Daily Paul is abuzz with the "Assassination of an American citizen." Though I have not read these, I assume the argument goes that we can't simply kill suspected terrorists, but must give them a fair trial.
My question is how this is different from police shooting at a murder suspect when he's holding hostages. We already have cases where there is no trial? Is killing terrorists that different?
You have an American citizen abroad who is protesting the actions of the government, and you send a flying robot in to kill him. I think that is the problem here. If someone takes a hostage, they have initiated violence and threatened more violence. Where is the threat?
I have not studied the case in depth, but a cursory survey of recent news articles suggests that Anwar al-Alaki was not even charged with a crime. I suppose this alone merits further investigation.
Your murder suspect would not be a suspected hostage taker.
He wasn't suspected of terrorism, he was suspected of giving anti-American speeches. You should talk less, it will lessen the amount of tripe coming out of your mouth. I suggest you read the arguments people make not just "assume" how they go.
Awlaki was a detestable person we believe helped recruit and inspire others to kill Americans through terrorist acts.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/10/02/2011-10-02_an_unconstitutional_killing.html#ixzz1ZfKgZrzi
There's a significant a priori difference between serving an arrest warrant with the expectation that the suspect won't come quietly, and serving an assassination order.
I'm not saying that the police have much respect for this notional difference in practice, but that wasn't really your question...
Of course the United States government has effectively assassinated a significant number of American citizens before, but not openly and as such.
Even in the case of a murder suspect holding hostages, I think it's better to (try to) subdue him rather than kill him outright. Holding hostages per se does not mean any or all of the hostages' lives are in (immediate) danger.
In the case of Al-Awlaki, where is the evidence that he did more than agitate against the American people and (more importantly to TPTB) the US government? Oh, the government won't release the evidence because of "national security" concerns? How convenient.
In the meantime, I think your analogy is flawed. A more accurate one would be killing someone who you think may want to murder someone and could be holding hostages at some point in the future.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Also, a hostage situation is very brief, you can't try and convict someone is a few hours. Awlaki has been on a kill list for months, his father and the ACLU sued the government to stop it, but they were ignored.
I think the situation may have been a lot better had the government provided any proof of his guilt. But as you can see here, at least this guy doesn't:
I initially thought it was a parody. Looking it up, it's real.
Why is anyone expecting the government to act morally? Better yet, why do some expect them to follow their own laws? If a law opposes the desired action of the state, the state reserves the option to either change the law or ignore it all together.
Because people believe in "the rule of law" - the notion that everyone is equally accountable under the law. Hans-Hermann Hoppe gives the best dismantling of this notion vis-a-vis government that I've read so far.
He is only a citizen in so far as the state has a method of determining who is under it's jurisdiction. He had papers within that system, but that doesn't really mean anything in any absolute sense.
He also had papers for Yemeni citizenship, and they do not like him either.
I'm sure there is a difference between complaining about the state's actions, and being a statist Islamist like this guy. What is the methodology behind complaining about the state? I would ask the same for communists who don't like the state and call the police 'fascists', but yet support any and all uses of force for their own pet causes.
In this case it is merely two types of statism in dialectical threat-down. With the loser being whoever was weaker.
I think we have to distinguish between people who are defending the rights of people. Versus those who are intellectual cowards in the face of a dark ages anti-rational movement like that in radical Islam. While you consider him a fellow 'citizen', he considers all of you a kufar who cannot be trusted and must be killed for the establishment of a religious world order. And this is an ideology which is not national, but international.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe gives the best dismantling of this notion vis-a-vis government that I've read so far.
Link please?
We're saying the media is lying about that part. or at minimum, implying he committed violent acts against people, which people on this forum are saying, no he didn't.
The article I quoted was RP himself.
Wheylous: Hans-Hermann Hoppe gives the best dismantling of this notion vis-a-vis government that I've read so far. Link please?
I'm not sure which one he's talking about, but Hasnas' is pretty popular:
"The Myth of the Rule of Law"
*EDIT*
Total typo. I always hear "Hasnas" in my head but the finger didn't push the button.
