al-Awlaki and Richard Jewell | Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee
"As President, I would not hesitate to use decisive force to repel any imminent threat. National defense is a primary function of Congress and the commander-in-chief, and, as chief executive, I would carry out my duties as outlined in the Constitution and in accordance with the rule of law.
President Obama apparently believes he is not bound by the Constitution or the rule of law. When it was reported that Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen last week, certainly no one felt remorse for his fate…We have to take the fight against terrorism very seriously. In 2001, I supported the authority to capture and kill the thugs responsible for 9/11. In our efforts we must, however, work hard to preserve and respect our great American constitutional principles.Awlaki was a U.S. citizen. Under our Constitution, American citizens, even those living abroad, must be charged with a crime before being sentenced. As President, I would have arrested Awlaki, brought him to the U.S., tried him and pushed for the stiffest punishment allowed by law. Treason has historically been judged to be the worst of crimes, deserving of the harshest sentencing. But what I would not do as President is what Obama has done and continues to do in spectacular fashion: circumvent the rule of law.
When Ron Paul warns of the dangerous precedent set by allowing the President of the United States to automatically revoke citizens' rights and ignore due process, it is not out of concern for actual terrorists of al-Awlaki's ilk—but presumed "terrorists" like Jewell.
What kind of new powers will American presidents imagine themselves having in the decades to come, using the assassination of al-Awlaki as their legal precedent? If Jewel had been a terror suspect post-9/11, living in Pakistan or Yemen instead of the state of Georgia, would his suspect status still have been handled through our legal system? Or would it have been rendered too complex and impractical to address?
Ron Paul and anyone else who continue to ask these important questions in recent days are not being unreasonable. Far from it.
"After 88 days of intense scrutiny by the FBI and the international media, Richard Jewell was formally cleared by the Justice Department Saturday as a suspect in the July 27 Centennial Olympic Park bombing which killed one woman and injured more than a hundred.While Jewell breathes a sigh of relief and exclaims a hardy I-told-you-so, the circus that surrounded nearly three months of his life should serve as a cautionary tale to those government-information leakers and the overactive media which threw out Jewell's constitutionally guaranteed presumption of innocence in favor of a quick solution to a national problem.