KiDDIe Hunting

(fm the BC thread "Unthinking the unthinkable")

The Orwellian project continues.
AP: Not all terrorism: Obama tries to change subject at the same time as this,
AP: Reports: US OKs radical US-born cleric for death.

Now much as I am going to restrain an impulse to grieve if Anwar al-Awlaki achieves his eternal reward these two news stories do combine to illustrate how arbitrary and dangerous the US government has become. Each separate act can be examined on its own merits and defended but the collective pattern is disturbing. Particularly when you include the earlier efforts to provide a civilian trial for captured terrorists and the orders to treat people captured in battlefield engagements as law enforcement encounters.

What are terrorists to be called now? For no good reason except partisan hatred the Left rejected the well crafted and historically accurate description of captured terrorists as Unlawful Combatants. Maybe they will be recast as Kinetic Disaffected Devoted Idealists or KiDDIes.

Awalki is different why? He really is a traitor. Unlike most of the loose terrorists, Awlaki should be eligible for a civilian trial followed by an execution. He committed his worst offenses as a US citizen on US soil as opposed to others who conformed more strictly to the Bush administration model of a military attack by an unlawful combatant. So the justification for treating him differently is not found in the logic of the Obama and Holder positions regarding the law. The real reason I think to target Awalki for elimination is political. By his connection with Major Hassan of Fort Hood he embarrassed the administration. That is a good reason not to kill him. Awalki is a nexus that ties together many threads of al-Qaeda and domestic security problems. Rather than kill him from 20,000 feet I would send a Brigade into the hills of Yemen to chase him. Right now he is a more valuable intelligence target than is Osama bin Laden. Why does the administration want to silence him?

The greatest threat to a Democracy is that a politician will be tempted to abuse his office to order the elimination of those who he finds a threat or embarrassing. That is Tyranny. It always begins with steps targeted at those who are not in themselves worthy of defense. That is why the ACLU defends the most despicable people it can find. Not being a libertarian I think that the ACLU frequently get it wrong. In this case we have someone who clearly deserves to die. If possible that should happen after he has been thoroughly interrogated and not for the personal convenience of any politician.

The argument for deleting the use of the terms "terror" and "Islam" from US security documents is insultingly fraudulent. The administration has the nerve to use Ronald Reagan's talk in China about the wonders of America to defend the scrubbing of the English language in documents that are designed not for use in overseas diplomacy but for our own internal use. Reagan of course had on many occasions challenged Communism to it's face. More important he always reminded the American people of both the virtues of our system and the evils of our enemies. Obama does exactly the opposite. He apologizes to everyone for the evil he sees in America and he consistently works to weaken our belief in what made us exceptional and better than those who want to harm us. He refuses to tell either those who are our enemies or the American people why our enemies are wrong.

-------
RWE @ 1:03 pm,
the two greatest fears of the Left

Tcobb @ 1:32 pm,
Who they are & there are only three kinds of people

It is the Aristotelian training in the Western tradition. All problems end up having three explanations or possible results. No matter how you need to stretch or pound the facts to fit.

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Tbere is a bright line for that approach that runs from the Greeks to Hegel and through to Marx. Oddly enough the Hindus, whose ancient Sanskrit is very close to early Greek and basic Indo-European also categorize in groups of three. Do people raised in other Eastern traditions default to a binary approach?

steeple,
(who asked how long it will take others to nuke up)
Japan is rumored to be two turns of a wrench away from having a usable device. Taiwan possibly has the capacity already based on cooperation with Israel 30 years ago. For South Korea there are no great obstacles. Remember that Pakistan, not exactly a modern marvel like Switzerland, pulled this off.