*Hasnas
Wheylous:Link please?
E.g. here, here, here, and here. Warning: the last two are big PDF files.
Extended warning: all of them are very big :P
I'll add those to my list after the 1955 history of Standard Oil.
Edit: re-read this post and am wondering what I'm doing with my life.
Wheylous: Extended warning: all of them are very big :P I'll add those to my list after the 1955 history of Standard Oil. Edit: re-read this post and am wondering what I'm doing with my life.
Here is the short explanation, from The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose:
Another example of irrational statist doctrine is the concept of the "rule of law." The idea is that rule by mere men is bad, because it serves those with a malicious lust for power, while the "rule of law," as the theory goes, is all about objective, reasonable rules being imposed upon humanity equally. A moment's thought reveals the absurdity of this myth. Despite the fact that "the law" is often spoken of as some holy, infallible set of rules spontaneously flowing from the nature of the universe, in reality "the law" is simply a collection of commands issued and enforced by the people in "government." There would be a difference between "rule of law" and "rule of men" only if the so called "laws" were written by something other than men.
Paul Craig Roberts:
Before some readers write to declare that Awlaki’s murder is no big deal because the US government has always had people murdered, keep in mind that CIA assassinations were of foreign opponents and were not publicly proclaimed events, much less a claim by the president to be above the law. Indeed, such assassinations were denied, not claimed as legitimate actions of the President of the United States.
The Ohio National Guardsmen who shot Kent State students as they protested the US invasion of Cambodia in 1970 made no claim to be carrying out an executive branch decision. Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen entered a self-defense plea. Most Americans were angry at war protestors and blamed the students. The judiciary got the message, and the criminal case was eventually dismissed. The civil case (wrongful death and injury) was settled for $675,000 and a statement of regret by the defendants.
The point isn’t that the government killed people. The point is that never prior to President Obama has a President asserted the power to murder citizens.
Wheylous: I think the situation may have been a lot better had the government provided any proof of his guilt.
I think the situation may have been a lot better had the government provided any proof of his guilt.
No, it would not.
In these situations [ a government accuses an individual of criminal acts], all government "evidence" is "supposed" to be presented in court to a jury, and before defense attorneys freely able to cross examine all witnesses/ evidence presented by the government, according to the stipulations for evidence listed in the [Federal] Bill of Rights.
All government "evidence", and all government witnesses are supposed to be automatically assumed to be suspect [i.e. held to a higher standard of truth], until proven otherwise, in court .
Which is of course, exactly why the man was murdered. Regards, onebornfree.
For more information about onebornfree, please see profile.[ i.e. click on forum name "onebornfree"].
"The article I quoted was RP himself." Again, there is no evidence presented. So, Obama is using that news article as evidence? That is sad and pathetic.
I'm saying that RP appears himself to be mixed up. If the claim is that there was no proof that this guy was a terrorist, then RP doesn't support it, as he appears to think the guy was a terrorist.
Wheylous: I'm saying that RP appears himself to be mixed up. If the claim is that there was no proof that this guy was a terrorist, then RP doesn't support it, as he appears to think the guy was a terrorist.
But the Ron Paul article you linked states, near the end:
" ....The precedent set by the killing of Awlaki establishes the frightening legal premise that any suspected enemy of the United States - even if they are a citizen - can be taken out on the President's say-so alone."
regards, onebornfree.
p.s. what I find far more troubling in that same article is the following :
" In 2001, I supported the authority to capture and kill the thugs responsible for 9/11."
Forget principles for a moment... how dumb is it to commit an extralegal assassination of a civilian in pursuit of a "war on terror"? Aren't we supposedly trying to convince Islamic radicals that these kinds of attacks are WRONG?
It seems like it's just a "cover your ass" move by the political leadership just so they wouldn't have egg on their face in the event that this guy did end up doing something. I'm sure they're well aware that whatever unintended blowback results from this will never be traced back to their actions.