[TheRealThing]

"This view went against the opinion of Attorney General Eric Holder, who argued that Congress authorized war in Afghanistan, not Yemen, so the “battlefield exception” does not apply."

I had no idea that ANYONE even disagreed with this...Gah. So, what this guy is saying is that this was wrong because Congress hasn't authorized war in Yemen huh? So, hmm...if I deploy with JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command, comprised of SMU's like Delta Force and SEAL Team 6, as you know them) to Yemen, you guys want to know what that deployment would be classified as? As in what it would be called next to my name if I was killed/injured or something like that? It would be "Operation Enduring Freedom" or "in support of OEF". Now, how do we classify it like that, when it's apparently "illegal"/violates the Fifth Amendment? Also, if you go Somalia or Syria or any other country looking for High Value guys, it would be the same thing...in support of OEF. We have JSOC guys, on the ground in all of those countries, as I type this, and ESPECIALLY Yemen. Since, ya know, Yemen is after all where the most powerful "sect" of Al-Qaeda resides, called Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP for short.

In the war we're in, with terrorists and insurgents, like al-Awlaki, this type of activity is so so necessary. Regardless of your knowledge of today's battlefield, it's pretty much common sense that the "higher ups" like Awlaki and others are not going to be in Afghanistan, where they have a pretty dang high chance to die quickly. This is the type of actions we need, killing the high-ranking Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Haqqani individuals, that actually does make us safer back home.

You cut the head off of a snake..it's body will wiggle around for sometimes quite a while, and the head can even still bite you for a while...but, the snake will not survive. This is what we're trying to do with strikes like this, and our top Special Operations guys, literally the hardest, baddest, killing machines on the planet, are doing all over the Middle East and North Africa. They need all of our support! Even when most of us don't even have a clue as to what they do and where they are until they kill guys like Bin Laden and Awlaki.

EDIT: Also, I'm not saying we should have our SOF guys running through every country on earth like wild men. All of these countries that they work in, even Pakistan, know we are there and work with us, Yemen being one of the best to work with us on these types of operations, as long as we keep a low profile, of course. That is the exact reason we hadn't killed Bin Laden before 1 May of this year...the two times we had a location on him before, and had notified Pakistani military/intel officials, he magically disappeared. That is still happening to this day, with other high value individuals. But for the most part, these governments work with us in a really good manner to root out these guys and end their lives/capture them. Except Iran, of course, who knows we have American military/CIA in their country..just can't find them.

Right, what you and I may find to be perfectly logical Holder is usually at odds with. Of course he is mainstream in the present administration.