Mac-Coleman

15 December 2011 –

Bumper Sticker Of The Day – Government Truth: Prodigo, ergo sum.

On 30 September 2011, the U.S. Special Operations Command, in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency, remotely fired AGM-114 Hellfire missiles from MQ-1 Predator drones at a convoy of vehicles in Yemen. They killed two American citizens in the attack: Anwar al-Awlaki and Shamir Khan, both U.S. born citizens. These two men were not tragic, collateral damage in an attempt to kill terrorists who endangered U.S. security; indeed, they were the targets. Their activities, which brought down upon their heads the heat, blast and frag of U.S. military munitions, were not clandestine or minor in nature. Indeed, the opposite is true. They declared openly their hatred for the United States, they trained terrorists to conduct operations against the United States, and they operated open websites and other media that preached hatred for and encouraged violence against the United States. These men were, as a friend described them, dirtbags.

But, as American citizens, are they legitimate targets for U.S. military and CIA operations? Was the U.S. government acting with due process when it declared these U.S. citizens targets for military operations and subsequently killed them? The answer to both questions is yes, with a further explanation that the men’s U.S. citizenship is irrelevant to the argument. In the Civil War, U.S. government military forces killed U.S. citizens who declared themselves in open rebellion against the state. In World War II, President Roosevelt, acting as the Commander-In-Chief in time of war, declared German saboteurs, including an American citizen, who were captured on U.S. soil, to be under military tribunal jurisdiction. They were subsequently executed. I see firm precedence in treating openly rebellious and violent persons as Mssrs Al-Awlaki and Khan as legitimate targets of U.S. military action. These acts are wholly consistent with the intent of the expressed power of Congress and the President in Articles I and II and the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

Is there current legislation that authorizes such actions? Yes. On 18 September 2001, one week after the attacks of 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). In this, Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution and stated:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.^[34]

In simple words, Congress declared that a state of war existed between the U.S. and a stateless, but in every other way a very real, movement that had committed acts of war against the United States. In fact, the attacks on 11 September 2001, were not the first acts of war perpetrated by this stateless organization. Attacks on our embassies, on the USS Cole, and elsewhere were the precursors to the horrific sneak attack of 11 September 2011 on New York City and Washington, D.C. Congress was responding, with wording that attempted to reflect the conditions of a world that defied old conventions and rules of war.

After a century and a half of international attempts to define and restrict the definition of war, combatants and noncombatants, and war crimes, the U.S. must now lead the world in forging new rules to guide a state when it prosecutes a war against those who neither wear a uniform, nor carry the commission of any state, yet are warriors and soldiers in every other sense. Congress’s 18 September 2011, actions reflect our first attempt at defining, fighting, and winning such a real war. Subsequent presidential and congressional decisions and actions to fight this war not gone smoothly. Government leaders from both political parties face harsh criticism from those won’t admit that these terrorists are, by deed, intent and their own rhetoric, combatants in a war between Western civilization and radical, jihadist Islam. These warriors’ caliphate will recognize no sovereign state borders, only the dominance of their brand of religion. The sooner our official government statements and policies reflect an understanding of this war, the easier it will be to prosecute the war in a way that will protect our Constitution and the way of life it engenders.