Puffing up the case against Awlaki
Following up on yesterday’s post regarding the evidence-free claims from anonymous government officials baselessly blaming Anwar Awlaki for the mailed bomb plot: Andrew Sullivan today, referencing our recent debate over Obama’s efforts to assassinate Awlaki, favorably quotes John Burns, who wrote on Sunday: "Increasingly, Mr. Awlaki is being depicted by Western intelligence officials as a threat on the scale of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri." Right: because if there’s one thing that’s reliable, it’s anonymous claims about Terrorist threats laundered through The New York Times. Actual Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen today details how ludicrous are these breathless government and media assertions about Awlaki’s role in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
As for Andrew’s citation of a news story today claiming that a man who knifed a member of the British Parliament was "inspired" by Awlaki’s sermons: is that supposed be a justification for killing Awlaki? The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment bars imposing punishment or other liability on someone for the actions of others "inspired" by their speech (that ruling was the result of efforts by the State of Mississippi to impose liability on local NAACP leaders in the 1960s on the ground that their incendiary pro-boycott rhetoric "inspired" various individual NAACP members to engage in violence to enforce the boycott). But if merely "inspiring" violence with incendiary rhetoric is the basis for labeling an American citizen a Terrorist and then killing them, we need not look all the way to Yemen for that. We can find that right here at home.
I don’t know about you, but I tire of the ceaseless lies from our government and military. What a relief it would be to get the truth told consistently. A policy based on lies will fail. And this set of lies is being used to create a new Presidential power: the power to order the killing of American citizens with no due process, no judicial review, and no appeal. Somehow, I don’t see this was something the country needs.
