Does that mean that drone attacks on self confessed terrorists is worse that hijacking airplanes and ramming them into the towering work places of thousands of innocent civilians (with day care centers)?
I would opine that when such drone attacks routinely kill, main, and render homeless numerous innocent citizens, including many children, it is every bit as abhorrent, and fails to set us apart from the terrorists we claim to be operating on a higher moral stance over. And using the 9/11 situation as an excuse to set off an endless military war on a tactic insures the continuation of this vicious cycle, since the more innocents and infrastructure we annihilate, the more embittered and orphaned survivors of the slaughter there will be to become the next generation of recruits to the likes of Al-Quaeda.
Anwar al Awlaki had been broadcasting numerous requests for further acts of mass violence against non combatants. Do they have to hurt us directly for an MAA to admit that a dead terrorist met the fate he dealt out to many-even the innocent among the population which harbored him by kidnapping their children and forcing women to become walking bombs?
Greenwald showed lots of evidence that what the government said about Al-Alwaki's alleged crimes may not have been true, something we cannot determine effectively because the government kept most evidence shielded from the prying eyes of the press and common citizens. So, for the most part, we only have to go on what the government said, and we of all people should know that secrecy of evidence and lack of transparency in such proceedings should be considered dubious. If Al-Alawki was guilty of such things, then he should have been dealt with like all criminals: arrested via cooperation between international law enforcement agencies, deported to the U.S., given legal counsel and a prompt trial in a regular criminal court, and if sufficient evidence did indeed exist like Obama's defenders insist, then he would have been dealt with according to the principles of American/democratic jurisprudence. This was done by the international community with the Nuremberg Trials, and all Nazi war criminals with whom sufficient evidence existed were successfully indicted in a conventional criminal trial that did not involve a lack of due process.
I am surprised at each of us who cannot see the truth. Enemies of the government that limits our freedoms are not our friends.
It is officials of our own government who make the decisions to limit our freedoms in response to terrorist threats, not the terrorists themselves. When the government does these things, then the terrorists score a victory, because they send us one step further towards becoming more like them, and less like the principles we espouse that set us apart from them.
There is no sane reason to stick up for a terrorist who kills innocents simply due to the fact that they are an enemy of the USA.
I don't think any of us are sticking up for any terrorist, nor the tactic of terrorism itself. What we are sticking up for is the American Constitution, and the principles that due process and habeas corpus are the right of everyone accused of a crime. If we only defended American principles when they were convenient, and only applied them to accused criminals who didn't get our emotions flared up the most, then we would fail in our task of upholding these principles when put to the test.
There are two sayings that I think are very important to consider here:
"The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling he who injured us."
- Jane Porter
"Standing by our principles in theory is easy. It's when we stand by them when we're tested that defines us."
- James Robinson
I am not an enemy of the USA.
Nor I, as I fully believe in the intangible principles that America is based upon. This is why I take such umbrage at any government policy--foreign or domestic--that goes against those principles, no matter what political party the person who initiates them happen to belong to. I am loyal to the principles of the American dream before I am loyal to any political party, or any aspect of the government. I think others in this thread are making similar arguments.
I am an peaceful advocate for reasonable government and for tolerance of that which is harmless. Lower the age of consent and not our integrity toward decent behavior.
And we are most certainly on the same side when it comes to the above, Sheepy. This is why I do not support any policy or action that goes against the spirit of American principles and jurisprudence, nor the tenets of constitutional democracy. I do not believe that targeted assassinations without due process and full disclosure of all available evidence is in harmony with those principles and tenets, nor are drone attacks and imperialist foreign policies that kill and maim innocent citizens, along with guaranteeing a future supply of terrorists with ill will towards America. That is the equivalent of trying to treat a patient suffering from a severe allergic reaction to penicillin by injecting him with another big dose of penicillin. Politicians who stand behind such policies do not represent me to the rest of the world.