Obama Orders Assassination of American Citizen

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The New York Times and The Washington Post are both reporting that Obama has expressly authorized the CIA to kill American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield.

Allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield and with no due process of any kind is very dangerous. Think about what that kind of power entails. Think about the next step of progression. This kind of power for the one man that resides in the White House is both Orwellian, and tyrannical, in nature.

No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are afforded. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for the accused to deny these accusations. How unconstitutional can the Obama administration get?

In Obama's America, Uncle Barry has the power to issue a guilty verdict, and pronounce sentencing - and in this case, the sentence is death.

President Obama has taken it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner. With what he considers to be his kingly position, Obama dispatched his people to make sure America's main-extreme media proclaimed for him that the guilty American terrorist shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. These news outlets blindingly followed the direction of the American "Ruler" without question. The punishment of the accused, in this case, is the decision of Obama, and that is all they care to know. An American citizen will be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done.

This is the true face of tyranny.

Not even the leftist-hated George Bush targeted American citizens for this type of extra-judicial killing.

I am not trying to lessen the severity of the crimes of al-Awlaki, for they are grave, but American Citizens have rights under the Constitution, and for Barack Obama to claim the right to imprison, and assassinate far from any battlefield, American citizens with no due process of any kind is dangerous, and is an example of the power this man craves.

Remember how the leftists cried and screamed for however long regarding Bush's so-called tyrannical treatment of Jose Padilla? The Bush administration imprisoned Padilla for years without a trial, and the Left was wild over that. If that was truly an unconstitutional move, then what kind of tyrannical assault on the Constitution would you call a President's call for the assassination of American citizens without any due process?

If a president truly has this kind of authority, how long before he uses such powers against domestic dissent?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

U.S. Approves Targeted Killing of American Cleric - New York Times

Muslim cleric Aulaqi is 1st U.S. citizen on list of those CIA is allowed to kill - Washington Post