OPINION:
Never before has an admonition of impending disaster by a Founding Father been more evident than when one reads Andrew Napolitano’s op-ed, “Can President Trump legally kill a person not engaged in an act of violence?” (Web, Jan. 8). Thomas Jefferson warned that a democracy would be placed in jeopardy if its electorate became misinformed. This is exactly what Mr. Napolitano tries to do in his piece by attempting to convince readers that his judiciary expertise enables him to adjudicate Mr. Trump’s action in killing the world’s worst terrorist.
Mr. Napolitano accuses the president of taking the law into his own hands, but he failS to provide any balance. He refers to Soleimani as “a visiting foreign government official” and writes that the terrorist was not engaged in an act of violence. However, evidence indicates that Soleimani was instrumental in leading an attack on the American embassy in Iraq and orchestrating an Iranian rocket attack against American forces that killed an American.
Mr. Napolitano also fails to mention the sordid history of Soleimani, who was suspected as the organizer in the 1983 killing of 280 Marines in Lebanon and of assisting Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Mr. Napolitano fails to even mention the extreme danger posed to us by an Iran armed with ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, and the danger posed by having Soleimani alive. Mr. Napolitano exemplifies the danger in the Jefferson warning.
WARREN A. MANISON
Potomac, Md.
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