President Obama’s decision to kill radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone attack may be, as the president says, a major blow against al-Qaeda. But it also shows, once again, the complexity of fighting the war against global terror.
There is no doubt of al-Awlaki’s bad intentions. He was tied directly to the so-called underwear bomber who attempted to blow up an airliner as it headed for Detroit. He was in apparent contact with both the Fort Hood mass murderer and the person who attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square.
Al-Awlaki was a terrorist who targeted the U.S. as part of a radical Islamic jihad. As such, the U.S. was justified in killing him.
But there is some question he legality of killing an American citizen without due process. The Obama administration argues that al-Awlaki is an enemy combatant. Critics counter that al-Awlaki was never brought to a court of law, making his death little more than a summary execution.
Al-Awlaki was a charismatic voice for terrorism. One al-Awlaki video ended with this harrowing message: “Don’t consult anyone in killing Americans. Fighting Satan doesn’t require a religious ruling.”
His death reinforces Obama’s message — made forcefully in the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan — that there is no haven for terrorists. But it also begs the question: Who decides when an alleged terrorist should be targeted for death?
Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico. Though he was educated as a child in Yemen, he returned to go to college at Colorado State University. He served, for a time, as an imam in Colorado before eventually returning to Yemen, where his messages to American audiences brought him to the attention of U.S. officials.
The question of al-Awlaki goes directly to the question of how a war against terrorism should be fought. The long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are thankfully nearing an end, and Obama seems ready to fight a more tactical battle.
The alternative, in a largely lawless place like Yemen, would be to put American troops into yet another Muslim country — which is really no alternative at all.
In the wake of al-Awlaki’s death, civil libertarians are objecting to what they call a denial of Fifth Amendment rights. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, told reporters that al-Awlaki “was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody.”
But Obama and others make a different argument — that al-Awlaki was a dangerous enemy and that there was no way for either Yemen or the United States to have arrested him.
The Obama administration raised the stakes last year, placing al-Awlaki on a kill-or-capture terrorist list. His father and the ACLU appealed the decision to a federal judge, who dismissed the case.
This seems like a clear-cut case of a combatant who is a danger to America. But it serves as another reminder of how the war on terror pits our tradition of civil liberties against our need to protect ourselves.
