A new sheriff is in town…

Good morning, Netizens…

Cartoonist David Horsey asks a good question this morning. After al-Qaida propagandist and mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki was targeted and killed by a U.S. drone, libertarians insisted his assassination was unconstitutional. Or was it? Critics on both the Left and Right, from the ACLU to Republican Ron Paul all state al-Awlaki should have been arrested and put on trial, not killed by executive order.

Obama’s rebuttal is that al-Awlaki was an operative in a group at war with our country, and therefore a fair target. I cannot think of an individual more deserving of this fate for much the same reason I approved killing bin Laden.

Nevertheless it is good to ask such questions. Technology has given our government the capacity for targeted killings and, in a war where the enemy is not a country, but a shadowy confederation of lawless zealots, extralegal remedies are a tempting option.

Just because we fight in a moral twilight, we must do all we can to resist the lure of darkness.

Dave