Ex-White House spox: Murdered teen should’ve had better father

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki

I first read this tweet about “justif[ying] killing a child by saying he should have had a better father” thinking it was a reiteration of the common anti-abortion canard that terminating a rape pregnancy meant “punishing” the child-to-be for the father’s crime. Thankfully, it was about something completely different.

Something much worse:

How does Team Obama justify killing [16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, son of deceased accused terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki]?

The answer [Robert] Gibbs gave is chilling:

ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.

GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.

Again, note that this kid wasn't killed in the same drone strike as his father. He was hit by a drone strike elsewhere, and by the time he was killed, his father had already been dead for two weeks. Gibbs nevertheless defends the strike, not by arguing that the kid was a threat, or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists.

Abdulrahman wasn’t a terrorist, or even an alleged sympathizer. He wasn’t on any “kill list”, nor was he accused of anything beyond setting out to find his father after having not seen him in the years since the latter went into hiding. His sole crime was that his parent had aligned himself with al-Qaeda, indicating no misbehavior or ill will on the kid’s part. He was essentially murdered because of his father’s alleged misdeeds.

And according to the former White House Press Secretary and current senior advisor to the Obama campaign, that rationale is just peachy.

At least one possible silver lining to such a staggeringly amoral pronouncement is that it’s likely to shed more public light on the story of the President’s extrajudicial murder spree, including of innocent and otherwise non-convicted U.S. citizens.

(via RT: @radleybalko)