Obama peut-il tuer ses concitoyens?

Des suites à l'utilisation des drones pour tuer un leader d'Al Qïda au Yemen... Quelle est la définition de champ de bataille? Pendant ce temps, la cote de popularité d'Obama sur la question de la protection des États-Unis est de 62%...

"But if you are a U.S. citizen living overseas and plotting the death of American citizens from, let’s say, Yemen, you can say hello to our little friends, the 100-lb. Hellfires.

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, N.M., in 1971, had dual U.S.-Yemeni citizenship and was a top Al Qaeda terrorist. We killed him in Al-Jawf, a province in Yemen, on Friday.

This was apparently the first time a U.S. president targeted a U.S. citizen for death overseas, which has upset any number of people ranging from liberals to Ron Paul.

To which I say: “Get over it.”

Capturing al-Awlaki would have been difficult to impossible. Which is why we use drones. Being unmanned, they don’t risk U.S. lives, and their accuracy appears to be impressive. Al-Awlaki was killed in the open, due to an act of physical fitness. (Gov. Christie, take note.)

According to reports, al-Awlaki and his companions had finished breakfast and then left their house and were walking to their cars parked 700 yards away.

Seven hundred yards? Do you know any American leaders who would walk the length of seven football fields to get to their cars? In the United States, they would probably take a taxi to their cars if they were that far away.

In any case, the al-Awlaki group was caught in the open by two drones, and the blasts “tore the bodies to pieces.” So much for walking off a meal.

“His death takes a committed terrorist, intent on attacking the United States, off the battlefield,” an administration source said.

Note the reference to “battlefield.” Al-Awlaki was killed in a war in which the battlefield can be anywhere. Al-Awlaki posed an imminent threat to the United States, and our nation has an internationally recognized right to protect itself.

Further, to my way of thinking, targeting a U.S. citizen for death without trial had precedent. About 75,000 U.S. citizens were killed in action by Union soldiers in the Civil War because these “rebels” were in rebellion against the United States. (Abraham Lincoln never recognized rebel forces as citizens of a foreign country because he never recognized the South’s right to secede.)

Al-Awlaki was in rebellion against the United States, actively trying to kill us. Or so says our Justice Department. But we never arrested al-Awlaki, read him his rights, gave him a lawyer and tried him on cable TV."

La suite: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65046.html