An Illegal and Counterproductive Assassination

[EFerrari]

By YASIR QADHI
Published: October 1, 2011

Yasir Qadhi, an American Muslim cleric, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale. He blogs at muslimmatters.org.

Memphis

ANWAR AL-AWLAKI, the Yemeni-American cleric who was killed Friday in a C.I.A. drone attack in Yemen, appears to be the first United States citizen that our government has publicly targeted for assassination.

The accusations against him were very serious, but as a citizen, he deserved a fair trial and the chance to face his accusers in a court of law. Whether he deserved any punishment for his speech was a decision that a jury should have made, not the executive branch of our government. The killing of this American citizen is not only unconstitutional, but hypocritical and counterproductive.

The assassination is unconstitutional because the Fifth Amendment specifies that no person may “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” A group of policy makers unilaterally deciding that a particular citizen needs to be targeted is not, by any stretch of the imagination, due process.

The assassination is hypocritical because America routinely criticizes (and justifiably so) such extrajudicial assassinations when they occur at the hands of another government. We most certainly don’t approve the regimes of Syria or Iran eliminating those whom they deem to be traitors. In fact, Al Qaeda’s own justifications for murder stem from the notion that its members are qualified to be the judge, jury and executioner of those whom they view as enemies. America’s moral authority is undermined if we criticize in others what we do ourselves. It only reinforces the stereotype that the United States has very little concern for its own principles. Even Nazi war criminals got their day in court, at Nuremburg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/assassinating-al-awlaki-was-counterproductive.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=yasir%20qadhi&st=cse

[Uncle Joe]

1. The author makes some good points.

Thanks for the thread, EFerrari.

[indepat]

2. Others must do as we say, not do as we

do, a doctrine so simple that no one should be confused. :patriot:

[Gregorian]

3. I just wonder if this is a slippery slope to something worse.

I suppose this is weak logic, but just what if we extrapolate the decline of justice to a point where not only is assassination acceptable, but we then begin to entertain the notion that it can be performed by groups other than those being considered official by the standards we use today. Who is to say that we can't give the power to other groups. You know, like Cheney did. Maybe Blackwater.