General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Remember how FDR executed American Nazi sympathizers? [View all]Cary
(11,746 posts)It's wrong. It's evil. There are no ifs, ands, or buts.
The president should not have the power to summarily execute anyone and the drone issue is very troubling.
Of course all of this pertains to Anwar al-Awlaki and it is a retroactive effort to justify that execution. I haven't seen anyone who doesn't believe that this guy got exactly what he deserved. Dont cry for Awlaki. He left here with the specific purpose of waging war against us. He didn't use technology to kill us, but what's the difference between sending a drone or coopting others to do your murdering? Weren't the Fort Hood shooter, the underwear bomber, and the Times Square bomber effectively human drones?
If you're faced with the choice of being able to take someone like this out with a drone, effectively saving American lives, or not taking him out knowing that he will be behind future murders, what do you do?
It's kind of like Truman's decision to drop the bomb. This is a problem we have debated for decades. Do we really have an answer? I don't think so. The moral problem of killing hundreds of thousands of civilians is very, very disturbing. Yet it is a fact that invasion by conventional methods would have been much, much worse.