Colorado
native Abdulrahman
al-Awlaki wasn’t in a movie theater when his life met a sudden,
violent end. He was enjoying a backyard barbeque with his cousin
in southeastern Yemen when the home was destroyed by a drone-delivered
Hellfire missile.
Abdulrahman
was sixteen years old when he was murdered by the United States
government. He had run away from home in a desperate attempt to
find his father, Anwar, a "radical cleric" who was the
well-publicized target of the Obama administration’s assassination
program.
Despite the
fact that Anwar al-Awlaki was never formally charged with a crime
– let alone convicted of one – he was assassinated on Obama’s orders
two weeks before the Regime slaughtered his son and eight other
innocent people.
Seeking to
justify the murder of a child, the Obama administration circulated
the story that the 16-year-old was actually an adult "suspected"
of being a "militant."
That story
was refined somewhat once it was proven that Abdulrahman was a teenager.
However, the administration has never dropped the pretense that
the summary execution of that innocent U.S. citizen was, in some
sense, a strategic success. Since the Regime killed him – and, in
its sovereign wisdom, the Regime never errs – the young man
simply couldn't be innocent.
Within a day
of the Movie Theater Massacre, the murderer of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
announced that he would travel to Colorado to bless the traumatized
city of Aurora with his healing presence.
"[W]e
may never understand what leads anyone to terrorize their fellow
human beings," intoned
the death-dealing divinity in the Oval Office in his July 21 weekly
radio address. "Such evil is senseless – beyond reason."
We’re invited
to believe that the routine state terrorism committed by Obama and
the government over which he presides is both sensible and rational.
Apparently
there is something noble and redemptive about commissioning a legion
of chair-moistening joystick jockeys who – enthroned in the climate-controlled
safety of well-guarded office buildings in Nevada and Virginia –
dispatch robot aircraft to annihilate innocent strangers in places
like Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
When drone-fired
missiles wipe out wedding parties and funerals; when drone operators
exploit the panic and chaos of an initial strike to stage follow-up
attacks targeting emergency personnel – these acts are consecrated
by the Dear Leader’s approval, and thus cannot be compared to the
rampage committed by a private individual responsible for killing
a dozen people and wounding scores of others in Aurora.
In order to
clarify this vital distinction, it’s useful to recall the comments
of Dear Leader Emeritus Bill Clinton from an interview published
in the
December 2009 issue of Foreign Policy. Asked to elucidate
this important matter, Clinton helpfully defined terrorism as "killing
and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority…."(Emphasis
added.) By reverse-engineering this definition we learn that "killing
and robbery and coercion" carried out in the name of "state
authority" isn't terrorism; it's public policy.
As it happens,
Anwar al-Awlaki – although described as a supporter of al-Qaeda
– was a forthright
opponent of terrorist attacks against American civilians.
In a typical
address he stated that the U.S. government’s role in invading and
occupying Muslim countries "does not justify the killing of
one U.S. civilian in New York City or Washington, D.C.," just
as the murder of thousands of civilians in New York and Washington
do not "justify the death of one civilian in Afghanistan."
Awlaki believed
that all people – including Muslims – have the right to defend themselves
against aggressive violence, and was not diffident in expressing
that view. By presidential decree, the expression of those views
was made a capital offense. The sentence was imposed not by a court
of law, but through the deliberations of a secretive, anonymous,
unaccountable panel. There was certainly a great deal of "efficiency"
in this arrangement – but not so much as a hint or whisper of due
process.
In
a March 5 address that was an exercise in unalloyed sophistry,
Attorney General Eric Holder told an audience at Northwestern University
Law School that "due process" doesn’t require "judicial
process." During congressional testimony two days later, FBI
Director Robert Mueller was asked about Eric Holder’s position,
and whether it applied to the execution of American citizens on
presidential orders. He artlessly
ducked the question by objecting that he would "have to
go back" and check if that was addressed in administration
policy. In the intervening months, Mueller has not found the time
to report what he has learned.
The rationale
for the existence of political government is the belief – as unsupported
by empirical evidence as it is impervious to it – that concentrating
power in an entity claiming a monopoly on aggressive violence will
protect the innocent. The massacre in Aurora, like every other incident
in which an armed criminal preys upon a confined audience of unarmed,
innocent people, underscored the fact that the police are, at best,
useless in such situations.
The police
arrived while the rampage was in progress. Police
recordings captured the sound of gunfire and screaming while
officers waited outside the theater, setting up a "perimeter"
and waiting for gas masks to be distributed. The assailant ended
the slaughter on his own terms; the police did nothing to
stop or minimize the carnage. Their mission was successful, however,
since none of them was injured.
Just a few
days earlier, a
police officer in Columbus, Ohio shot and killed a 21-year-old man
named Destin Thomas, who had made the mistake of calling the police
to deal with an armed robber. By the time the officers had arrived,
the burglars were gone. So the officers – for reasons the department
has refused to disclose – killed the victim of the break-in.
As the Columbus
Dispatch pointed out, if the police hadn’t been on time, Thomas
would still be alive. As Thomas’s cousin points out, the Columbus
Police Department is "trying to justify" the shooting,
"no apology or nothing, [just saying] `Oh, we’re just doing
what we were trained to do" – that is, to put "officer
safety" ahead of every other consideration.
The same calculus
led to an act of grotesque police over-reaction – what could reasonably
be called an incident of state-sponsored terrorism – in Aurora about
six months before the Movie Theater Massacre. Following an armed
robbery at a local Wells Fargo bank, the
Aurora Police Department simply arrested everyone in the vicinity
until the suspect was found. This was, in effect, limited-scale
martial law.
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Believing that
the alleged robber was stopped a nearby red light, the police barricaded
that section of the street – which could be considered a reasonable
tactic.
However, they
dragged more than forty people from their vehicles, handcuffed them,
and held them for more than four hours – which was not.
Drivers and
passengers "were handcuffed, then were told what was going
on and were asked for permission to search the car," recalled
Officer Frank Fania. "They all granted permission, and once
nothing was found in their cars, they were un-handcuffed."
Why was it
supposedly necessary to handcuff people before asking permission?
If the detention was justified, why did the police bother to ask
for permission?
Fania insisted
that the mass arrests were necessary and justified because it was
a "unique" situation. Actually, this was done not to protect
the public, but rather in the interest of "officer safety."
This is
the same reason why the police force in Colorado Springs, roughly
70 miles south of Aurora, are using military-grade SWAT gear
to carry out routine patrol functions.
If you’re stopped
for a traffic infraction in Colorado Springs, you’re likely to be
accosted by someone dressed almost exactly like the perpetrator
of the Aurora Movie Theater Massacre. That armed stranger has official
permission to kill you if in his self-serving judgment you pose
a threat to him – and no legally enforceable responsibility to protect
you, should a threat to your person or property materialize. And
functionaries who serve the same government consider themselves
entitled to kill anyone – U.S. citizens included – via remote control
on the orders of the individual who has urged the nation to join
him in mourning the victims of non-government-licensed murder in
Aurora.
Referring
to the Movie Theater Massacre, Obama read these potted, insincere
phrases from his Teleprompter:
"I’m sure
many of you who are parents had the same reaction I did when you
first heard this news: what if it had been my daughters at the theater,
doing what young children enjoy doing every day? Michelle
and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls a little tighter
this weekend, as I’m sure you will do with your children."
There are limits
to Obama’s gift of empathy. He appears untroubled by the fact that
because of his criminal actions, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki’s mother
has been deprived of both her son and her husband. He is living
proof of the fact that the deadliest sociopaths aren’t the ones
who dye their hair red and identify with comic book nihilists.
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