are you referring to [Anwar al-Awlaki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki)? i was under the impression there just wasn’t a ruling on it. which, pretty shitty to let the right to due process degrade de-facto, but not quite the same as “literally passing laws” that make it unambiguously legal.
I honestly have no idea how Obama's reputation survived this. Taking executive action that completely undermines an individual's constitutional rights is monstrous. It's really sad that it was a total non-issue.
Also, what law you are referring to? I believe at the time there was no legal precedent whatsoever. I'm not sure of anything that passed afterwards either.
I'm "conservative" (although I abhor Trump) but I will say in defense of Obama that there clearly are exceptions from constitutional rights. For example, police are clearly allowed to use lethal force to stop an armed and dangerous person.
I cannot speak on the finer parts of US law, but it seems obvious to me that it isn't as clear cut at some people portray it.
But in this case it's more like if a policeman stalked and sniped someone that they had an arrest warrant for. They defined a US citizen as a target and drone striked him when they were able.
Disclaimers:
- I am no specialist on US constitution or laws but generally,
- I don't know this case kn particular except from what I have read from media, especially sites like HN
With that out of the way, from a common sense perspective, stalking and sniping a criminal who is a persistent threat to the public cannot possibly be unquestionably wrong, can it?
I mean, lets just go all out in a thought experiment that goes to the extreme end to prove my point: an American citizen sits in a known location and we know he is about to press the trigger that will release a highly contagious deadly pathogen inside 10 large cities, including at least one in US.
A police sniper has a steady aim on him from 100m and through a bug at the scene he hears him say: "this broadcast is coming to an end, I'll now press the button".
Will it not be correct for the police sniper to fire?
If it is, then the only question left is if it was legal for him to do it according to American law or not, and not something that should be an unrecoverable stain on someone's history.
Of course in real life, things are much messier.
> But in this case it's more like if a policeman stalked and sniped someone that they had an arrest warrant for.
They essentially said they didn't want to have to explain things in court, so killing him was easier. Despite his scary name, Anwar Al-Awlaki was an American kid born in New Mexico. He may have been a bad guy, but we'll never know because the government decided it didn't need to prove it in court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-i...
None of these people are actually peacemakers. Not Biden, not Obama, none of them. All of them support American imperialism and hegemony.
And Ukrainians want to (and wanted to) fight. It's not like US psyops campaigns made them. Since 2014 they spent a lot of resources on fortifications, training, arms manufacture, etc.
Ukrainians are welcome to fight if they want to, but you are seriously misinformed if you believe they have mounted even a small fraction of their firepower, training, analysis, and logistics without the aid of the US and other NATO countries. Ukraine never had a remote chance to resist the Russian army, and they are now paying a terrible price for allowing themselves to become the lackeys of the US and NATO.
The Biden administration is responsible for elevating the Ukrainians into this role as an extension of the US onto the direct border with Russia. Russia will never tolerate it no matter what it takes, and we all know what that entails. The US would do no differently if Russia did the same on its border, which makes the Biden administration’s actions hypocritical as well.
Americans are welcome to fight if they want to, but you are seriously misinformed if you believe they have mounted even a small fraction of their firepower, training, analysis, and logistics without the aid of the France and Spain. America never had a remote chance to resist the British army and navy, and they are now paying a terrible price for allowing themselves to become the lackeys of France and Spain.
Substitute Britain/free France/exiled poland/Nazi Germany too if you like.
- NATO is a stronger alliance, so the US will not have to spend as much defending Europe in the long run
- us has spent ~1-2k/citizen to dismantle one of its biggest existential threats
- china has tons of egg on face
If nukes don't happen, I'll be entertaining the idea Biden the greatest stable genius Chad president we've had. And I started out disliking Biden. Definitely hated him when he was veep.
Didn’t we learn our lesson from humiliating post-Soviet Russia in the 90s? (Or Versailles-ing Germany?) Economic desperation yields aggressive strongmen and violent populations.
> He was after all the instrument of the Iraq war before Bush
You'll be less confused when you understand that the American electorate generally has no issues with invading other countries.
And even when it does have an issue with it, it holds its nose, and votes anyways. Both parties are generally ran by people who have similar opinions on this question.
I'm from a post-Soviet country, that might explain why I have this less than pacifist view.
In case anyone is curious, there is exactly one person in Biden's cabinet (16 people total) that previously served in Obama's cabinet: the Secretary of Agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Vilsack
If you further consider "cabinet-level" positions (25 people total), two more people are included: the current Secretary of Veterans Affairs was previously the White House chief of staff and the current White House chief of staff was previously the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_McDonough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Zients
Of the 5 people mentioned by name in the parent comment, 3 have never been in the Cabinet and none were in both Obama's and Biden's Cabinets.
My best guess for the unnamed person is the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency (previously a cabinet-level position!) and who was Acting Secretary of State under Obama? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Burns_(diplomat)
Although, the US being what it is, more people probably celebrated than held a strong opinion either way.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-top-diplomat-blinken-urges-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
How exactly this would play out if a country tries to arrest a head of state which travels with security is unclear. I highly doubt any leader or nation would attempt to travel to a country where there is that risk of such a confrontation.
I got news for you, they're able to get to you too. Likely with less preparation then the USA would need if you're only living in a US aligned country.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04/world/china-overseas-police-s...
They only have power over chinese people because of their families back in China and their chinese citizenship that they may not want to lose.
The reports mentioned that multiple people vanished after getting dragged into their offices, even with video evidence. That makes your point kinda moot in my opinion.
The US will get to you regardless of where you are in the world. They will go as far as killing state leaders and journalists overseas. Even as a US citizen living in the US, they literally passed laws under Obama that allows the US government to drone strike US citizen for national security reasons without a trial.