So, it turns out Obama is worse than Bush

[Anonymous]

Point of contention - can you renounce your US citizenship? Did Anwar al-Awlaki in fact do that? Didn't he attend college on a J-1 (foreign student) visa? I realize he was born in the states ( a good argument for getting rid of the "automatic citizenship" interpretation of the 14th amendment, even if we need yet another amendment but I digress) but it appears he either renounced his citizenship or played a big scam on Yemen who paid for a lot of his college experience.l

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Point of contention - can you renounce your US citizenship? Did Anwar al-Awlaki in fact do that? Didn't he attend college on a J-1 (foreign student) visa? I realize he was born in the states ( a good argument for getting rid of the "automatic citizenship" interpretation of the 14th amendment, even if we need yet another amendment but I digress) but it appears he either renounced his citizenship or played a big scam on Yemen who paid for a lot of his college experience.l

Yes, it is possible to renounce US citizenship. I am not aware of Al-Awlaki doing so. He is reported to have attended college on a foreign student visa with a scholarship from Yemen. However, I disagree with your contention that this means he either renounced his citizenship or played a scam on the Yemeni government. He could hold dual citizenship, having received US citizenship by birth and Yemeni citizenship due to parentage. Ironically, he would not necessarily have had to apply for either one. Regardless, the US government seems to consider him an American because the authorization of his assassination was required to be approved by the National Security Council which wouldn't be necessary if he was not a US citizen.

I think it is no coincidence that Dawn Johnsen has just withdrawn as nominee for Office of Legal Counsel. Obviously, Obama was doing nothing to get her confirmed and he couldn't possibly want her in that position now. There is no way that she would approve of the neo-Bush policies that he seems to have adopted across the board for foreign policy. I bet the Nobel Committee would love to have their peace prize back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hee. I think Obama is extremely liberal. I also think if he had a better option he would take it except, oh, he's liberal and kind of politically expedient. I am not saying there are NOT other options, but that they are not politically expedient. And it is kinda ironic that for political expediency he is picking even LESS righteous options than the last guy... the big head puppet people should be clamoring outside the white house!

Such a Republican attitude. No one does your protesting for you. You have to get out the papier mache and make your own damn big head puppet. Now I know you have not been trained, and judging from the tea party protests your first steps have been about as awkward as a high school freshman trying to unhook his first bra to get to 2nd base. But if you want protest, you can't sit on your a** and bitch about why the protest people are not out there satisfying your political needs. They are not your public servants, and they are not required to be any more intellectually consistent than Glenn Beck.

[Anonymous]

I've joined in plenty of protests--somber and to the point usually. I have never seen anything sillier and less opinion-changing than the big head puppets coming down the way, but since they seem to be a regular feature of liberal protest I am not sure why the drums aren't being banged and the big head puppets paraded about outside the White House now given the points OP brings up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've joined in plenty of protests--somber and to the point usually. I have never seen anything sillier and less opinion-changing than the big head puppets coming down the way, but since they seem to be a regular feature of liberal protest I am not sure why the drums aren't being banged and the big head puppets paraded about outside the White House now given the points OP brings up.

Well you don't see Fox News praising him for it. Funny that you would expect intellectual honesty from the liberals but have no similar expectation from the conservatives.

[Anonymous]

Why would FOX news praise him for it? He's gone from some process (the best that could be cobbled together in the fraught quickly moving post 9/11 world) to no process. This is progress?

[Anonymous]

Hee. I think Obama is extremely liberal. I also think if he had a better option he would take it except, oh, he's liberal and kind of politically expedient.

So in other words, he's a crafty liberal, but he's lazy?

[Anonymous]

I just think that if there were a better choice (choice C) l he would take it. But I think he realized that the actual alternatives he has proposed to the policies that he criticized Bush for are actually darned hard to implement (hey-do you think that's why Bush didn't?), so by just marking people for assassination he is conveniently sidestepping both following the same Bush policies or putting his money where his mouth is and doing things differently and better. He seems to think people just won't notice that we have basically stopped capturing suspected terrorists and are now just vaporizing them. Maybe people don't?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I just think that if there were a better choice (choice C) l he would take it. But I think he realized that the actual alternatives he has proposed to the policies that he criticized Bush for are actually darned hard to implement (hey-do you think that's why Bush didn't?), so by just marking people for assassination he is conveniently sidestepping both following the same Bush policies or putting his money where his mouth is and doing things differently and better. He seems to think people just won't notice that we have basically stopped capturing suspected terrorists and are now just vaporizing them. Maybe people don't?

