Anwar al-Awlaki killed

[Xiahou]

Would it be too cynical of me to suggest that the reason he went to Congress was because he knew the whole thing was based on, to paraphrase, a baseless conjecture? Covering himself, by implicating the whole of Congress making sure that he could never be held singularly responsible for deciding to invaded after the inevitable exposure ?

So the fact that he got required authorization from our elected legislature is somehow more insidious to you than had he just claimed cart blanche based on the earlier AUMF? You can try to attach whatever motivations to it you want, but once Bush had his mind set on invading Iraq, getting the required authorization first was the right thing to do.

Beg your pardon, but quite a few American conservatives (you included, if I'm not mistaken) insist on a literary interpretation of the constitution. The various amendments speak of persons, not of citizens. The only times the constitution mentions "citizens" is when it speaks about the right to vote, etc.

Case law does make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens, but you generally don't approve when SCOTUS deviates from a word's manifest, undeniable meaning, do you?

How could anyone assume that US domestic law could apply to the subjects of other nations outside of US territory? That line of thinking would presume that the US military violated the Second Amendment when it disarmed the German army after WW2. The authors of the Constitution could only ever have intended it to apply to citizens and those within US jurisdiction- to assume otherwise is irrational.