Why was Anwar al-Awlaki executed by drone, without due process?

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74. You interjected an assumption into the narrative that doesn't necessarily follow the rest.

I'm saying the guy appears to have at various times been working both sides. The stuff that went wrong wasn't because of him, he wasn't running the operations. If we thought he was, we wouldn't have released him so many times. The responsibility and blame for 9/11, the Ft. Hood shootings, and the bungled Xmas bombing was on his handlers for keeping him out there, fluttering away, for so long.

I never said he was a good double-agent or a master-mind, I said he was a catch and release who performed a useful function as the moth at the center of the web.

That's why I'm not sure he was a real agent provocateur, who would at least understand his true role, or a double-agent who appeared to serving one side while he actually carried out the designs of the other. Double-agents sometimes serve one side, switch sides, pitch both sides against the other, or often have no real understanding of where they are in the bigger picture. They can be all these things at various times.

They waited a long time to take Mr. al-Awlaki out. It took them more than a decade. So, I conclude the Agency continued to believe he was playing a useful role until that assessment changed or the program was cancelled.