military reprisal." Abraham Lincoln faced this question at the outset of the Civil War and concluded, "the laws of war must allow the United States to treat its own citizens as enemies when they take up arms in rebellion." The Supreme Court has upheld Lincoln's opinion. So kudos (of a sort) to Obama who at least continues the fight against al Queda and understands that drones don't come with due process rights. And fear for the future since we will soon lose our base of operations for intelligence and drone attacks as we follow Obama's promise of quick exits from Iraq and Iran. But never forget that it was his Justice Department that wanted to charge Yoo and others in the Bush administration with war crimes. What a hypocrite.
Oops. I meant Afghanistan. Not Iran.
@Angry Hoosier Dad beat me to it; this was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The euphoria over dispatching OBL was way too short lived, so Obama's has got to up his street cred to remain relevant. He's not getting re-elected based upon his economic agenda. His "lead from behind" foreign non-policy has been received as the sham it is. So perhaps blowing up some terrorists might help. It's not like his "peace at all price" base is going to give him up for the GOP.
@Pete(Detroit), just tell your lefty friend that Bush's wars were really "stimulus". Either way, they were still cheaper than the Obama administration has been.
@Earl, Obama & his ilk love quoting Lincoln, so that quote is more than appropriate. Historically, when you take up arms against your country, all civilian rules are off. (That's why there should never had been a free Jane Fonda living into her 70s. It's also why that guy who delivered all those documents to Wikileaks should be hung)
@Angry Hoosier Dad- As much as I appreciate the creation of shovel-ready former terrorists, I believe that these successes should actually be credited to our military and intelligence services rather than the Golfer-in-Chief. Meanwhile, everything he's touched domestically (which is his monomaniacal focus) has turned to crap. He's got to go.
@Pete(Detroit)- Oh, a Constitutionalist, huh?! Funny how the left treats that like a dirty word these days ("I suppose you want a return to slavery!") And how anyone, leftie or not, can deny that there's a spending problem is just staggering.
@Earl- I can't (and don't) argue with Lincoln. And you bring up great points about the hypocrisy of Obama's actions. His greatest successes appear to be in the areas in which he's maintained the Bush/Cheney policies (which were greatly reviled by the Left). But while the occasional killing of an Al Qaeda bigshot may make news for a day or two, he's setting us up for catastrophe with his purely political decisions about withdrawal dates.
@John the Econ- Per your comment that Obama is trying to up his "street cred," I've always believed that the Osama death photos will "leak" when they'll do the most good for Obama. Or when the Whitehouse intern who's photoshopping the president into the pictures gets finished.
I thought this man killed had abandoned his citizenship. He was like a man come into a shopping mall to shoot everyone. We as a people, and a nation, have the sure right to stop the madman, no? Yes, well, yes we do. Don't start shooting, and you won't be shot at; rather simple, en?
@Jim Hlavac- The slippery slope is when Americans are targeted for "aiding and abetting" even if they aren't known to have personally taken up arms against the country, but have said things which might inspire others to do so. Mind you, these guys are better off gone... but in a political atmosphere in which Democrats are calling folks like us barbarians, terrorists, and hostage-takers, I don't want Washington to have too much leeway about which "enemies of the state" they can kill.
I find it ironic that the Obama administration considers blowing an enemy combatant to smithereens legal; but asking questions (with the help of water) to gain actionable intelligence is off limits.
The Slippery Slope: Do remember all that the angry left also considers the Tea Party to be "terrorists".
Funny thing is, the more terrorists he greases, the more he's going to irritate the one group still behind him, the Arab Street...
John the Econ....I guess when they start doing drones over our own country, we should start to worry...but anyone doing anti-American, treasonous, dangerous things over in the Middle East has absolutely no protection....and deserves none.
Um, once you take up arms with another country against your coutry, can you still be considered a citizen of that country? I'm not talking about civil war. I'm talking about openly joining the military machine of a country aligned against your country, and fighting within that machine against your country.
