Anwar Al-Awlaki, Al-Qaida Cleric, killed by US

[Prometheus]

Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Qaida cleric and top US target, killed in Yemen

 

Obama welcomes news of Awlaki's death in US air strike, and says dual US-Yemeni citizen advanced 'murderous agenda'

 

A missile fired from an American drone has struck and killed a radical American-born Islamic cleric in Yemen and put an end to a controversial manhunt that stretched across the globe.

 

Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual US-Yemeni citizen, has been one of America's top targets in its fight against al-Qaida. His firebrand rhetoric had become renowned on jihadi websites and is thought to have inspired many more followers. With a blog, a Facebook page and numerous YouTube videos of his sermons, he had increasingly been regarded by the US National Security Council as one of the most dangerous al-Qaida leaders.

 

President Barack Obama authorised a request to target Awlaki in April last year, making him the first US citizen to be a legal target for assassination in the post-9/11 years. The strike has prompted accusations in the US that the administration has carried out an extra-judicial killing.

 

Obama welcomed the news of Awlaki's death. At a ceremony at the White House to welcome the appointment of a new joint chief of staff for the US military, Obama broke from his prepared schedule to say Awlaki's death was a major blow to America's enemies and condemned him as a dangerous terrorist.

 

"He repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda," Obama said.

 

Awlaki is credited with inspiring or directing at least four plots on US soil in recent years, three of which were unsuccessful – a shooting inside the Fort Hood military base, the failed Times Square bombing, the failed underwear bomber, and a parcel bomb hidden inside a printer that also failed to explode inside a passenger jet.

 

His exact role within in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is much debated by security analysts: some claim he had a senior operational role, others say he had a more informal relationship, and some reports said he was at odds with the established leaders of the group. His key role, both locally and internationally was as a propagandist and inspiration to potential terrorist operators.

 

Awlaki, a bespectacled and bushy-bearded cleric, usually appeared in videos dressed in traditional Yemeni long robe, headscarf and tribal dagger, but he spoke in conversational American English.

 

With his native English and grasp of Western culture, Awlaki was able to make the often esoteric worlds of radical Islamist theology and Middle Eastern politics accessible and understable to a new audience in Europe and American, introducing political arguments more familiar to listeners who may have had limited understanding of their professed faith.

 

Awlaki was also linked to failed plots to target British and European interests, according to security officials. The attempted murder of the MP Stephen Timms was inspired by Awlaki's sermons, and a British Airways employee, Rajib Karim, was convicted in February of plotting attacks against the airline.

 

Reaction from American politicians was generally positive on the news.

 

Awlaki was born in New Mexico in 1971 to Yemeni parents who took him back to Yemen after early childhood. He returned to the US in 1991 to attend college. US authorities believe he came into contact with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers while giving sermons at a San Diego mosque. He is believed to have been killed at 9.55am on Friday morning at a site 90 miles (140km) east of Sana'a between the provinces of Marib and al-Jawf in what is believed to have been an air strike.

 

Few details have been released about the strike – not least because the Obama administration is wary of further destabilishing the embattled regime of Yemeni president Ali Abdulla Saleh. But witnesses say that Awlaki was boarding a 2005 Toyota Hilux along with five other supporters when the US drone attack hit the vehicle.

 

Initial reports suggested that it was the drone was operated by the CIA, working alongside the US joint special operations command team that directed the Osama bin Laden assassination.

 

A second American militant, Samir Khan, who produced the English-language al-Qaida web magazine Inspire, was killed in the attack, said Yemen's defence ministry.

 

The death of Awlaki is the most significant blow to the al-Qaida organisation since Bin Laden was assassinated in May. He was one of the few senior operatives orientated to western ways, and in recent years had become increasingly strident in his calls for Muslims to wage jihad against the US.

 

The CIA and the US military have used drones to target al-Qaida officials in Yemen and had placed Awlaki near the top of a hit list.

 

Yemeni officials initially said they were not yet sure who had killed him. However, they released details of the killing within several hours of it happening, suggesting that Sana'a was either directly involved or well-briefed by the US.

 

Perhaps mindful of the difficult circumstances in Yemen, Obama was careful to praise the country's involvement in the strike and stress that Islamic militants have carried out many attacks in Yemen.

 

"Awlaki and his organization have been directly responsible for the deaths of many Yemeni citizens. His hateful ideology and targeting of innocent civilians has been rejected by the vast majority of Muslims and people of all faiths, and he has met his demise because the government and the people of Yemen have joined the international community in a common effort against al-Qaida," Obama said.

