Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI was just working on a belated post about the killing of al Awlaki. In short, I wanted to add my two cents to any general conversation and say I don’t think the slippery slope argument is really relevant. If a man can be targeted in an area where his activities put him beyond the reach of arrest and legal proceedings, that doesn’t make it automatic that the president can and will start killing people at will on U.S. soil where they actually are subject to arrest. These are wholly different situations. And the second point, one the lawyers here might have something to say about, is that as important as the rule of law and due process are, the law itself is a construct based on our need to have rules that allow us to function together. Judges exist because someone has to say what the law means in a given situation; it’s not transparent. And in situations where there is no legal recourse–including no judges–someone else has to make calls like the one about al Awlaki. We can argue about what the calls should be, but they shouldn’t just be made on an sbsolutist notion of the law itself.
I’m shortening what I meant to say on that because I wanted to put in a note about Steve Jobs and his death. I’ve not heard it mentioned often, if at all, but the technological innovations of the last quarter century, particularly those spearheaded by Jobs, have made the world a far more manageable place for the disabled, the aging, and those with various degrees of infirmity. For people who don’t have what we would consider “normal” access to the world, the virtual world has becomes actual due to these changes. I can think of so many examples, including many quite personal ones, but my favorite concerns my friend Gogi who was born with cerebral palsy and is now in her forties. Two things transformed her life. The first was her electric wheelchair that, combined with ramps and curb cuts, meant she could physically go where she wanted to go on her own. The second was the home computer that meant she could travel the world with a few keystrokes. It was a remarkable change for her. It’s been remarkable for all of us.
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All Things in Moderation 
I'm just wondering what the blog etiquette is here. Are we supposed to not add posts in the evening after a Bits and Pieces post goes up?
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No, ABC, we have not established etiquette. You have made a fine and thoughtful post.Jobs will be missed.I have suggested that we do not have to waste much effort on the Al Awlaki matter as he was an admitted air pirate and thus subject to being taken dead or alive, across borders. That was not the rationale of the OLC, but it's not my problem that they did not use their strongest legal argument.
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Steve Jobs: strange how some deaths of people we didn't know can make us deeply melancholy, but this hits me hard. Damn.ABCs post was the first I'd heard of it. She broke the news to me. ATiM now the first place I check when done with other things. And, use, add stuff whenever, ABC. Bits and pieces is the open thread, if nothing else happens.
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Today I revised will and medical power of attorney for an old friend, an architect, 66 tomorrow, who is dying of lung cancer. My assistant of 26 years, Denise, came to Jimmy's house with me to notarize the documents. Denise's younger sister, a 41 year old school teacher, wife of a DPS Lieutenant, mother of two, great gal, is in the hospital in Abilene with an enlarged heart from the chemo she is taking to slow the spread of her second [and surely final] bout with breast cancer. Denise left for Abilene directly from Jimmy's house.So Jobs' death just seems like piling on to me.
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Mark: that sound like a rough day. When my wife's mother died, it was the first funeral I had been to in years (but not the last; apparently when you hit thirty the funerals start and keep on coming like clockwork). That previous sentence hadn't really occurred to me, until a fellow pall bearer and member of the church began talking. He was almost 80 at the time, but looked 60. He began talking about the funerals he had been to in the last year, and the list just kept coming. He had already been a pall bearer 4 or 5 times, had buried a dozen friends in the past few years. It was eye opening, and, sure enough, I've been to funerals for my wife's father, her sister, and my cousin and a few others since. While I am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, and hope to live to a ripe old age and maybe even enjoy a few grandkids, a long and fruitful life means a lot of goodbyes. One day, I hope and believe, scientific progress will fix that. Alas, I'm sure we have a long way to go before that happens.
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Sorry about the rough day, Mark.
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Oh, man. I'm so, so sorry, Mark; and best hopes for Denise's sister. My heart goes out to you tonight.
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Death is the universal equalizer. Unfortunately, we all face it, some sooner than others, but it is never easy. The best thing to do is face it head on and surround yourself with loved ones and let them participate. Those are moments they will always treasure. I bet Jobs, as private of a person as he was known to be, surrounded himself with loved ones to ease his passing and their impression of it.
