Having Your Cake and Eating it Too

Friday 25 May 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

Apparently Obama views guys like Anwar al-Awlaki as so dangerous to America that he can be labeled as a terrorist and droned without any semblance of due process despite being an American citizen, yet soldiers who die because of al-Awlaki’s direct influence are not victims of terrorism. Reason:

The cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, was put on a kill list, and later killed, along with his teenage son, by the U.S. government, because the government claimed he was a dangerous terrorist. (The specific legal justification has not been released by the government) He was not indicted on a single count of terrorism, nevertheless the government considered him a terrorist threat grave enough to be become a target for assassination. His e-mail relationship with the Fort Hood killer was widely cited in the press after al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike.

So the victims at Fort Hood are not deserving of Purple Hearts because the Fort Hood incident was not an act of terrorism, but insofar as it can be used to justify the targeted assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, we’re led to believe that U.S. officials believe he “inspired” terror attacks like… the shooting at Fort Hood.

All part of the rhetorical acrobatics this administration has performed to keep prosecuting a war on Muslim populations abroad and at home while eschewing the language of a war on terror in an effort to obfuscate the definitions of the war. And now those acrobatics leave us with a situation in which one U.S citizen is killed for inspiring a terror plot, but the troops killed in that terror plot aren’t eligible for medals because it wasn’t a terror plot. All while Congress passes laws making the whole planet a battlefield and everyone a potential enemby combatant in an ill-defined war on terror that was never declared and the government doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge exists, except when they fight it. But don’t ask questions. It’s all a secret, even when it isn’t.

Mr. Obama: you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

2012-05-25  »  madlibertarianguy