Anwar al-Awlaki is now counted among the dead. Awlaki, an American citizen, took up arms against his country from Yemen, and was responsible for the deaths of American citizens in his capacity as al-Qaeda leader. It now transpires that his death was decreed by a secret US government committee that was not authorized by Congress, and that answers, apparently, to no one. There are those who now argue that while killing Awlaki was a good thing, the manner of how the decision to kill him was arrived at was not a good thing, that unaccountable Star Chambers inevitably turn out to be captured by those who use the secret power to imprison or kill against political opponents at home, as happened with the original Star Chamber in England in the seventeenth century. So corrupt did the English Star Chamber become that it resulted in civil war and the only dictator England ever had, Oliver Cromwell. It has been said that good intentions lead inevitably to the grave. Whatever the good intentions of the current American Star Chamber, if allowed to continue it will inevitably lead to darkness.

 

 

They meet in darkness, clothed in black

They speak in whispers, back to back

They write in disappearing ink

We know not what our lords may think

The shades are down, the curtains drawn

Full night it is, erase the dawn

The country slides into the dark

Where none can hear the mad dogs bark

They think they’ve but turned down the wick

When darkness comes, it comes right quick

 

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