By Pat Buchanan
Friday morning, Predator drones operated by the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command rendezvoused over Yemen and launched Hellfire missiles that blew to pieces the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
A declared enemy in the war on terror was eliminated.
Yet Awlaki was a U.S. citizen.
Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul denounced the action. Kucinich said President Obama “trampled on the Constitution.” Paul said Awlaki had never been convicted. “Nobody knows if he killed anybody.” Paul described what was done as “assassinating” an American.
Did we have the right to target and kill Awlaki?
Read Pat’s latest book: Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?
According to U.S. intelligence, Awlaki inspired or incited the Fort Hood massacre and Times Square bomber. Intelligence officials say he played a direct role in the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit at Christmas 2009. That would make him an accomplice in attempted mass murder.
Indeed, there is more hard evidence tying Awlaki to acts of terror against the United States than there ever was tying Saddam Hussein to acts of terror against us.
Yet it is also true that Awlaki was never convicted of these crimes. What, then, is the legal case for killing him?
