Holder's New Standard of Due Process
On March 5, 2012 our Attorney General, Eric H. Holder, Jr. gave a speech at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago. The topic was to defend the President's authority to execute any American -- anywhere, anytime -- without due process or habeas corpus. The President did that last year to an American named Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.
Al-Awlaki was accused of being a radical cleric and a major propagandist for Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. This Holder argues was "operational support" for the 9/11 attacks. Now I know we all have pretty strong feelings about 9/11 and the idea of spilling a little terrorist blood in revenge sounds pretty good. But is that our way? Do we not believe that our rights to due process derive from natural law, which is governed and authored by nature's God, our Creator? Yes we do, those very words can be found in the Declaration of Independence. Why did we give trials to captured Nazis after World War II? We did it because we believe our actions must be governed by natural law and natural law requires certain standards of justice.
Al-Awlaki was never charged with a crime in a court of law. He wasn't even ever indicted by a grand jury. The President took all that upon himself and Holder argues that it was appropriate for him to do so and that the President's personal considerations in the matter count as due process. Think about that for a minute and how that same argument could be used against any of us. Next consider his crime: he was a propagandist. That's a person who takes news stories and twists their narrative to support a political agenda. We know about that because the mainstream media does it everyday for the President. So basically all al-Awlaki did was speak out against his president -- and our President considers that "operational support" for terrorists. Our President considers that such an extreme threat that a drone had to be sent all the way to a lonely rural spot in Yemen to blow this man up in his car with a missile.
This blog could easily be considered propaganda against the President and I could be targeted for murder next for giving operational support to domestic terrorists.
Are we now barbarians who have abandoned our God and no longer respect his law? Are we just blood lusting savages? I'm not and I don't think you probably are either.