There is supposed to be a strict separation of never using the military against the citizens of the united states.
Due process and judicial process in a courtroom are not the same thing. Your citizenship isn't a bubble you carry around with you that gives you enhanced protection from your government under all circumstances; if you choose to put yourself in a kinetic theater of operations then it doesn't act as a bullet proof vest.
In the case of Al-Awlaki, his due process was people in the executive branch (specifically the National Security Council) looking at the fact that he was running around on battlefields with people the US was fighting with, and deciding that he'd chosen to become an enemy combatant. You can certainly critique the general conduct of war by states, and whether the US should be engaged in asymmetric wars in general or in that theater in particular, but I am no more or less exercised about al-Awlaki's death than I am about any of his Yemeni/Al Qaeda associates that were blown up at the same time.
Put another way, if you were OK with them being killed, then you should be OK with him being killed because he chose to affiliate with them. If you're not OK with it, then I'd say the problem is the War on Terror as a whole, since it effectively functions as a blank check to target any group that can be designated as a military threat.
Due process and judicial process in a courtroom are not the same thing. Your citizenship isn't a bubble you carry around with you that gives you enhanced protection from your government under all circumstances; if you choose to put yourself in a kinetic theater of operations then it doesn't act as a bullet proof vest.
In the case of Al-Awlaki, his due process was people in the executive branch (specifically the National Security Council) looking at the fact that he was running around on battlefields with people the US was fighting with, and deciding that he'd chosen to become an enemy combatant. You can certainly critique the general conduct of war by states, and whether the US should be engaged in asymmetric wars in general or in that theater in particular, but I am no more or less exercised about al-Awlaki's death than I am about any of his Yemeni/Al Qaeda associates that were blown up at the same time.
Put another way, if you were OK with them being killed, then you should be OK with him being killed because he chose to affiliate with them. If you're not OK with it, then I'd say the problem is the War on Terror as a whole, since it effectively functions as a blank check to target any group that can be designated as a military threat.