Assassinating American Citizens?

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/03/anwar_al_awlakis_ema.php

CONAN: This is an editorial from The Daily Beast by Richard Miniter: For the first time since the days of Abraham Lincoln, an American president has ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen, far from any battlefield or courtroom. And like Abraham Lincoln, Obama has saved the Constitution and the country by defending it against a nihilistic and narrow reading of the Constitution that would prevent the country from protecting itself.

Awlaki was an imminent threat to the lives of Americans and our allies. Based on Awlaki's links to two 9/11 hijackers, to the leadership of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and to jihad in America, there's no doubt he posed a continuing and urgent threat. As evidence accumulated of Awlaki's links to Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab, the so-called underpants bomber, who planned to down a Detroit-based jet on Christmas day, and to the Times Square bomber, these developments only confirmed Obama's view that Awlaki was a clear and present danger.

The government of Yemen was not going to arrest him. And unlike bin Laden - excuse me, just a turning a page here. Unlike bin Laden, he moved constantly, meaning the Special Forces team would be going into a location they knew little about. And while Awlaki's protectors were numerous, hardened and well-trained, these those two factors increased the odds of a deadly failure, nor was there any reliable way to lure Awlaki to a place where he might easily be captured. The president was left with two hard options: ignore Awlaki or kill him in a way that minimizes civilian and American casualties.

http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_Rhetoric%20and%20Reality_Lynch.pdf

Abroad and at home,

the U.S. goal must be to dispel al Qaeda’s narrative

that the United States is at war with Islam and

to prevent extremist voices from again hijacking

America’s relationship with the Muslim world.

The spate of recent terrorist incidents should not

lead the United States to jettison what has been

working and bring back “Global War on Terror”

rhetoric and practice that only serves to strengthen

al Qaeda’s hand. The Obama administration is on

the right track, but much remains to be done to

translate strategic commitments into operational

practice and bureaucratic reality.

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The

National Security Strategy rightly warns of the need

to "resist fear and overreaction" in the face of terrorist

attacks and provocations.    The administration

should resist, and push back hard against, public

demands to respond to domestic threats by taking

actions that would alienate American Muslims and

threaten civil liberties; an example would be Senator

Joseph Lieberman’s suggested legislation to strip

suspected terrorists of their American citizenship.110

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As terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann puts it: “It

is increasingly second- and third-tier extremist social

networking forums managed by unaffiliated fringe

activists – many of them offering dedicated Englishlanguage

chat rooms – that appear to play pivotal roles

in the indoctrination and radicalization of some of

today's most notorious aspiring terrorists."107 The role

of English-speaking Internet jihadists such as Anwar

al-Awlaki feeds the fears that domestic radicalization is

a coherent new al Qaeda strategy to flood the American

homeland with a variety of plots from diverse individuals.

108 Maj. Nidal Hassan, the Ft. Hood shooter, was

connected to Awlaki, with evidence of considerable

contact over the Internet. A generation is emerging

of influential English-language recruiters for jihadist

groups, such as Awlaki from AQAP, Adam Gadahn for

AQC and Omar Hammami for Shabaab. This evolution

of the jihadist movement online should be carefully

monitored, though its significance should not be

exaggerated.

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There are some areas where al Qaeda has not yet

been able to establish a presence where one might

be expected, including Palestine, Syria, Lebanon,

several of the small Gulf states, Egypt, Turkey, Iran

and much of Southeast Asia. Its inability to gain a

foothold might be explained by the strength and

counterterrorism efforts of those states, by the

presence of a strong competing Islamist movement

or by a tacit or explicit modus vivendi. Al

Qaeda has a long-standing desire for a presence

in the Palestinian arena, for instance, but thus far

Hamas has prevented al Qaeda-like salafi-jihadist

organizations from establishing themselves in

areas under its control. Al Qaeda and salafi-jihadist

figures have engaged in an escalating war of words

with the Palestinian Islamist movement, slamming

Hamas for restraining attacks against Israel

and participating in democratic elections under

Israeli occupation. The weakening of Hamas – or

its “taming” through acceptance of a two-state

solution and pragmatic governance – may actually

improve al Qaeda's chances of obtaining its muchdesired

foothold in Gaza.98

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89 An American-backed Ethiopian

military campaign ousted the relatively moderate

Islamist Transitional Federal Government in 2007,

creating renewed chaos that opened the door to

the more radical al-Shabab movement. Although

al-Shabab is not officially affiliated with al Qaeda, it

reportedly has received training and support from

them.90