While this topic has certainly got a lot of (libertarian) press over at Reason, what brought it to my mind was the so-called "Commander-in-Chief" debate hosted on CBS on November 11. During this debate, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were asked about whether they would assassinate Americans like Anwar al-Awlaki.
Since I don't watch news television, I don't know to what degree the media covered the Awlaki assassination. I imagine it was not covered very much, so I will redirect you to the above link to Reason Magazine and to the less partisan wikipedia page. If you are not interested in reading the gory details, I will summarize the story. Anwar al-Awlaki was a Yemeni-American who later became a popular imam and self-proclaimed anti-Western jihadist. To be clear, he was a citizen of the United States. He has been linked to many terrorist activities since then, including the "Underwear Bomber," the Times Square Bomber, and the Fort Hood Shooter. For a more complete list, see the wikipedia page. In any case, he was put on the Obama Administration's targeted assassination list in early 2010. Thus we used drone assaults to bomb the various places the administration thought they could kill him. In September 2011, the United States of America successfully killed him in Yemen. Two weeks later, we killed his 16 year old son, American citizen Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki. [More below the fold.]
Now that we have laid the foundation, we can return back to the debate. When Romney was asked, he asserted that it was okay because Anwar had declared war on the United States. The moderator followed up by asking most of candidates, but Newt Gingrich's response stood out.
The so-called intellectual of the field, Newt explained to the moderators that Awlaki senior was effectively convicted. Scott Pelley - who was a decent moderator* - correctly pointed out that Anwar was not convicted. In his best anti-media, smug, and combative tone Gingrich asserted: "Yes he was." After another volley of this, Newt finally conceded that what he meant was that Awlaki was "convicted" by the National Security Council. The idea that an American citizen can be killed without due process is sickening. It is important to consider that no media outlet and certainly no public court ever saw the evidence against him. But, since we believe in an "innocent until proven guilty" rule, we are forced to contemplate the horrific. That is: an American citizen who, to the best of our knowledge, might have murdered other people was killed by a panel of bureaucrats whose only evidence was secret.
Unfortunately, Newt didn't stop there. He went on to claim that an American citizen who declares war against the United States loses his/her right to any civil courts. I am not a lawyer, but this seems to be equivalent to one losing his/her citizenship. And where does this stop? Certainly Timothy McVeigh declared war on the U.S., and we still tried him in court. Can we kill people who declare war against us without trial if they are still living on American soil? Wouldn't this be tantamount to the various "death panels" decried so vigorously by the Tea Party?
As usual, Representative Ron Paul was the only one promoting a moral inquiry into these questions. He brought up the killing of the son, which I hope was a reality check for many viewers. Unfortunately, it did not serve as such for the other candidates. Representative Bachmann (nonsensically) retorted that we killed Osama bin Laden. To which, Paul astutely replied that Bin Laden wasn't an American citizen. The great line of the night belonged to Paul: "if you can't trust the government with healthcare, why do we want to trust them with [the assassination of American citizens]?"
Which brings me to my final point. I don't trust the government to kill people. Not just American citizens. I don't want any government to kill human beings. Even if you aren't a libertarian nut and you trust the government with everything else, it can never be okay to have government kill people. Say you want the government to kill criminals who have done horrendous things to innocent people. And suppose, by any chance mistake, we kill an innocent person under this system. Then we have all satisfied your definition of people who deserve to die.
As for people we know are guilty, we should let them live too. Everyone seemed to be so happy we killed bin Laden, but I was not. He was a horrible, terrible person, but he was one of us. By some accounts, he surrendered and was even naked when they killed him. What's probably worse, SEAL Team Six was ordered to kill him before anyone new any facts on the ground. And yet this death was applauded by everyone: from self-proclaimed liberal libertarian Bill Maher to Glenn Beck. Peacenik Maher also loved the killing of al-Awlaki. Why are these events something to celebrate? Supposed masterminds like al-Awlaki or bin Laden could have troves of information for us. I am not suggesting we torture them to get it either, I am not worried about some doomsday plot. If we give them a couple decades of solitary confinement, I am sure they would be willing to trade names and places for a book.
If you don't buy that, at least consider the countless number of people who don't want to kill anyone. Every time an American government kills someone, it does so in the name of everyone. So the blood is on all of our hands. It is sad that I should have to make an argument against this. I wish the discussion started in a world where everyone had a problem with killing anyone.
[*Note: Decent insofar as he kept the candidates' feet to the fire in some cases. However, if he has any control over the apportionment of the questions, he should be ashamed for only allowing Ron Paul 90 seconds of speaking time in the first hour.]
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