Quote Originally Posted by DragonStryk72 View Post
Um yes, whether or not it was the right thing to do, it's still assassination. Any time where you have a person or drone killing a person who is not directly attacking you, and you take him out from the shadows, or some other covert way, that's an assassination. So yeah, it's an assassination, not a "targeted killing", which is basically the definition of assassinating someone when you get down to it.

Now assassination gets a bad rap, really, because it of course brings to mind assassins, a career we see as being a purely illicit one. However, assassinating a target can be a way to prevent the greater loss of life, both to our allies, innocent bystanders, and to enemies. In an assassination, it's most usually one person taking a shot at one exact person, as opposed to a breach assault, where you have moments of chaos where any number can be killed on both sides. This is where so many get killed or wounded by friendly fire, because in those moments of the breach there are sounds coming from every direction, and all involved have a sense of imminent danger that can override reason with instinct.
I guess I can agree with this. But rather than just saying we killed a terrorist, MANY are declaring Awlaki an assassination, unlike other killings in the exact same department, to somehow "strengthen" their argument - like "Oh no, the US is assassinating it's own citizens!". Nope, we simply took out a stinking terrorist hell bent on killing Americans and has already been a leader of Al Qaeda orchestrating attacks.