Sorry for the poor formatting, but the powers that be are doing their best to fix it up (LOL).

Sorry for no responses to comments, tonight, but deal with it.

You live by the sword you die by the sword Mark. It’s to bad for those who have never seen a sword on OS condoning the usage of one, Western swords are sharp on both sides of the blade. Where's Frank shouldn't he be weighing in on this? I am certain he will condone the assassination of all Americans not voting for Obama.

If Obama is not challenged in the primary, I will be voting for Dr. Paul in the Republican primary. fingered.

The right and left are converging in many ways against what they see are shared interests: a growing Oligarchic power that owns the government, the top corporations and is unrestrained by the law and democratic process.

There were many strange alliances in 1776. In the new age to come, stranger alliances will also be made. But we must still have alliances.

I'm not upset that Awlaki is dead, it's the process that led to his death that is a concern. I don't need evil, incompetent government elitist employees deciding which of my fellow Americans need to live and which need to die. I can figure that out on my own, thanks.

There was an interesting article in yesterday's (Sunday) NYTimes about drones. It seems that drones have, up to now, been mostly an American technology but that's changing, both in terms of who's developing them and where the current manufacturers are selling them. What this means is that America's choices so far on drone use are setting all sorts of international precedents that we won't be equipped to deal with or even answer because of what we've already done.

I don't need to read those other opinions. The bottom line is that the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were and are illegal. So are the assassinations. In the ten years since 9/11 we have seen our government abandon all of the things that used to set the U.S. apart from other nations. Bin Laden while a genuine enemy of the U.S. lacked the conventional ability to declare a war, unless we had recognized Islam as a government none of the rules of war can be applied. That alone makes the killing of Bin Laden less than legal, Al Awalki is a different subject all together, as a citizen of the U.S. he was endowed with constitutional rights that unless voided by renouncing his citizenship formally meant that he had to be arrested and tried in a court of law and convicted by a jury of his peers. The penalties for treason are not mild they include the death penalty and by ordering attacks on the U.S. government and it's citizens he was guilty of a capital crime. Had he resisted arrest he could have been killed in the attempt to place him in custody. A clean and legal kill befitting a person who has decided he is the judge, jury and executioner of people who commit no crime beyond exercising their legal right under U.S. law to freely express their religion.

I do not have much sympathy or feelings of mercy for Al Awalki or Bin Laden, on the contrary they were serious threats to the U.S. and the world and their deaths, despite the illegal nature of at least Al Awalki's assassination, they both deserved and asked to die. My problem is that if we no longer are bound by the rule of law regarding our own constitution then it is just an old piece of sheepskin of no value. We must respect its rules and the attendant rights of the citizens it pertains to or we are not who we claim to be.

What a sad thing. Special Kill lists for our own citizens.

I may or not be an intellectual, or even bright.
I am, whatever I am, pleased that a man who wants my family dead for no other reason that we're Jews, is gone.
Trust me, I have no prob w this.
If this makes me a Bad Man, ok w me.
And as do that radio idiot...he'd say the sky is the sea and that the ocean is land were Obama to say the opposite. Savage is no resource for anyone on this or any other issue the admin weighs in on.

The government should always be made to answer for significant decisions, so questioning if the process of justification is "due" is essential. If not, then answer for it. If so, answered to.

However, there has never been an encompassing literalistic meaning to those rights and rational questions of public safety have limited rights in many instances. The Constitution isn't a suicide pact, as has been noted.

I would be disappointed if there were no challenge to the action and shocked if that challenge led to sanctions.

It doesn't take an "intellectual" to know there have always been rational considerations, or a "patriot" to mistakenly think there are no valid considerations involved. Legal professionals should perform their function in challenging, and be strident in their case even though they are well aware of the hurdle that must be cleared.

Those who are unaware of that valid barrier and embrace an literalistic ideal are free to denounce others as unpatriotic, just as others are free to respond accurately to say such opinions don't take any thought or recognize a simple truth and, lacking any knowledgeable underpinnings, are no more well-formed than a fart.

Faux patriots? Droll, and funny in the sense of you not even having your own thoughts on this, to the point you throw Savage into the mix. You'd be better off staying with your symbiotic obsessive-compulsive Apisa disorder, making sure that you wreck every thread in which the twins of brainless bitching appear.

