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Rand Paul’s Dishonesty About Anwar Al-Awlaki and Drones
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On May 22, 2014 @ 10:35 am In The Point | 172 Comments
Rand Paul’s obsession with defending an Al Qaeda leader continues. It’s even more dishonest because in his statement, Paul never uses Anwar Al-Awlaki’s name.
Instead Paul states, “I rise today to oppose the nomination of anyone who would argue that the President has the power to kill American citizens not involved in combat. I rise today to say that there is no legal precedent for killing American citizens not directly involved in combat.”
Anwar Al-Awlaki was the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He was linked to most of the serious Al Qaeda attacks on America at the time including the Fort Hood massacre and the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Flight 253.
There are numerous other scenarios, not least of which are the unanswered questions about Al-Awlaki’s contacts with the 9/11 hijackers.
Whatever Rand Paul’s definition of being “directly involved in combat” is it somehow doesn’t include orchestrating multiple attacks against the United States.
Would he consider Osama bin Laden to be directly involved in combat? If not, was that an extra-judicial assassination?
In his floor statement, Paul never mentions Anwar Al-Awlaki or explains why he doesn’t believe that the Al Qaeda leader was not directly involved in combat. Instead he says, “Unpopular opinions change from generation to generation. While today it may be burka-wearing Muslims, it has at times been yarmulke-wearing Jews. It has at times been African Americans. It has at times been Japanese Americans.”
I seem to have forgotten the time that Jews rammed planes into the World Trade Center. Maybe Ron Paul can tell me more about that. Though I’m sure Rand Paul’s supporters will be just as happy to.
But we’re not dealing with opinions here. We’re dealing with a war. And Rand Paul is less honest than his father in explaining what he’s defending and why.
In his New York Times op-ed, Rand Paul did mention Anwar Al-Awlaki. Give Paul credit, he knows his audience. The people who think he’s a conservative wouldn’t sit still for Al-Awlaki. But New York Times readers will eat it up.
“Anwar al-Awlaki was an American citizen who was subject to a kill order from Mr. Obama, and was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a missile fired from a drone. I don’t doubt that Mr. Awlaki committed treason and deserved the most severe punishment. Under our Constitution, he should have been tried — in absentia, if necessary — and allowed a legal defense. If he had been convicted and sentenced to death, then the execution of that sentence, whether by drone or by injection, would not have been an issue.”
This is the same broken record nonsense. Anwar Al-Awlaki was not killed because he was a traitor, but because he was an enemy commander engaged in a war with the United States. A war that was voted on by Congress.
If Rand Paul feels that he doesn’t meet this criteria, he should explain why instead of trotting out strawmen or phony patriotism.
In another op-ed, Paul writes, “Some will say that Anwar al-Awlaki was evil and deserved to die. I don’t necessarily disagree with his punishment. I disagree with how the punishment was decided. American citizens not on a battlefield must be convicted before they are sentenced to death. Let me repeat that order for some who seem to have lost sight of our Constitution and basic human rights — you must try and convict someone before you punish them.”
Paul is still playing his broken record. Awlaki wasn’t “punished”. He wasn’t sentenced to anything. He was killed as an enemy commander.
“Some will say that al-Awlaki wouldn’t come home for a trial. That’s probably true. In that case, he could have been tried in absentia,” Paul proposes.
Sentencing someone to death in absentia seems like an even more grimly totalitarian and senseless idea. And Paul still deliberately misses the point. Due process is for criminal proceedings. Not for war.
No soldier hires a lawyer before firing a shot across a battlefield.
In his statement, Rand Paul mentions John Adams defending British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. But once the fighting began, Adams would not be dispatched to defend them before they could be killed in combat during the Revolutionary War.
You don’t hold trials to kill enemies in wartime. You just shoot them.
But let’s break down the legality of Rand Paul’s argument.
Paul keeps insisting that “American citizens” must be tried before they are killed. But our criminal justice system no more allows us to execute foreigners without due process than Americans.
If a foreigner murders a man in Boston, he still has to undergo the same criminal proceeding as an American.
Rand Paul insists that before an Al Qaeda leader can be killed, he has to undergo a criminal trial or it’s an extrajudicial killing. It’s a leftist argument but there’s some legal logic behind it.
His emphasis that it should apply to American citizens like Anwar Al-Awlaki however has no legal basis.
If killing Anwar Al-Awlaki was an extrajudicial killing, then so is killing any Al Qaeda commander. If we have to put Anwar Al-Awlaki on trial before killing him, then we have to put every Al Qaeda terrorist we drone kill on trial first.
Rand Paul provides no legal basis for the distinction he’s making between Americans and foreigners. And that’s probably because he isn’t making that distinction. He just knows that emphasizing the American citizen part makes for a more compelling argument to a conservative audience.
I doubt that Rand Paul really believes that killing any Al Qaeda terrorist by drone strike should be allowed. He’s emphasizing “American” for propaganda value.
If American military action against a terrorist is bounded by criminal law, then it applies just as much to Ayman Al-Zawahiri as it does to Anwar Al-Awlaki. And we have to put every Al Qaeda leader on trial. If this is what Rand Paul really wants, then he should say so instead of attacking the United States from behind a dishonest argument with no legal consistency.
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