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News Tip: Al-Awlaki Killing Legally Supported Despite U.S. Citizenship

Visiting law professor Charlie Dunlap cites 1942 Nazi case

 

On Sept. 30, American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by U.S. forces during an airstrike in Yemen. The U.S government considered al-Awlaki a senior al Qaida leader.

Charlie DunlapVisiting professor of law at Duke University Law School and director of Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security.http://www.law.duke.edu/fac/dunlap 

Specializes in warfare policy and strategy, cyber-warfare, military commissions, counterinsurgency, nuclear issues and air power; former deputy judge advocate general of the U.S. Air Force; retired from military in June 2010 as a major general.

Quote:"Some have raised the issue of al-Awlaki's U.S. citizenship, claiming he was entitled to being treated as legally different from other belligerents.  In the still-applicable 1942 Nazi saboteur case of Ex Parte Quirin the Supreme Court concluded otherwise, finding that U.S. citizenship of 'an enemy belligerent does not relieve him from the consequences of a belligerency.'  In this instance, that 'consequence' is being targeted like any other enemy.

"The court explicitly found that 'there are circumstances in which the executive's unilateral decision to kill a U.S. citizen overseas is constitutionally committed to the political branches and judicially unreviewable.'

"In short, if a U.S. citizen overseas presents an imminent threat, or is a participant in an organized armed group engaged in armed conflict against the U.S., as the administration seems to be alleging is the case with al-Awlaki, the mere fact that he may also be accused of criminal offenses does not necessarily give him sanctuary from being lawfully attacked overseas as any other enemy belligerent might be."