This is one of the most intriguing dilemmas of our time. On the surface, it appears that Anwar committed treason against the U.S., which is defined as waging war against one's own country. On the other hand, he was never tried on this charge. On still the other hand, what possible chance was there that he would stand trial?
I assume that our government regarded him as an enemy combatant. To all appearances, he was guilty, indirectly or directly, of causing many American deaths. But again, there was no trial, nothing that anyone could call due process.
It is enough to give one a headache. In the end, I am willing to lump him in with enemy combatants firing deadly weapons at American troops, who in wartime are fair game for return fire. It doesn't much matter whether he was killed by a drone or by a soldier firing a conventional weapon.
I don't think we have to worry that because an enemy combatant was killed in wartime, the U.S. might turn around and target one of us. Anwar was killed fair and square as a combatant against the United States. As an enemy combatant, he deprived himself of whatever protection his U.S. citizenship might otherwise have conferred.

Thank's for coming by, Jack. Your support is always appreciated, especially in matters of human rights, facts as opposed to delusions, and constitutional matters.

frank NEVER comes on to my blog, he doesn't have the courage. Besides, he's devoted today to mourn his cat (may he/she r.i.p).

Thanks again for coming by, Jack

Your presence has been sorely missed BBE and I am honored to have You appear on my blog. Please stick around as the lead up to the charade known as the american presidential elections promise to be a circus not to be missed.

RW, it's ALWAYS a pleasure to see You here, and although I don't comment as much on Your posts, I read them religiously.

Yes, the alliances to come should be quite a spectacle to behold.

Thanks, again for stopping by.

RW, thanks for stopping by. As You point out the crux of the matter is NOT whether Awlaki is alive or dead, nor whether he deserved to die, but whether we shall remain a nation of laws or whether the shredding of the constitution, so ably carried out by bush the lesser shall be accepted when done by obama.

Needless to say, my position has been consistent since I started blogging here.

As imperfect as the document may be, and for better or worse, america has decided that it should be our deciding document, subject to amendment when necessary, and until someoe comes up with a better alternative, I'll stick with that.

Kosh, as usual words of wisdom, from someone with an open mind. Thanks for coming by. There is no doubt that the "wonderful" world of drones will be opening up further frontiers which I fear will only increase the levels of violence (as they are now doing) and further legitimize killings of civilians and targeted killings, american or otherwise.

Thanks for Your keen observations.

Bobbot, as someone who has served in the military, and I suspect with considerable distinction, Your words are especially relevant.

When You were inducted, You took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. The words in Your comment indicate that You took that oath seriously, and that You still do.

For this I commend You and am proud to have added You to my favorites list long ago.

Thanks for Your cogent comments.

Erica, two sentences; eleven words, yet they say so much. How low can this country go, when "reasonable" people accept the concept of kill lists of american citizens?

Thanks so much for Your extraordinary comment.

Perhaps, You didn't notice, jonathan, but the subject of this blog post is the constitution, not israel. Furthermore, your undying defense of anything israel does is analogues to frank's undying defense of anything obama does.

You must have noticed that I do not share Your undying affection for israeli actions without question.

Also, perhaps you're unaware of the fact that I have refrained from commenting on your blog ever since you tried to strong arm me via PM into rating an issue you raised which I didn't agree with.

I think that was/is a hideous way to attempt to garner rates, and have no idea how many other people you strong arm into such activity.

As I restrain from commenting any further on any of your posts, I would kindly ask that you reciprocate by not commenting on my blog posts.

Paul, I don't know if you've ever appeared here before or not, but the first five paragraphs of your comment look like someone strung a bunch of words from a dictionary, threw them on a wall, and chose to splatter them on someones blog.

I choose to align myself with writers on antiwar.com. alternet, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Francis Boyle, an expert in international law at the University of Illinois, Sherwood Ross, writing in Global Research, Jeremy Scahill in "The Nation," Glenn Greenwald, Firedoglake, Veterans Today: Military and Foreign Affairs Journal, former Justice Sandra Day O-Connor, (who said: "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens") and others.

As best as I can determine the two major defenders of your position seem to be darth cheney and john yoo, two heinously discredited torture advocates.

Perhaps you'd best consider continuing to blog on issues you've previously addressed, such as: "My Night of Bondage and Discipline" and "When I was 9 We Robbed a Pharmacy - a true story"

In any case, if you wish to bash me or my positions, I would ask you kindly to do so at your own blog or elsewhere.

You are, clearly, NOT welcome here.

