“can be tried” ≠ “will be tried” A little habeus pocus and it becomes a secret court, using secret evidence. Some comfort that is.

*They* get to decide if your blogging or phone conversation or travel is fomenting insurrection. You’re a regular on a site named Neo-neocon. You’re guilty by association (everybody knows those neocons are just looking for a reason to attack…).

We’ve gone around more than once that I see what the law claims it is. The law is corrupt.

I turn your question back on you. What is citizenship worth if we can be killed without due process? We all might as well be living in tents in Yemen.

What’s the difference between someone who blogs about insurrection against an unjust government, perhaps linking to info about arms and tactics, and the guy we killed? Maybe you cannot see yourself and your pallys as potential targets. I am either more radical or less naive.

By your rules, what’s to stop this government from assassinating any of us?

Too bad he didn’t have that revelation just a little bit sooner.

Imminent threat? Does a citizen in arms against the US get a different definition of imminent threat than a non-citizen? Why?

Lots of people have revelations. Problem is, if they don’t act on them, on account of having them too late because they’re dead, the revelation is meaningless. For all I know, he may just have concocted a fiendishly complicated and guaranteed way to get a Muslim serving in the US military to kill a dozen US soldiers. Or no, wait. Having done that, the guys being dead or crippled, he’s no longer a threat. We have to wait until…just exactly what? Is there a sub-requirement he has to be in the territorial US to qualify to be shot in the act?
This clown wrote his own death warrant. He had the opportunity at any time to turn himself in and get a trial.
He wasn’t in battle. Neither was Yamamoto. So?
I don’t see any support for your position that an American citizen in arms against the US–even if he’s only organizing–gets a break that non-citizens doing the same thing don’t get. All I see is an assertion.

I would totally support attempting an Amendment adjusting War Powers. It would probably not turn out to be the Amendment I prefer, but that’s the correct way to extend government authority.

Imminent threat. He gets the break because citizenship should confer some privilege.

You move your own goalposts (again?) by bringing up Taliban. Non-citizens, and active pirates get killed as much as we can. The battlefield ROE is stupid. Awlaki wasn’t in battle.

For all we know he was killed right after a revelation that would have him forswear Muhammed and become a U.S. asset.

Should have looked it up before I wrote.

No apology required. I’m the worst about rushing comments into print without proper proofing. No one need ever apologize to me – I am King of the typos.

foxmarks@4:08pm “Bush may have set out decent rules, but he and his successors are not bound by them. The check is still blank. It comes down to the executive’s whim on how to use blanket authority. I don’t trust any of ’em that much.”

That is why we go through the (hopefully) rigorous steps of vetting the candidates. The President’s primary job is as C-in-C and Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the land. Any President must be trusted by the majority. That’s why we elected him/her. And we have a process for unseating the President if he/she violates our trust.

If the list of high value targets was secret or the administration was quick to claim responsibillty for the death of a citizen who could have been dealt with through police procedures, then I would join you in asking for more openness or calling for a change of policy.

That is another mistake many make in this conflict. Because we tried to treat the terror attacks as a police matter (no matter where in the world the attacks took place) before 9/11, some people are locked into thinking of this in those terms. However, because of Yoo and Bush, we are now committed to using police tactics inside CONUS and military tactics outside of CONUS.

“The constitution isn’t a suicide pact.” This phrase, often believed to be written by Thomas Jefferson, refers to the fact that there are, in fact, times when the C-in-C must act extra-constitutionally. The framers had no way of foreseeing the type of conflict we are engaged in today. To satisfy those who want a legal map to follow, possibly an amendment could be passed that deals with fourth generation warfare. Or, since it sems to satisfy your sensibilities, we could have an official declaration defining Islamic terrorism in all its forms as equivalent to piracy.

If we get too legalistic about national defense, every platoon will have to have a lawyer along to advise them on what is legal and what isn’t. I have talked to a couple of progressives who think that would be just a dandy idea. Meh!