Well, its time to give Governor Perry a free pass on the Texas executions.

[ThomWV]

I have condemned Governor Perry for allowing so many executions in Texas even though those executions take place after a trial before a Judge and Jury and after such appeals as are available during the intervening years between the commission of the crime and the actual execution. But now I am told that President Obama can act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner with no legal foundation for doing so other than the fact that there is no one to stop him. Abnd this is not about combatants out on the field of battle, soldiers shooting or air planes bombing. No, this is assassination of a natural born US Citizen.

You know the old joke where a guy offers a lady a million bucks to bed down with him? She says OK and then he offers her $10. She is irate and screams "what do you think I am?" He responds, "We've already seen what you are, now we're deciding on the price."

Its not a matter of degree. Once a President thinks he can kill on his own say so he is a danger to the country and it doesn't make a hoot in hell which Party he is in or whatever other good or bad things he does or supports. This is a power no man is entitled to have and certainly one that no man may grant himself.

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. K&R...IOKIYAAD is not satisfying. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. You know, I have evolved on this.

One reason I thought of myself as a 'moderate', though now I am a happy radical. I thought if we KNOW this guy is a terrorist who has somehow concluded that he can actually wage war against the US (not a good idea in any circumstance) and he is unable to be arrested in a foreign country, such as Yemen, where he is heavily protected by armed enemies of the US, then an action such as this could be a reasonable, pragmatic recourse.

The problem is, without an arrest and trial, we don't really KNOW who he is or why he is there. Do we really trust the word of the CIA? Of DOD? Do we kill him just on some intelligence service's say so?

For that matter, how do we know it was him who was killed? Again, just on some intelligence service's say so?

I was VERY pissed about the Obama operation - if they were able to drop in there, spend 20 minutes ransacking the place for intelligence, and then leave without serious conflict, would it have been any harder to taze OBL and bring him back in cuffs, rather than a body bag?

And what makes this guy so much more dangerous than OBL, that we have to kill him with a drone? If our intelligence is good enough on him that we can kill him from hundreds of miles away with a drone, why were we unable to effect an arrest?

There is a difference in seeing these people as part of a criminal organization and as part of a military force. Treating them as a military calls for military solutions - and the military solution is to kill. Killing them does not kill their ideas. Treating them as criminals, and exposing their ideas in a court of law, and punishing them for their crimes is the ONLY way to discredit their ideas.

I can't even say "Well, at least that is one fewer terrorist". I don't KNOW he was a terrorist. Without testimony in court, or being caught in the middle of a terrorist act, there is no way to know.

We have to end the War On Terror.

[GreenStormCloud]

3. Texas governors can't pardon a person.

All a Texas governor can do is issue (1) one, thirty day stay of execution per prisioner. He can't commute sentences either. All of that is handled by the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

[tularetom]

4. Obama has set a terrible precedent for some future paranoid republican prez

Somebody who can decide that the entire membership of DU are terrorists and have drones take us all out.

Very bad move, I agree.