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This is what has gotten Paul more up in arms than anything, this is a FIRST. An argument could be made that this is a slippery slope to be stepping out onto....
Friday's drone attack was believed to be the first instance in which a U.S. citizen was tracked and killed based on secret intelligence and the president's say-so. Al-Awlaki was placed on the CIA "kill or capture" list by the Obama administration in April 2010 - the first American to be so targeted. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
The president seems to think he was a leader of external operations, and actually carrying out attacks.
President Barack Obama heralded the strike as a "major blow to al-Qaida's most active operational affiliate," saying the 40-year-old al-Awlaki was the group's "leader of external operations." "In that role, he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans," Obama told reporters in Washington, saying al-Awlaki plotted the Christmas 2009 airplane bombing attempt and a foiled attempt in 2010 to mail explosives to the United States. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
A former CIA agent makes a point that Paul would probably agree with and see's al-Awlaki less of leader of operations, and nothing more than a chief propagandist. An interesting contrast to Obama's position to say the least.
Bruce Riedel, a Brookings senior fellow and former CIA officer, cautioned that while al-Awlaki was the "foremost propagandist," for al-Qaida's Yemen branch, his death "doesn't really significantly change its fortunes." Al-Qaida's branch "is intact and arguably growing faster than ever before because of the chaos in Yemen," he said. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
chicken or the egg anyone....
His numerous video sermons, circulated on YouTube and other sites, offered a measured political argument - interspersed with religious lessons - that the United States must be fought for waging wars against Muslims. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
It's interesting that he doesn't take credit for the Hasan killing spree....
Al-Awlaki exchanged up to 20 emails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of opening fire at the U.S. military base at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people, in a 2009 rampage. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki's Internet sermons. Al-Awlaki has said he didn't tell Hasan to carry out the shootings, but he later praised Hasan as a "hero" on his website. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
Doesn't look like there's hard evidence that he directly planned the times square bombing either...seems like more of a mouthpiece than a "leader of external operations."
In New York, the Pakistani-American who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt told interrogators he was "inspired" by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
Of course, U.S. Officials(does it get more generic?) have to have their say...they seem to have evidence of him being more than a mouthpiece, what exactly that evidence is not mentioned....
But U.S. officials say al-Awlaki moved beyond being just a mouthpiece into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen. Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up a U.S. airliner heading to Detroit on Christmas 2009, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants. Yemeni officials say they believe al-Awlaki and other al-Qaida leaders met with Abdulmutallab in a Yemen hideout in the weeks before the failed bombing. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
So maybe he met with the guy, the defendant again claims no part in the attempted bombing....
Al-Awlaki has said Abdulmutallab was his "student" but said he never told him to carry out the airline attack. Read more: www.star-telegram.com...
continued.....