Furthermore, paul, I don't expect this commentary I found on the web to change your mind, however, I will print it for others benefit:

"For all those people cheering the death of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen by a done strike as something to be cheerful about I would say that you are an idiot and in all likelihood you have no conception of the enormity of the event that has just occurred in your countries name.
The USA has now executed one of it’s own citizens without any form of due process.
They have killed a US citizen abroad without any attempt at capture, imprisonment and trial and now that a precedent has been set – under a supposedly democratic president – the scope of these killings will only continue.
You might not like al-Awlaki, you might despise the things he says but investigate reporters and intelligence specialists have gone on record to state that he was not the head of al-Qaeda in Yemen as the lame stream media keep parroting.
In fact he wasn’t even a middle man in the loose confederation of like minded opponents to US and Israeli foreign policy who call themselves (or usually others call them) al-Qaeda and his status as “chief of external operations” for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula only came after his death by drone strike.
Even though the media like to think otherwise, he hasn’t been directly linked to any terrorist attack, and any claims to the contrary have yet to be proven. If evidence actually existed that linked this US citizen to terrorism and criminal organisations then there would have been no reason not to capture him for trial and punishment.
US Special forces are stationed all over the globe and as we supposedly saw with the attack in Abbottabad, Pakistan when Bin Laden supposedly died. The US government has no problem at all entering other countries airspace with or without jurisdiction and carrying out snatch n grab or as we are getting used to “hits” on their enemies.
Therefore in light of the lack of firm proof we should err on the side of caution because we all know where faulty intelligence gets us don’t we i.e war in Iraq, and probably coming soon Iran.
No despite all the unnamed sources claiming otherwise al-Awlaki was just someone who went on YouTube and spouted off now and then. Freedom of speech? Not if it goes outside the boundaries of what your POTUS wants you to think about.
We all know after 9.11 that he was outspoken about the attacks, denouncing them and even being invited to Government meetings – even dining at the Pentagon – before becoming disillusioned with the US response to the attack and moving to Yemen.
Therefore to claim that some major al-Qaeda terrorist has been slain by a righteous US automated fist in the sky is disingenuous at the least especially after we just helped arm them so that they could overthrow the Libyan government.
If he was a radical it was because he, like many other Americans, saw the US war on terror as nothing more than a land and resource grab that killed thousands of innocent Muslims and did nothing for American safety apart from creating a police state at home. He may have been classified as an enemy but he was still an American citizen.
His death is the final nail in the coffin of a free America as his murder is a sign that the US has moved that final step we had all feared into the realms of “the missing”, Cheney’s death squads and the President as the ultimate decider on who lives and dies.
We all know that the US Police have been shooting poor blacks and other ethnic people in the back on train station platforms for years and your great free country doesn’t mind the slightest if it’s ally and paymaster Israel executes you in full view of cameras on the high seas, with multiple shots to the head and back as you lie helpless on the floor. This has been the norm for some time now.
However I wonder if the outcry about al-Awlaki’s execution would be any different if he was white and was named Joe Six Pack Anderson instead.
What if he hadn’t of been spouting off about the war on Muslims but instead been attacking the TSA for groping his kid at an airport or demanding that the FED be audited?
What if he was just an American who had lost his job due to the financial meltdown and had been protesting on Wall St about the massive robbery being committed daily by US banksters on the Middle Class.
What if he were a Ron Paul supporting, gun owning, liberty loving good old American who just wanted to live in a country that wasn’t permanently at war and who was vehemently against the fact that his country was planning to use similar automated killing machine drones at home.
You might not have liked al-Awlaki or agreed with anything he said but in the light of any evidence to the contrary he shouldn’t have been executed without due process.
As an American citizen abroad he surely should have been accorded the same rights as an US citizen whether or not he was Muslim and against US foreign policy.
If he was involved in al-Qaeda in anyway, he should have been captured alive and then tried in a court of law before being convicted if the proof was beyond reasonable doubt. That is how supposedly democratic liberal nations handle their citizens when they break the law. They do not execute them on demand. We leave that sort of behaviour to countries like North Korea.
Just try to look past the Muslim sounding name and see the fact that an American citizen has just been killed on the President’s say so due to his political belief’s. If that doesn’t scare you in the slightest then I can only imagine the sort of FOX News watching and believing, ignoramus you most certainly are."

Arthur, I appreciate the moral dilemma You highlight, however I disagree with Your conclusion.

I urge You to read the addendum I left for paul.

Thanks for stopping by.

[r] mark, will read more closely once the formatting gets set up but thank you for addressing this. I watched the NewsHour tonight and some military type now teaching at Duke Univ. and defending drones if I am remembering correctly said Anwar al Awkali deserved what he got because of his BELLIGERENCE against the US government. BELLIGERENCE ... hell ... are they gonna next add that word to the Patriot Act and write all our names on the real left on each drone in the fleets now in production? What a nice little word and we will trust that Obama who hearts the CIA will be VERY fair about their enemies list and only put really serious troublemakers on it. Domestic or foreign ... we should just STFU and trust them. Due process is gone ... quaint and retired. Bush was sneaky about defying it. Obama, naw. Why hide it. Whose stopping him? He's a Dem, he can do whatever he wants and never have to fear impeachment because of the insane levels of denial of so-called progressives.

my two and a half cents. libby

LibbyLiberalNYC, Your two and 1/2 cents are more than a lot of the wannabees who came on here have offered and I thank You for it.