Is this policy applicable to anyone other than Awlaki? And is the order to kill, or is it to capture or kill?

[Anonymous]

If you capture someone you need a high security place to keep them and a procedure to process them. Besides shooting down the old procedures for this, has there been any new plan put in place?

[Anonymous]

The precedent Obama is setting is horrifying. Even Saddam Hussein had a trail before he was hanged. It's baffling that Obama is doing this, and sad that the press is not covering it.

Liberals might feel comfortable with Obama's politics, but what if Sarah Palin is elected President and decides to assassinate someone whom she believes God doesn't approve of? An abortion provider, perhaps? Her liberal predecessor, Obama, assassinated a "bad" guy, so she'd only be following precedent.

I voted for Obama, and I have been terribly disappointed in him. He's not a liberal. He's a middle-of-the-road politician. The health care fiasco was only the beginning. I'm glad a watered-down health care bill passed, but Obama and his crew did a shoddy job of shepherding it through a Democratic-controlled Congress. His leadership does not match his charisma.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Is this policy applicable to anyone other than Awlaki? And is the order to kill, or is it to capture or kill?

The CIA maintains a list of people who can be subject to targeted assassination. There are several people on the list. Americans require special authorization from the NSC. As far as we know, Awlaki is the only American whose killing has been authorized. Those on the list are also authorized to be captured. I have much less of an issue with that aspect of it (i.e. hardly any issue at all).

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:If you capture someone you need a high security place to keep them and a procedure to process them. Besides shooting down the old procedures for this, has there been any new plan put in place?

I am really surprised how difficult this is being made to appear. Imagine for a second that US intelligence officials discovered a plot by three individuals to fill backpacks full of explosives and get on the New York City subway and explode themselves under Times Square. What do you think the government would do:

1) kill them on sight;
2) seize them, ship them to Cuba and torture them;
3) arrest them, read them their rights, subject them to the civilian legal system; or
4) offer them therapy?

As it happens, we don't have to imagine because exactly this has happened. Late last year, the Government broke up a plot led by Najibullah Zazi. He is currently in a civilian jail awaiting trial. He has been read his rights, he has a lawyer, and he is even cooperating. You will note that the sky has not fallen. Generally, you wouldn't even notice anything different. I don't know where the idea comes from that we don't have the capability to hold the likes of Awlaki in our prisons. The guy is not a superman. His beard does not give him special superpowers. If we can hold Manual Noreiga, Latin American drug lords, and US mafia figures in our prisons, we can certainly some guy whose most dangerous weapon is his blog.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:... I don't know where the idea comes from that we don't have the capability to hold the likes of Awlaki in our prisons. The guy is not a superman. His beard does not give him special superpowers. If we can hold Manual Noreiga, Latin American drug lords, and US mafia figures in our prisons, we can certainly some guy whose most dangerous weapon is his blog.

There are other issues before the question of where to keep him even arises. Capturing him and removing him from Yemen without the government's approval would be logistically and diplomatically dicey, and I don't think the Yemeni government can afford to even appear to give approval. Recently a high level Hamas official was killed in Dubai. Everyone assumes it was done by Mossad, but there is no proof. I don't think they could have taken him out alive, and certainly not without leaving much more of a trail of evidence.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:There are other issues before the question of where to keep him even arises. Capturing him and removing him from Yemen without the government's approval would be logistically and diplomatically dicey, and I don't think the Yemeni government can afford to even appear to give approval. Recently a high level Hamas official was killed in Dubai. Everyone assumes it was done by Mossad, but there is no proof. I don't think they could have taken him out alive, and certainly not without leaving much more of a trail of evidence.

I'm sure that there are any number of things that would be easier for the President if he could ignore the Constitution whenever he felt like it. After all, if we replaced Obama with Mussolini, maybe our trains would run on time. "It's hard" was George Bush's excuse. I didn't accept it then and I won't accept it now.