irreconcilable loyalties(4) Awlaki (Hasan)&Obama

On Sept. 30, 2011, Anwar Al-Awlaki, born citizen of the USA but an Al Qaeda leader living in Yemen, was killed by a Drone while traveling in a unpopulated area; three others were killed with him, of which one was also an American citizen. Awlaki was chiefly known for his exhortations to kill Americans and he inspired several "lone wolves" among which only Major Hasan was successful (see previous Irrec. Loyalties).

President Obama received some praise, especially from Bush-Cheney hardliners but the fact that Awlaki was an American citizen was seized upon by Obama's constant adversaries as well as by his supporters, some of which regretted the gradual wearing away of the liberties and rights guaranteed by the Constitution and thought to be pre-eminent by the framers of the Declaration of Independence, i.e. right to "life, Liberty and Happiness." In Locke's original phrase he used "property" in place of "Happiness" and it's Locke's formulation that is ensconced in the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. As a sometime constitutional scholar Obama must have been familiar with this. It is therefore understandable that his supporters are upset by his extra-legal elimination of Awlaki, however much that man's activities deserved to be stopped.

It makes me wonder again about who the true Obama is and which of his public personae best exemplifies that Obama. Inclined to pessimism and somewhat cynical by nature I am afraid that he has become the prisoner of the presidency and lacks the courage to be his own president. We can't wait for his eventual second term and even then he will remain as shackled by party politics as he is now.

Not all things that can be justified are "just." Perhaps equating "an argument can be made for" with "it is justified" (or "justifiable") leads to confusion; but it appears (NYT, Front page and p.12, Oct. 9. 2011) that within the major branches of the Administration all the arguments, both for and against, were examined. But I am not impressed, for while the review was exhaustive, both in time and substance, the conclusion was as foregone as the Bush/Cheney conclusion that torture ("enhanced interrogation") of prisoners defined as "enemy combatants" was permissible when it was clear that torture was also used to determine the prisoner's status as "enemy combatant." The examination of "pros" and "cons" is often part of a courtroom technique aimed at convincing a jury. In this case there was no jury which may have been appropriate as Awlaki not only publicly "confessed" to his crimes, but continued to engage in them. The problem here is that courtroom proceedings are public and their records available, while Obama enveloped the process in such secrecy that not much leaked out - not even as Wiki-Leaks - during the many months of meetings, etc. Even now that the contents of the final report have been revealed, the Administration persists in maintaining silence.

Secrecy has prevented the Admin. from rendering justice in previous terrorist cases, where trials were postponed indefinitely or the defense was denied access to information because "national security" would be jeopardized. Thus it may have been thought that instituting legal proceedings to deprive Awlaki of his citizenship and/or trying him for treason would lead to demands by his defense that would endanger CIA operations and operators. Nevertheless it seems to me that the very public actions of Awlaki and his documented involvement with Major Hasan and the "underwear bomber" should be enough to justify his being deprived of that citizenship to which he has shown no loyalty without having to expose the CIA, etc.

American History has plenty of precedents that might apply in this case. According to the NYT's version of the report it was agreed that an American citizen should be captured if that was feasible (it was not deemed feasible). These considerations bring to mind G.W. Bush's remark recalling the wild west practice of declaring a person "an outlaw" when he wanted Osama bin Laden "Dead or Alive." In fact, Awlaki had been placed on a "kill or capture" list in 2010. Maybe we should be relieved that the report preferred "capture." Awlaki made himself into an outlaw, i.e. and thus deprived himself of the protection of the law. No secrecy would be necessary.

Nor has Awlaki shown any loyalty to Islam as the religion of the Koran in which there is no mention of terrorism and it would be nice to know what motivated him other than what seems likely to me, nl. the mystique of manipulating others. There is of course the somewhat amorphous concept of Islam as a religious world that comprises large areas with distinct cultural and historical differences, e.g. the Arabian Peninsula, North-west Africa or Indonesia of which the inclusive criteria is the Koran, the exclusive is non-Islam, for ex. Christianity or Buddhism. There is also, often the overriding, awareness of East vs. West where the West is represented by the USA, an awareness given focus by the activities of Osama bin Laden. This awareness has been fed by recourse to the history of the Crusades during which there was the militant group known in the West as Assassins which promised Paradise and many virgins to the martyrs of the faith, an expectation that is apparently accepted by modern Islamic militants none of which have any loyalty to something concrete as a people, a tribe or a nation.

As to Islam's "sharia law," even there no universal application is found in the Islamic world, for most countries are more or less secular states. Iran and Taliban Afghanistan are/were notorious religious states. The Taliban are also a prime example of the difficulties in identifying to what its members are loyal. Most Taliban belong to the Pashtun people whose region straddles the Afghan-Pakistani border. In Pakistan they are not all sharia fanatics and in Afghanistan sharia radicalism was primarily an instrument for forging political control that was sufficiently totalitarian to preclude choice which is, to me, a precondition of loyalty.

Addendum: After the initial reactions and letters to the editor in the days following Awlaki's death, the topic disappeared from public discourse until the Times' revelation of the secret report on 10/10/11. That article apparently did not receive much attention and I assume that Awlaki who was never much in the news unless some plot was tied to him, is as quickly a non-person as the much more public Osama bin Laden. On 10/12 the NYT published an editorial: "Justifying the Killing of an American" in which it defends once again the need for open discussion of the Administration's deliberations, though it rejects a trial in absentia as "time-wasting and impractical," instead suggesting among others "a closed-door court similar to the [secret] Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

I am at a loss.

March 2012: The NYT had another editorial about Att. General Holder's speech that was to clarify US policy, but mostly reiterated previous arguments. The editorial also reiterated the previous suggestion of using the FISA court. But I think that court could easily become an adjunct to the Govt and not be "independent."

March 18 '12: the NYT Review section has a "comic" strip showing Holder and Obama "justifying" the killing of American citizens. A bitter and cynical portrayal, saying that going about it the way they did there was nothing to loose "except the moral high ground." Which is true, but even that sounds too much like PR rather than principle.

December 9 '12: In a discussion of the new film about the killing of Bin Laden, Frank Bruni has a thoughtful discussion of the "un-American" way of using drones etc. to dispatch enemies. A film, he opines, that will be appreciated by fmr. Vice-President Cheney.