At present there are no answers, no explanations, no reasons given besides his death and the fact he and his father were on a hit list.
Edit: Note I am not defending the killing of the grandson by any means. However, I did notice that the father was tried in a court in Yemen, and the judge ordered him to be apprehended "dead or alive." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2010/11/08/Cleric-say... I was just surprised that people are so suspicious of any claim that the father was anything other than an ordinary citizen minding his own business, yet accept the narrative presented in the original article at face value.
eksith asked for evidence that the father was a "bad dude." I provided some. It is perfectly fine to argue that this isn't justification for death, but that wasn't briancaw's point. This merely seems to indicate that the narrator might not be providing the most balanced perspective.
Note that there's not even any concrete factual accusations of him being involved with planning actual attacks, just 'he spoke to', 'was associated with', 'allegedly involved in'. You really think something that flimsy is worth murdering dozens of people with a drone?
I would certainly hope that if a few disgruntled people alleged that you were involved in crimes, you'd actually get a fair trial instead of a remote control execution. But maybe that's just not the world we live in.
any proof of that?
Westboro Baptist? Are they extreme enough? How about skinheads or white supremacists? They certainly advocate for violence against innocents, they probably even call it holy war.
If the United States seriously starts advancing the idea that speech alone can justify an execution, then it's all over. There's no point in pretending there's anything resembling freedom in this country anymore if that's the case.
You simply cannot justify executing someone based solely off speech. It doesn't matter what the speech is. You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt actual, active involvement in a crime to justify murdering anyone, let alone a US citizen. The fact that the US government gets away with murdering people all the time doesn't change anything.
You can certainly respond to 'undesirable' speech in appropriate ways based on the law. There are lots of examples of countries where undesirable speech - whether it criticizes tyrants or promotes violence against minorities - can be punished with fines or jail time. That's certainly a lot better than an execution.
Let me put it in another way, since the question doesn't seem to be making sense to you: If your father happened to be Timothy McVeigh, should the government target you for death?
Edit: I just read your edit and I apologize for the tone of my post. It wasn't called for. I could blame the lack of coffee or that I was tired, but the fact is, these types of stories really bother me and I didn't think it through before posting.
I'm sorry.
Edit2: My request for evidence was for the son; not the father. The primary subject of the article was described as a typical 16-year old with the misfortune of simply being the son of an alleged terrorist. Where was the evidence that he deserved death?
The author of the article makes it sound like the whole family were innocent american tourists, that the father was targeted without cause, and the grandson was specifically targeted. While the killing of the father may not have been legal, and the killing of the grandson appears to have been a horrible tragedy, the author's account of the situation is wildly misleading.
Seriously?
Like.. Ignoring everything else wrong with this story, that's still pretty fucked up for you to even imply.
Can you please give me an official reference for that? I know it is kind of off-topic and it should be obvious as a common sense, but I am not joking here. When I asked a USA touristic visa I was told we are all considered by default guilty of illegal immigration until proven otherwise.