Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
(Post 19021789)
.... we also have to abide by American laws and can be prosecuted in teh USA for things done abroad, even if it was legal in the other country, but illegal in the USA. This is another joy of freedom.
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Yeah, if your leaving the country with the intention of having sex with minors, yeah, that's a problem and we should punish it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
(Post 19021789)
Back to Anwar al-Awlaki, we only know he was a terrorist because we were all told he was a terrorist.
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He was a self proclaimed terrorist. He didn't hide it, he told everyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
(Post 19021789)
The problem is, he did not have due process.
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Your making it sound like a junior level clerk decided he had to go and it was done. There was hearings about it with the highest levels of our government, including Congress and most likely the US President.
Did he have a trial? Nope. But he could have turned himself in at any time and had one.
When we are at war - and make no mistake about it, we are in fact at war (remember 9/11?) - there is no trial by jury. We do not pull aside every enemy combatant and offer them a trial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
(Post 19021789)
They were wrong about WMD's and we invaded a country who showed no aggression towards us.....
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That's how you see it.
While I am not a huge fan of Bush, I see our actions in Iraq as being the fallout from the original invasion of Kuwait in 1991. You think we went in because WMD and that might be how it was sold to the general public, but I see it from a strictly military stand point - Iraq invaded another country, got it's ass kicked, signed a peace treated, then claimed it won and violated the peace treaty at every chance it had.
Any time any country shoots as a US warplane it is in fact an act of war. The entire time Clinton was in office they were shooting at us and we were shooting back at them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
(Post 19021789)
The US government ordering the execution of an American, terrorist or not, without due process, is wrong. That is one of the things that used to make America, America. Now that anyone can be labeled a "terrorist" and held without trial indefinitely or executed without due process, that is as un-American as it gets and it shits in the face of everything the USA is supposed to be.
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But this is the way it's always been. You seem to think that "everyone has rights" yet the CIA has been quietly doing the dirty work behind our backs without us knowing. We've been killing and assianating people for the past one hundred years, no trail needed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DWB
(Post 19021789)
Rochard, I don't know the reasons why you served, but if you buy into the idea that the military is fighting for our freedom, then you have to swallow the fact that you are also fighting for the freedoms and rights of bad Americans like Anwar al-Awlaki, and his right to a fair and speedy trial. It's a sour pill, I know, but such rights should not be conditional based on if you are a patriot or not. It's like freedom of speech, we have to take the bad with the good, even if the bad is horrible and offends us greatly.
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No, American citizens are not protected by the US constitution when they leave the country - at all. It's not even open to discussion. Your seeing Anwar al-Awlaki as an American citizen; I'm seeing him as an enemy combatant who is helping the enemy. Do this inside the US you get arrested and you get a trial; You do this in a third world country where the local government is unable to assist us you get killed.