 

But not all reaction was positive. The campaign to take out Alwaki has been criticised by some as a worrying development where the US government can undertake to kill a US citizen without any form of trial. Republican presidential candidate, libertarian-leaning congressman Ron Paul, spoke out against the attack. "Nobody knows if he [Awlaki] ever killed anybody," Paul said after a political event in New Hampshire where he is currently campaigning. "If the American people accept this blindly and casually … I think that's sad," he added. Paul is a long-standing critic of American foreign policy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The American Civil Liberties Union also condemned the attack. The organisation, which campaigns on legal and human rights issues, put out a strongly-worded statement saying the strike was a clear violation of both US and international law.

 

"This is a programme under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public, but from the courts," said ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer.

 

He added: "It is a mistake to invest the president — any president — with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/anwar-al-awlaki-killed-yemen

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Allah ha u naxariisto

[Jacpher]

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

 

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was "considering" indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. When Awlaki's father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were "state secrets" and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts. He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner. When Awlaki's inclusion on President Obama's hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that "it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing."

 

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.). It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its. The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world. The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

 

What's most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar ("No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law"), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What's most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government's new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President's ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki -- including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry's execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists -- criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.

 

From an authoritarian perspective, that's the genius of America's political culture. It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.

 

* * * * *

 

In the column I wrote on Wednesday regarding Wall Street protests, I mistakenly linked to a post discussing a New York Times article by Colin Moynihan as an example of a "condescending" media report about the protest. There was nothing condescending or otherwise worthy of criticism in Moynihan's article; I meant to reference this NYT article by Ginia Bellafante. My apologies to Moynihan, who rightly objected by email, for the mistake.

 

 

 

UPDATE: What amazes me most whenever I write about this topic is recalling how terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process. Remember all that? Yet now, here's Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President -- even Barack Obama -- vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process.

 

Also, during the Bush years, civil libertarians who tried to convince conservatives to oppose that administration's radical excesses would often ask things like this: would you be comfortable having Hillary Clinton wield the power to spy on your calls or imprison you with no judicial reivew or oversight? So for you good progressives out there justifying this, I would ask this: how would the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process look to you in the hands of, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann?

 

Source

[Prometheus]

I think there are legitimate ethical concerns surrounding the conduct of any war, and whether assassinations of this kind (or any kind) are beyond the moral pale. It's definitely a discussion worth having. Not to go off on a tangent, but I find it immensely ironic, though equally laudable, for a prominent gay blogger and lawyer, Glen Greenwald, to defend the rights of a wretched theocrat who would sooner execute him for his alleged sin of homosexuality. One has to admire Greenwald's Voltaire-like virtue.

[Alpha Blondy]

clearly, this post was intended to spark an interesting intellectual debate, but it will be anything but that. another terrorist dies (needs verification), WHO CARES? moderate or fundamentalist? liberal or apostate? no-one cares about these shoddy, repeated and pathetic hyperbolic discussions.

[Jacpher]

Prometheus:

 

I don't know where you get the idea the author is defending the freedom of 'a wretched theocrat who would sooner execute him'. He is not. He never said the man was guilty or innocent. He is simply arguing for the US Constitution to be upheld, even by the highest office of the nation. Perhaps, you need to watch the interview he gave to democracy now on the subject.

[Nin-Yaaban]

Obama took out two big Al Qaida people in one month. This would def help him come election time of next yr.

[oba hiloowlow]

Great stuff!

[Abdul]

The cnn reported it was Saudi Arabia Who gave away his whereabouts to the United states.The cia new his movements the last 2 weeks.

[N.O.R.F]

Ilaahay ha u naxaristo

 

The US will do what the US wants. Due process is for wimps (and blind followers).

 

I have one of Awlaki's CDs called Al Aakhira (the Hear After). He goes through a number a things that indicate the last days are upon us. From poor leadership in the Muslim world to the rise in the Khawaarij movement and Muslims believing what they're told by non Muslims and taking it at face value. Quite interesting. The latter is evident in this thread.

[sharma-arke451]

if its true, he died a martyr, and if he is alive, dee waabo dhag.

but it sickens to see a decent minded fellow, who rejoices when the news of the death of a muslims hits the headlines, and buys the idea of terror at face value.

 

it was once said, '' if you are neutral in the process of injustice, then you stand with the oppressor''

[sharma-arke451]

allah janadii firdowsa haka waraabiyo mujahidka..................allahuma amiin

[Dhagax-Tuur]

^Allahuma Aamiin.

[Narniah]

sharma-arke451;749088 wrote:

allah janadii firdowsa haka waraabiyo mujahidka..................allahuma amiin

ameen may Allah accept him amongst his shuhada ameen.

[Blessed]

Ameen.