In light of the order to kill al-Qaeda terrorist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in America and is therefore presumably an American citizen, we currently have a truly odd policy towards the jihadi Muslims who are waging war against us in the name of Islamic extremism (oops – Obama says I can’t describe our nations enemies with those terms, even though they are all accurate, for fear of offending them). Consider this strange new reality.

So here is the Obama Left's position. If an alien enemy combatant, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mass-murders 3000 Americans and is then captured outside the U.S. in wartime, we need to bring him to the United States and give him a civilian trial with all attendant due process rights. If an alien enemy combatant is sending emails from outside the U.S. to an al Qaeda cell inside the U.S., the commander-in-chief needs a judge's permission (on a showing of probable cause) to intercept those communications. If an American citizen terrorist outside the United States — say, Awlaki in Yemen — is calling or emailing the United States (or anyplace else), the commander-in-chief needs a judge's permission to intercept those communications. If we capture an alien enemy combatant conducting war operations against the U.S. overseas, we should give him Miranda warnings, a judicial right to challenge his detention as a war prisoner, and (quite likely) a civilian trial. But, if the commander-in-chief decides to short-circuit the whole menu of civil rights by killing an American citizen, that's fine — no due process, no interference by a judge, no Miranda, no nothing. He is a proven threat because ... the president says so.

On the one hand, non-Americans caught abroad engaging in acts of war are subject to arrest and civilian trial, as are infiltrators caught in the planning stages of their jihad. On the other hand, Americans believed to be collaborating are subject to assassination by any means necessary, just because the president says so. Why do we treat our own citizens, even those objectively guilty of Islam-based treason, worse than identically situated foreigners? Shouldn't the goal for al-Awlaki be indictment, arrest, and trial in the US before being sent to a comfy Club Fed prison, rather than an extra-judicial execution at the order of the president, without so much as an ounce of due process for our fellow American? And if it isn't, does than not point out the hypocrisy of the Obama Regime in the issue of terrorism?

UPDATE: Doug Powers links to Glenn Greenwald's observation on the matter.

No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.

Instead, in Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist.

Powers also notes that, in the Hopey-Changey world of Comandante Zero, it may be necessary to renounce one's American citizenship in order to avail oneself of the rights that the Obama Regime insists are guaranteed to terrorists under the US Constitution. And I do join with Powers in being concerned that the Obamunist horde has labeled their fellow citizens who participate in Tea Party rallies as "terrorists".

I wonder if could be that we on the right need to prepare to defend ourselves from a coming Reign of Terror at the hands of our own government for daring to exercise the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment as long as Obama and his supporters are in control. Will we Americans need to follow the example of the brave people of Kyrzygstan?

Of course I support taking out Anwar al-Awlaki, any time, any place, by any means necessary. I simply find it bizarre that the US government is taking this approach at a time when the policy seems to be to treat jihadi scum as having rights under the Constitution instead of treating them as prisoners of war subject to imprisonment until the cessation of hostilities, as we would do with any other enemy. For that matter, I personally support a presidential finding of guilt on the part of each and every one of these jihadis, followed by their immediate execution via firing squad, on live television, using bullets dipped in bacon grease in front of the cameras immediately prior to their use.