“And what about all the progressives who screamed for years about the Bush administration’s tyrannical treatment of Jose Padilla? Bush merely imprisoned Padilla for years without a trial. If that’s a vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution — and it was — what should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination of American citizens without any due process?”
Both The New York Times and The Washington Post reported today that President Obama has authorized “the targeted killing of an American citizen.”
As Greenwald notes, “No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.”
I’m both outraged and in a whirlwind of rationalization. I can’t use the excuse that other adminstrations assasinated. It’s either ethical or it’s not. The rationalization sets in when I consider someone taking up arms against innocent American civilians. We would give him a trial if he surrendered or was captured. I’m certainly sickened by those decrying assasination who cheered when it was a Yemeni, Saudi, or Palestinian national being targeted. But am I any less of a hypocrite than they are, just on the opposite side?