From: An Actual American Citizen [Email him]

I can understand Ron Paul's concern over assassinating an American citizen without a trial. [An unconstitutional killing: Obama's killing of Awlaki violates American principles, By Ron Paul, NY Daily News, October 2, 2011] However, Anwar al-Awlaki would never have been a citizen if we had reasonable birth citizenship rules. Neither of his parents were citizens or permanent residents of the United States. His father was a foreign student who later served in the Yemeni government as Minister of Agriculture.

James Fulford writes: If al-Awlaki, though born in New Mexico,   decided to move overseas and from there, levy war against the United States, I'm not worried about the US killing him.

Paul's suggestion that he should have been brought to the United States for trial is impractical. Dr.  Paul would have a better argument if he suggested that the US shouldn't be bombing people in Yemen because the US isn't at war with Yemen, just as it isn't, officially,  with Libya.

However, in order to actually go in and bring al-Awlaki out alive, America would have had to actually go to war with Yemen. 

That being said, al-Awlaki is something of a poster boy for birthright citizenship reform, like many of the so-called homegrown terrorists I discussed in a Memorial Day column. See also A Chicago Reader Discovers That The "American" The Obama Administration Wants To Kill Isn't That American.