I don't quite know what You mean about Your formatting issues, but I hope that if You DO choose to re-read, You will check out the wordpress article directly above my response to Mr. Louis, where the case is made that Awlaki really was a nobody in the real scheme of things, and just because our heinous president needed to bolster his manhood status for the upcoming election, all of the so-called "thinkers" here are ready dump the constitution.

What a bunch of raw sewage!

Thanks SO much for stopping by.

What's this Mark, if someone disagrees with you you do a post ridiculing with them "parentheses" and calling their beliefs raw sewage? Wow.

How's about disagreeing with: "writers on antiwar.com. alternet, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Francis Boyle, an expert in international law at the University of Illinois, Sherwood Ross, writing in Global Research, Jeremy Scahill in "The Nation," Glenn Greenwald, Firedoglake, Veterans Today: Military and Foreign Affairs Journal, former Justice Sandra Day O-Connor, (who said: "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens") and others."

"As best as I can determine the two major defenders of the position of (targeted assassinations) seem to be darth cheney and john yoo, two heinously discredited torture advocates."

Yes, I quite clearly think ANYONE who chooses to align themselves with cheney and yoo are nothing more than raw sewage.

Thanks for stopping by.

So I'm raw sewage; thanks for clearing that up.

And oh yeah, Mishima and Paul are sewage as well I guess. Tell me, Mark, is it possible for someone to take the opposite side of an argument from you without you calling them "shit"and similar school yard epithets?

Perhaps You didn't understand my message the first time, so I'll clarify it:

ANYONE who chooses to align themselves with cheney and yoo are nothing more than raw sewage.

And by the way, Mark, copying and pasting a line from somewhere else into one of your comments doesn't prove that I or Paul or Mish align ourselves with Cheney or Yoo. Thinking that it does is the mark of a person who places more value on hyperbole than on logic.

As someone who clearly believes that, in the famous Texas Phrase, "Some People Need Killin", I have the same reservations about this form of execution as I do any- I simply don't trust the government with that authority. I only believe in the death penalty if I get to administer it. So far I haven't had to. Interesting how the left and right can come to the same conclusions.

That is no cut and paste - that is MY comment - You don't like it. Well, I'm sorry. The most vocal (prominent) advocates of the righteousness of this targeted assassination have been cheney and yoo.

If You choose to agree with scum like them, than that's Your choice, NOT mine.

Thanks for stopping by Token - it's ALWYS a pleasure to welcome new commenters, here; and thanks for the rating and comment.

I have often said the same thing to RWnutjob - there comes a point when the far left and the far right coalesce on an issue or issues.

DJohn and I have also reached such a point.

Please stop by more often, Token, whether You agree or disagree with something I've written.

Yeah, Token, because vigilantism has such a proud history in this country. Tell me, is it your position that we should have left it up to private citizens working on their own to storm the beaches at Normandy? I'm sure that would have went real well.

@Nanatehay

When "vigilantism" consists of settling an issue, sometimes at gunpoint, as I have, WITHOUT having to shoot anyone, yeah, I'm all in favor of it. How is it you now agree with Darth Cheney that summary execution is a government's prerogative ?I'm reading Jeffery Deaver's new James Bond book, "Carte Blanc" and even 007 has some pretty heavy restrictions these days. Unlike 007, I don't need a "license" to kill. I was born an alpha predator, and then through martial arts, I was taught to be civilized. As always, I'll do as my spirit moves me. So far I haven't had to kill any Homo Sapiens. The government is not given that authority. It is constructed by us Homo Sapiens, of laws that it must obey. Most often I recognize the validity of a rule of law. But I know the difference between "Law" and "Justice". The government has no such sense and no such authority to operate on any"Official's" sense of "justice" outside the law. I do it all the time, as is my right as a human being.

Here's my take on the al-Awlaki situation, as simple as I can express it: the decision to kill al-Awlaki was a MILITARY decision. He wasn't killed because he was a traitor, or because he made broadcasts that the U.S. government didn't like, or because he had friends in al Qadea. He was killed because he was deemed to be working in behalf of an enemy force, namely al Qaeda. Al Qaeda functions as an enemy army even though it lacks uniforms and is not identified with any particular state, and al-Awlaki was a part of that force.

