Justice Redefined: Purposely Target Americans

American-born Citizen Anwar al-Awlaki (born in New Mexico): Targeted and killed in Yemen

Update (October 22, 2011) of following story from The AP at NPR: "Tribal Elders: Al-Awlaki's Son Killed in Airstrike"

Highlights include: The Yemeni Defense Ministry identified one of the slain as the media chief, Egyptian-born Ibrahim al-Bana. Tribal elders in the area also said the dead also included Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki, the 21-year-old son of Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured above).

However, the family of the young al-Awlaki says he was born in Denver, Colorado on August 26 1995, therefore he is not 21 years old as the media has been reporting, but 16 years old. He had been a resident of the city of Sana'a since he returned from the U.S. with his family in 2002.

This is a whole new twist, but one not apt to get much attention - that's the nature of these things today. Instant, dramatic news and then 24 hours later, "What news?"

A long winding trail of a very complex story comes to an end with his death in Yemen by a U.S. drone attack. The complete story is here from the AP - highlights follow:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a devastating double blow to al-Qaida's most dangerous franchise, U.S. counter-terrorism forces killed two American citizens who played major roles in inspiring attacks against the United States, U.S. and Yemeni officials said Friday (September 30, 2011). US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who edited a slick Jihadi Internet magazine, were killed in an air strike on their convoy in Yemen by a joint CIA-US military operation, according to counter-terrorism officials. Al-Awlaki was targeted in the killing. Khan apparently was not targeted directly.

After three weeks of tracking the targets, US armed drones and fighter jets shadowed the al-Qaida convoy, before armed drones launched the lethal strike. The strike killed four operatives in all, officials said. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. [continue at the above link].

Background: It is important and critical to understand the full depth and background of this story because it opens up an old scab on a very old sore. And, no one, in my opinion, has written about extensively about it in such clear and understandable legal terms than Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com [his reviews start here]. A few extracts are important to set the stage about this story, which I'm pretty sure is not over yet, even with the death of al-Awlaki.

Glenn Greenwald's Own Words:

"It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was "considering" indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. When Awlaki's father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were "state secrets" and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts. He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner. When Awlaki's inclusion on President Obama's hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that "it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing."

"After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.). It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its. The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world. The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced." (Note: The points I want to emphasize are in red. They are not Greenwald's highlights).

Continue Greenwald's coverage of this very important story from this link. There are many branches to this story, or as Yogi Berra might say, "It ain't over till it's over."