The arguments invoking US citizenship against Roger's premises miss a few points:
The US Constition prescribes what creates US citizenship, but not all that may forfeit it. Section 349(a)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act [8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(3)] provides for loss of U.S. nationality if an American voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship enters or serves in foreign armed forces engaged in hostilities against the United States.
None of us can have listened to every utterance by Awlaki about his US origins, but it would not be at all surprising if somewhere along the line he took occasion to renunciate his US citizenship.
Even without that, a federal lawsuit involving this issue was dismissed by a federal judge (a 'legal expert'?) who found the issue perplexing and declined to act on the basis of "political questions."
The whole subject is well covered in a NY Times article at:
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/a/anwar_al_awlaki/index.html
The article discusses at length the grounds upon which the Obama administration determined to proceed against al-Alwaki as it did. Those who disagree with Roger might learn something from it.
In an era where global organizations are becoming increasingly powerful, moreso than many sovereign states, direct military hostilities by such organizations against the USA may be far more threatening than those originating from foreign countries. Sometimes offense is not just the best defense, it is the only means of defense.
With respect to Roger's comments about the motives of the salon.com initiative, I also noted that some of the those pushing the citizenship argument had strong Republican Party complections. Sometimes someone a little removed from a situation can see it more clearly than those of us who are directly involved in the midst of it.
None of that negates my aforementioned over-riding concern about the slaughter of innocent people from "collateral damage," not to mention provisions in several recent defense authorization acts making provision for the arrest and indefinite detention, incommunicado, of persons, including US citizens, determined by the US military to be terrorists. Shades of the disappeared in countries ruled by fascist regimes.
When I wrote to my Republican Senator about this, I got over five single spaced pages of argument that boiled down to, 'We've always been able to do this, so it is OK to codify it in a law.' What puzzles me is how we so often get wound up in the US about some issues, and ignore more serious issues looming over us. Haven't quite figured it out, but maybe it has something to do with the diminution of the quality of communication on the internet, twitter, facebook, talk radio and TV, etc., the dumbing down of our educational system, and mindless fads that seem to rage on in this environment.
We can do much better, and must if we want to survive.