Are you with me so far? If so, please consider the following example: you are an American soldier in WWII, fighting with the 1st Infantry Division, and you have landed on Omaha beach. Facing you are German soldiers of the 716th Infantry Division, including many foreign nationals of German extraction. One of the German soldiers is Fred Holz, an American by birth, and legally an American citizen, who returned to Germany in order to fight for the fatherland of his parents.

Question: At Omaha beach, can you legally kill Fred Holz, a member of the Wehrmacht, even though he is an American citizen? Or would you have to arrest him?

If you answer that you could kill him, I would argue that fundamentally the same thing happened with al-Awlaki. The main difference is that the army to which al-Awlaki belonged doesn't wear uniforms, and doesn't serve a particular state.

By the way, I think that you could kill Fred Holz, American citizen and German soldier. Does that make me an enemy of the Constitution?

mishima (on this post) and paul and nana and mishima (on the earlier post) have it exactly right. his comment just above me here is unambiguous and factual. the rest of the noise you, mark, and others are making is just so much distracted, uninformed nonsense.

Let me get this straight...... This government, which has effectively decided that US soldiers on the battlefield must "arrest" POWs and read them their rights, and that terrorists in Guantanamo ( Club Gitmo, still) must be charged under US criminal law, is justifying the execution without trial of an American citizen as a MILITARY move? That would be hilarious.

...... Or is it just ridiculous? it's hard to tell with the federal government these days.

It's nice to see the "lefties" getting the "Warm Fuzzies" for the Military. My relatives will appreciate that. Just be sure that, like them, you can distinguish the "Willie and Joe" soldiers from some of the political suck up officers who get them killed. Contrary to popular belief, the last people in the world who want a war are soldiers. They have not only this odd distaste for being killed and seeing their buddies killed, most of them have real moral and human objections to killing people. They serve because someone must defend our country, not to be used as pawns in global political power games. The President and most of the federal government at this point have no idea what that means. It's simply insulting to imply that Obama has any respect whatsoever for the common soldiers. The feeling is mutual, believe me.

Markie bark-barkie,
You don't know Constitution from constipation, which may be the source of your irresolvable angst.
I have no problem with your cut-paste representations you somehow confuse with thinking, I'll just note that the designation of 'faux patriot" is your only contribution, and a childish one, to those essential dissents.

You're just a low wattage thinking chatroom warrior boor with a blog. I pity anyone who would actually seek out your opinion expecting something beyond comparison with a baby spitting out his pablum.

You can't hang with me or the others who have initiated your Pavlovian pablum projection, so your terrible twos insults don't have any impact. You don't have the intelligence to craft an adult argument so you fall back on childish insults and a laughably thin facade of patriotic holiness.

Your only function around here is to make endless love to Apisa's knee. I suggest you not attempt an adulterous affair with any others.

Notice how Token's only answer to Mishima's question consisted of a series of sneering irrelevancies.
Well done, Token; the incontrovertible logic of your argument (whatever that argument may have been, it was difficult to discern one in amongst the nonsense), has won the day for "I only believe in the death penalty if I get to administer it" libertarianism. :P

Yeah Paul, after Marky confirmed that the best thing he could think of to say on the topic was to compare people who dissent with his views to "raw sewage" I was done exchanging comments with him. On the other hand, I figure if Mark's calling me names and Token's flinging libertarian twaddle my way I must be doing something right. :P

nanate,
You are doing something right, but that isn't evident by Mark's sewage-slinging or Token's ethereal, self understood meandering. One does not claim credit for a dog returning to his vomit or dragging his ass across the carpet. It is in its nature.

Very true. I just now noticed in the tags that we're also "dissemblers" and "downright liars." I'm not sure how stating one's opinion in a forthright manner makes one a liar and dissembler, but no doubt Mark will be able to copy and paste something that "proves" it.

I've been working all day, and I see the children have been playing on my blog.

Nana, you're nothing but a bombastic bully who's likely never been out of america, so, obviously you don't know sh*t about sh*t.

PJ, your comments are the same old sh*t recycled - another wannabee - go challenge gorgon. I asked you to leave nicely, but as Nana said when he deleted frank, it's my blog and I'll manage it as I see fit. you're done here - go play in someone else's playpen.

Such a sorry sack of sh*t you need to steal MY lines about constipation/constitution.

Mishima, I was wrong about You - You behave as a gentleman and a scholar, someone reasonable to talk to, and I WILL reply to Your comment and question, when my real life workload lightens..

Candace, you're new here, so I don't find your stupidity surprising. You don't come on this blog and insult other posters, without specifying what it is about their comments you object to.

I hope you never return, but if you do, bring some substance with you, next time.