My point is that you and I have no idea whether a mission to capture al-Awlaki is "what they do or not". To know whether such a mission is possible or realistic requires knowledge that few people in the world actually have. Whether to deploy SOF or not is a command decision made on a case by case basis. We can't know sitting behind our computer terminals whether it was a realistic option or not. I assume it wasn't, otherwise why wouldn't they have tried to capture him? I imagine he would have been a very valuable source of intel.

There are a lot of people out there who seem to feel pretty strongly about sending our armed forces in harms way in this type of situation. I can't help but wonder if any of those people stand to lose anything if such an operation were to go poorly. It just boggles my mind that we would risk American lives and millions of dollars of training and equipment when we have other legal options that are less risky.

Then I think you have to let Anwar al-Awlaki go, plain and simple.

>when we have other legal options that are less risky.

What other legal options are you talking about? What they are doing is 100% illegal, it goes directly against the 5th amendment. Straight from the article:

"The Bill of Rights is clear. The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Sixth Amendment provides that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury,” as well as the right to be informed of all charges and have access to legal counsel."

I argue that the fact that they were able to track down and kill Bin Laden is prima facie evidence that we DO have that capability.

I believe that the question is not one of capability, but of resources. We could do it, but the cost to do it is deemed too high -- especially when the gov't feels that they can just send in a missile.