As much as I'd like to see every element of this administration, the majority of the Senate, and the minority of the House in the rearview mirror, I think Øbama did the right thing by not interfering with those who actually did the right thing here. 72 virgins notwithstanding...
Now, as for that bit about immoral, unscrupulous politicians and slippery slopes: what of the war of words against this regime? I'd say yes. It's time to look out for the helis...
(On another note, tried TWO different versions of MSIE on two different machines to post today. Both reset the Blogger form as soon as I clicked
preview. This post was made, again, on Chrome. Huh. Go figure.)
@Emmentaler -- -- That's the point many miss: in a non-civil war scenario, al-Awlaki "took up arms" against the United States.
@Suzy -- -- They ARE flying drones over this country.
Does anyone else feel like they're on "Double Secret Probation ...?
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Although we may understand the clear distinction between politically engaged American citizen and American turned America-hating terrorist, it's clear from the comments that many of us fear this regime does not. When Obama demonizes Tea Parties and conservatives in general, one wonders if he knows he's talking about people...American people, many of whom vote. Of course Obama's intemperate words may be just a lame attempt to fire up his dwindling base, but they do harm to an already fractured political dialogue. I note the irony in the use of the word "dialogue" meaning a conversation between two or more people. How many of us actually believe Obama wants a dialogue. I don't. He wants to say "jump" and hear back "how high?".
He surrounds himself with toadies who answer "how high?" and nobody seems able to say "no" regardless of how desperately he needs to hear that. Is there nobody close to him with the balls to say "this is a really bad idea"? It's like the rock star or actor who surrounds himself with simpering sycophants and hangers-on who say the things he wants to hear but none of the truth he needs to hear until it's too late, the star has burned out and the gravy train is derailed. As a conservative I should cheer his imminent self-destruction but I am too busy agonizing over the Obama-caused disaster I see around me.
@Angry Hoosier Dad said "...one wonders if he knows he's talking about people...American people, many of whom vote."
DO you you know there are actually Democrats in public office at this very moment who virtually are at war with the voters?
"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that, you want people who don't worry about the next election."
That was North Carolina's Gov. Beverly Perdue.
Meanwhile, in the House today there's a union-supported bill to start up a trade war with China. That's just what we need right now. Remember, it was protectionist legislation that put the Depression in full swing.
People think things are bad now, but most haven't a clue as to how bad it really could be. Most people now are stressing about their jobs or lack of them, their bills, their homes. But there's still food on most tables. What will things be like when people get seriously hungry for real?
John:
I am well aware of Perdue and others who are floating this anti-Constitutional idea in the hope that it will catch on with enough Americans to warrant the effort. The other possibility is that they hope it will enrage the Tea Partiers and incite them to the kind of violence that Obama's been wishing for. But they grossly misjudge the Tea Party. If anyone knows the power of the ballot over the bullet it is they.
As for a trade war with China...
Didn't Vizzini warn about getting involved in a trade war with Asia (or was it a land war in Asia)? Either way, really bad idea.
@Earl- It is an interesting hypocrisy that a bullet in the eye is considered more civilized than water up the nose.
@Emmentaler- There's no real debate (to me, at least) about whether al-Awlaki was a justified target, and that we were within our rights to take him out.
On a tech note: I'm aware of at least one other person who had the same problem with the comment form resetting (and nuking the entered comments) yesterday...and in that case, the person was using Firefox. Sounds like it may have been a hiccup on Blogspot's side.
@Jazz- You're right, there ARE drones flying overhead in some parts of the country now. Although I don't think they've got hellfire missiles. Gulp.
@Angry Hoosier Dad- Obama has never wanted, nor accepted, "dialogue" in any meaningful form. It's what he promised, and won election on...but he was lying through his teeth. Like you, I'm glad to see him flailing and falling, but I'd prefer seeing him actually try to unite people and try to do something genuinely good rather than spend all of his time fomenting hatred and division in his time left in office.
And the Tea Partiers will clearly stick to the "ballots over bullets" philosophy. Although Perdue certainly ups the ante when she suggests it may be time to take away our ballots.