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Hi ABC, no real etiquette other than to let a post mature for a little bit before posting a new one. Thanks for the great post, it's an important issue. There is no love lost between Americans and Awlaki, that's for sure, but I think we still need to be aware that we "may" (there's that dreaded word) be inching our way down a rabbit hole. I think it's worth considering at least.
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I definitely think the rabbit hole is worth considering. It's one important factor. It's just not the only one and there are times when I feel other things should trump it on the basis of common sense. And I do think the slippery slope argument on this one is a stretch.
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Yeah ABC, I don't think anyone really cares that much, except maybe for die hard civil liberty advocates. And Mark's certainly right, there's a work around, I'm just naturally skeptical about the entire extension of the executive branch authority, and I'm not really sure we had the proper debate first. It's one thing to say after the fact, this law or legal argument could apply, but it seems we could make that argument first. Maybe they did and I missed it but so far no one's answered that question for me. You know me, always a question mark at the end of my sentences.
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You know me, always a question mark at the end of my sentences.And so often at the end of mine, lms. Maybe that's what makes us liberals.I'm off to bed in the midst of a rain storm. Hoping it will move your way tomorrow, okie, Mark and Troll!Thanks you guys, this is a caring blog as well as a discussing blog.
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G'night michi, we have rain also, yay.Mark got tao's email address for us and I sent him a message and an invite so keep your fingers crossed everyone.And now I'm off to bed as well, I'm late.
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I wonder if a more straightforward justification for the Awlaki killing could be given. Making a distinction between military personnel and civilians, and targeting only military personnel and targets, is one of the basic requirements for the just conduct of war. One expects, for example, the U.S. Marine on the ground to target (generally) armed, military-aged males, not civilians. Admittedly, I haven't looked that closely at the Awlaki case, but, from what I can see, it looks as if he met the requirements for an enemy combatant and, therefore, was a legitimate target. A U.S. citizen who joined the Taliban, for example, and marched out onto a battlefield against U.S. forces would clearly be a legitimate military target and U.S. forces would be justified in targeting and killing him. Awlaki was not striding onto a battlefield, but given that he was, as far as I can tell, in the service of a hostile, enemy force, it seems to me that a good case can be made that he was an enemy combatant and that targeting and killing him could be justified on that basis.
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Given the military goal is to disrupt Al Qaeda and highly constrain (or, ideally, extinguish) their ability to attack America or American interests, targeted attacks on the enemy (or anyone who has joined the enemy) seems much more morally justifiable that shock-and-awe style invasions were thousands-upon-thousands of innocent foreign civilians may be killed as collateral damage. Yet if we find a raft of exceptions as to why we cannot target important members of enemy forces, then you're left with traditional warfare, with much more collateral damage. My earlier example was Isoroku Yamamoto. Imagine there was a collaborating American on the plane with him, and we knew it. Would we have hesitated to take him out, knowing what a blow that would be to Imperial Japan? I don't think so. If we could have avoided Hiroshima and Nagasaki by taking out a dozen Japanese generals, each time also killing collaborating American citizens, the moral argument for that hypothetical strategy would be clear. The argument I've found lease compelling is that Awlaki was a mid-level functionary of no importance. I think that's nonsense. He may not have made critical decisions, but he was the English-speaking face of Al Qaeda. His death, after Bin Ladin's death, after multiple deaths of important leaders and functionaries of Al Qaeda, most of them drone attacks, are continuously crippling Al Qaeda. I find it very difficult to believe there is a credible argument that full-scale, hyper-expensive, high-fatality invasions and pre-emptive wars are a better strategy than targeted assassination of key Al Qaeda figures (in addition to depriving them of resources, freezing assets, making it impossible for them to travel, etc).
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The Awalaki thing makes me very uncomfortable. This was written a year ago on the topic. http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/06/assassinations-done-wrong
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I'm with NoVA. I'm a checks and balances type of guy and unfettered Executive Branch authority, whether to kill US citizens or imprison and torture them, gives me the willies.
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