Symmetry

The United States government recently killed a U.S. citizen named Anwar al-Awlaki with a missile fired from a drone aircraft. The man was riding in a group of vehicles going down a road in Yemen. There was no battle going on. There were no U.S. or NATO soldiers present, or even within the borders of Yemen.

Anwar al-Awlaki was born and raised in the United States. He retained his U.S. citizenship until his death. He was neither indicted for nor convicted of any crime by any U.S. court.

He was a man of conservative religious belief, a man who opposed U.S. foreign policy (especially in the Middle East and Central Asia), and a man with a wide following among Muslims who support attacks against the West. He had publicly advocated attacks against the United States, and allegedly corresponded with Major Nidal Hassan, the Army officer who went on a shooting rampage on a U.S. military base, as well as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the inept “underwear bomber.” He is said to have inspired many Muslims living in the West to join jihadist movements. Please note that everything you will read about al-Awlaki’s ties to terrorists or terror organizations will contain the words “alleged,” “believed to be,” “suspected,” or the like.

What he wrote and spoke was obnoxious to almost all his fellow citizens, including me. This is irrelevant. The First Amendment is there to protect obnoxious speech. Uncontroversial speech needs no protection.

What he had done was speaking, writing, and thereby inspiring people to join criminal organizations and perhaps commit criminal acts. The U.S. government suspected (there’s that word again) him of becoming “operational” as a leader in al Qaeda. Theoretically, for the speaking and writing we can actually confirm, he could have been convicted of supporting terrorism, which carries a 15-year sentence. That is, if he had been arrested and brought to trial.

Instead, our government tracked him down in a foreign country and fired a missile at his car. He was not arrested or arraigned. He received no trial, no chance to confront witnesses against him, no discovery of evidence, none of the due process that U.S. citizens are supposed to have by right. I should expand on this – all human beings deserve due process. It’s not right because it is in the Constitution; it’s in the Constitution because it is right. The most heinous criminals and the people we hate need and deserve due process most of all, because the persecution of the hated is the weak point in any system of justice, the hairline crack where total failure begins.

You are not safe. When you get up in the morning and eat breakfast you are not safe. When you go to work you are not safe. When you walk down the street or drive in your car you are not safe. You are not safe when you go to bed at night. I am not alluding to terrorism originating in the Middle East. You are not safe because the U.S. government has crossed a line and decided that it can blast a U.S. citizen to bloody rags because of what he said and what he wrote. The U.S. government decided that it could arbitrarily kill a man because of as-yet unproven allegations and personal contacts with people who later committed crimes.

You may brush this off and think, “Whatever. I’m not a Muslim cleric with a big mouth and bad connections.” When I reach out through the internet and write to you, individual reader, that you are not safe, I am not engaging in hyperbole. If the government truly focused its many eyes on you, what would it find? With whom would you be associated, and by how many degrees of separation? The notorious Cardinal Richelieu once said that if you gave him just six lines written by an innocent man he could find something in them to damn him. What have you said or written carelessly in an angry moment? And if some Homeland Security operative with an attitude found something he didn’t like, what would he do? What would he be allowed to do?

 Remember the terrible symmetry of the law. Anything that the government can do to Anwar al-Awlaki it can do to you. 

Comments

[Don Peabody]

Thanks for writing this piece. I'm scared. Hate to admit it, but I am. And I don't hate to admit it because I've got some macho notion of who I am, or should be. I'm scared because the country I love just did something I thought only totalitarian--and evil--countries could do. I mean, I'm not naive; assassination has been done "for our good" in the past, but--here's the naivete--it's been done by "them", not "us". One of Us" owning the killing openly, proudly, publicly? This is not something I learned in civics nor con law nor american political theory nor the american political process, not even american foreign policy. No professor ever lectured about the right of a President of the United States to be prosecutor, judge, jury and--effective--executioner of an American citizen. And, so, I'm scared, Heretic, scared that they could come for you and for me and for anybody they damned well please. And will. And, so, I want to shut up and say nothing, hope they'll go away, hope they know something I don't that makes it alright to commit murder and they'd never ever do it here at home. But I can't and they won't and they don't and they can and probably will--if they haven't already--and it's not alright, and I'm heartsick.

[Douglas E Lamb]

Kind of parallel to the Jason Born series by Robert Ludlum. CIA trains people to indiscriminately assassinate citizens under any circumstances. No Questions Asked.

thx, d