The United States is clearly not at war with Yemen. Yemen is working to apprehend and bring to justice alleged international criminals on its territory, as the U.S. Department of Defense concedes (and apparently financially and operationally supports). And Yemen has now officially confirmed that it granted, but has since withdrawn, permission for selective U.S. bombing of its territory. In these circumstances, our government’s disproportionate targeting of Anwar Al-Awlaki for summary execution in Yemen, as publicly reported by multiple outlets, seems to clearly amount to an Executive attempt to “outlaw” Al-Awlaki – something that the U.S. President has no Constitutional authority or power to do.

In the movie Witness, there is a scene where a little Amish boy, who has witnessed a murder, takes the gun of the detective who is there to protect him from a chest of drawers. He is caught by his grandfather who sits him down for a talk. The grandfather asks if the boy would use this gun to kill. The boy says that he would only kill a bad man. The grandfather asks “How will you know who is the bad man?” This is the central point of our system of justice, we don’t just assume that someone is a bad man before punishing them, we have an elaborate process designed to require proof of actions before we punish.

Unfortunately our trauma with terrorism has eroded this system. Today, as you read this, there is a list of people around the world who are targeted for death. They are suspected of being involved with terror plots, and some of them are your fellow citizens. If they are found anywhere in the world by our forces they will be killed. Not captured and brought to trial, not attempted to be captured, but killed out right.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed suit challenging the legality of this policy. There is an Islamic cleric named Anwar Al-Aulaqi who has been implicated in both the Fort Hood shootings and the Fruit of the Boom bomber plots. He has made many anti-American statements including the active encouragement of terrorism.

Nobel Prize Committee: Do the Right Thing! — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

infiltration efforts from smugglers and terror groups are causing the Saudis to wall themselves off

Last week, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. released a forceful 36-page opinion in the case of a Guantanamo detainee that would ordinarily be shocking. Sadly, such opinions are now so common that, except for one news story and a few particularly alert bloggers, they get barely a mention in the news.

Spencer Ackerman and Rachel Maddow bat the GOP terror-alla-time goofball around the court a bit and decide there isn’t anyone worth invading today, but tomorrow is another day so let’s hope!

This isn’t working, can’t we just be friends?

All the hand-wringing over the President’s ‘failure’ to address the nation quickly enough after the attempted underwear bombing is probably foolish given the way Al Qaeda operate.

Veteran Affairs Journal editor finds troubling aspects to the recent terrorist incident in Detroit on NW Airlines.

As we quickly forget about Iraq, the main goal of American foreign policy has reverted to chasing al Qaeda out of God-forsaken wastelands like Yemen and Afghanistan.

This makes about as much sense as chasing rats out of sewers.