@John the Econ- Perdue essentially admitted what we already know: that politicians would rather get re-elected than do the right thing. Which suggests to me that the problem isn't elections, it's that we have the wrong politicians.
As far as a trade war with China goes, I'm a little unclear about what weapons we think we could bring to bear; our huge, productive workforce? Our quality? Our fiscal discipline? Our citizens' willingness to buy more expensive items out of a surfeit of patriotism?
This is insanity. And sadly, right in character for the current administration.
Stilton, Stilton, Stilton! Learn to think like the enemy; the liberal. We can bring our TAXES to bear on them! Imagine how our coffers would swell to bursting if all the goods we buy from China were taxed to the hilt!
Of course, thinking like a rational being, you'd realize that doing so would have the exact OPPOSITE effect on the desirability of those goods, thereby defeating the liberal theory. Not to mention the retaliatory effect it would have on the comparably paltry, but still very profitable trade from us into China. But perish the thought! It fits not into your oppositions' puny, collective mind... (I can hear it now: Let's pass a law that says that, if you SELL in our country, you must pay income taxes to our country for all the people in yours! Isn't that similar to what Iowa has done to The Colonel?! Shoot! The horizons are limitless!)
And I'm actually terrified over the suggestion that "elections be suspended". It sounds suspiciously like we've already lost - much as Venezuela lost when a certain someone rewrote their election laws. Remember the function of "useful idiots" such as Perdue. They are the harbingers of an impending movement; one which, being lawless in its origins, may be impossible to turn back using rule of law. ShUdDeR...
On that IE posting complaint - not spurious. Same deal today. I finally broke down, swung over to Sourceforge, and grabbed a "portable" version of Chrome in order to post this one (my employer, unfortunately or otherwise, is a Micro$oft house, so actually INSTALLING Chrome is verboten...)
Perish the thought, also, that Google would be sabotaging competing browsers to gain the upper hand with theirs - which is their prerogative if they so choose: they own both. In any case, I'm posting this not to whine, as I know you hold little sway over what Google, masquerading as Blogspot, does - but other of your readers may not be aware of portable versions of software such as Chrome which can be installed on a flash drive and (usually) run despite having the inability to install software on the PC in front of them... A portable version of Chrome for Windows can be found here: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable
Although there is plenty to complain about in terms of trade with China and their currency policy, is now really the best time to address this? China is a problem, but it is not the problem with our economy. That would be the ongoing Keynesianism and idea at the White House and amongst many in Congress that our economic situation is just one more tweak to the tax code or just one more stimulus check away from repair.
I just want to point out that Governor Perdue was talking about holding off on "Congressional" elections for two years--Specifically, the House of Representatives. I doubt she was thinking of suspending ALL elections. That doesn't mean it would be a good idea. She was attempting to make the point that Congress needed to "Do Something!" Personally, I don't see "politicians" as the problem so much as voters who won't THROW THE RASCALS OUT as often as necessary.
@JustaJeepGuy, the biggest problem with our economy now is uncertainty and unpredictability, mostly due to clueless and/or agenda-driven politicians constantly changing the rules we operate under. Our elections are one of the very few things left in our country that remain involute and predictable. The minute we start taking seriously talk about suspending elections, we formally make the transition into the banana republic class of country where the Constitution is totally thrown out as the last arbiter of contract between people and the state. It's all over then, and I really don't want to contemplate what happens next.
@Stilton -- Just because the drones aren't currently carrying Hellfire (and other?) missiles doesn't mean that they cannot be loaded and launched in short order ... "once the order comes down".
BTW, I like that "Golfer-in-Chief" tag; but does anybody know his independently-audited scores? It could be that he is the "Duffer-in-Chief" on the links, as well as anywhere there is no teleprompter handy.
@All -- re: SC Governor Perdue....
When does she come up before the voters, again. Could it just possibly be (hrumph) that she is planning a skipped election just when she stands to get the gaff, herself?
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