On October 14, 2011, Abdulrahman Al-awlaki was killed by U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. Al-awlaki was a 16 year old American citizen who was eating dinner with a group of his teenage friends when U.S. airstrikes took their lives. Al-awlaki, born in Denver, Colorado, was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki. Anwar al-Awlaki, of course, was the U.S. citizen suspected (but never prosecuted) of working with Al Qaeda; Awlaki was assassinated by the U.S. on September 30, 2011.

In the days before a CIA drone strike killed al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki last month, his 16-year-old son ran away from the family home in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa to try to find him, relatives say. When he, too, was killed in a U.S. airstrike Friday, the Awlaki family decided to speak out for the first time since the attacks.

“To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It’s nonsense,” said Nasser al-Awlaki, a former Yemeni agriculture minister who was Anwar al-Awlaki’s father and the boy’s grandfather, speaking in a phone interview from Sanaa on Monday. “They want to justify his killing, that’s all.”

Abdulrahman Al-awlaki ran away from home to try to find his dad. That’s it. This is a human tragedy, regardless of whether you think the U.S.’s military efforts in the Middle East are justified or not. A society that disregards human life cannot possibly expect to uphold individual liberty.

Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is drenched in blood. Has Obama so much as issued an apology for killing an innocent American teenager and his friends? Nope. Nada.

This is an American teenage kid that we’re talking about, just three years younger than me. He had a Facebook profile. He listened to Akon, Eminem, 50 Cent, and Snoop Dogg. His favorite books were Harry Potter and Twilight. He loved Spongebob Squarepants, Prison Break, Lost, The Simpsons, and the BBC “Planet Earth” series. His favorite movies were Harry Potter, Braveheart, Troy, and Gladiator. In other words, he was a human being.

Have our minds been so numbed by war that we casually brush off the deaths of innocent lives, even an American teenager, taken by the U.S.? Will people continue to defend these political psychopaths who ignore the destruction of innocent life the U.S. has caused around the world? I pray not.

Abdulrahman Al-awlaki (Assassinated October 14, 2011)

Abdulrahman Al-awlaki's U.S. Birth Certificate

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Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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Anwar al-Awlaki

I have been called unrealistic and “a little nuts” for suggesting that Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, should have been charged and convicted before he was assassinated on September 30, 2011, in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen. It’s hardly an unrealistic position, considering that Awlaki has been on the CIA’s hit list since April 2010. That’s 17 months the Obama Administration had to assemble and present evidence to a court in order to charge and convict Awlaki.

In any case, I would like to hear from people. Which of these four points do you disagree with, and why?

1. The Administration, in the months leading up to Awlaki’s assassination, in light of the visible evidence against Awlaki, should have received a warrant or similar order from a federal court after submitting evidence against Awlaki.

2. This new precedent of it being legally acceptable for U.S. Presidents to assassinate U.S. citizens is a danger to the general American citizenry and the Constitution itself.

3. The Obama Administration, in light of the concerns provided by some of the American public, civil liberties organizations, and members of Congress, should submit its compiled evidence against Awlaki to a federal court/judge.

4. Although contrary to the individual protection of due process guaranteed under the Constitution, assassinations of U.S. citizens carried out by the President are, at the absolute minimum, to be illegal without evidence first being submitted and approved by a federal judge/court.

I am amazed how quickly people defend the assassination of an unconvicted human being, provided a President calls him a bad guy. It is truly sickening. Don’t get me wrong, Awlaki likely deserved his fate; I am not disputing this.

The majority of Americans are happy Awlaki’s dead and don’t think for a second that maybe there’s something wrong with how this justice was served. The death of Awlaki was no doubt a popular event appreciated by most Americans. However, the Constitution and the individual rights it protects is not subject to a popularity contest.

What do you say? Is this just an annoying and uneducated attempt to uphold the Constitution? Should the President have the legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens when deemed necessary for “national security,” even without any legal charge or conviction?

“What would Constitutional Law professor Barack Obama think of this?”

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