Why Rand Paul Has a Point

From Mark Steyn.  Excerpts:

...For a war without strategic purpose, a drone'll do. Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen born in New Mexico, was whacked by a Predator not on a battlefield but after an apparently convivial lunch at a favorite Yemeni restaurant.

Two weeks later, al-Awlaki's son Abdulrahman was dining on the terrace of another local eatery when the CIA served him the old Hellfire Special and he wound up splattered all over the patio. Abdulrahman was 16, and born in Denver.

As I understand it, the Supreme Court has ruled that American minors, convicted of the most heinous crimes, cannot be executed. But you can gaily atomize them halfway round the planet. My brief experience of Yemeni restaurants was not a happy one but, granted that, I couldn't honestly say they met any recognized definition of a "battlefield."

Al-Awlaki Junior seems to have been your average anti-American teen. Al-Awlaki Senior was an al-Qaida ideologue and a supposed "spiritual mentor" to everyone from the 9/11 murderers to the Fort Hood killer and the thwarted Pantybomber. On the other hand, after September 11th, he was invited to lunch at the Pentagon, became the first imam to conduct a prayer service at the U.S. Congress, and was hailed by NPR as an exemplar of an American "Muslim leader who could help build bridges between Islam and the West." The precise point at which he changed from American bridge-builder to Yemeni restaurant takeout is hard to determine.

His public utterances when he was being feted by the New York Times are far more benign than those of, say, Samira Ibrahim, who was scheduled to receive a "Woman of Courage" award from Michelle Obama and John Kerry on Friday until an unfortunate flap erupted over some ill-phrased Tweets from the courageous lass rejoicing on the anniversary of 9/11 that she loved to see "America burning."

The same bureaucracy that booked Samira Ibrahim for an audience with the First Lady and Anwar al-Awlaki to host prayers at the Capitol now assures you that it's entirely capable of determining who needs to be zapped by a drone between the sea bass and the tiramisu at Ahmed's Bar and Grill. But it's precisely because the government is too craven to stray beyond technological warfare and take on its enemies ideologically that it winds up booking the First Lady to hand out awards to a Jew-loathing, Hitler-quoting, terrorist-supporting America-hater...

We have advanced from the paramilitarization of the police to the paramilitarization of the Bureau of Form-Filling. Two years ago in this space, I noted that the Secretary of Education, who doesn't employ a single teacher, is the only education minister in the developed world with his own SWAT team: He used it to send 15 officers to kick down a door in Stockton, Calif., drag Kenneth Wright out on to the front lawn, and put him in handcuffs for six hours. Erroneously, as it turned out. But it was in connection with his estranged wife's suspected fraudulent student-loan application, so you can't be too careful. That the education bureaucracy of the Brokest Nation in History has its own SEAL Team Six is ridiculous and offensive. Yet the citizenry don't find it so: they accept it.