If Awlaki had been caught in the U.S., or caught at all, I don’t doubt that a trial would have been the result (if not necessarily the ideal solution). He operated outside the U.S., however, and — because capturing enemies means having to deal with captive enemies, most of the means for which were pre-emptively rejected by the current administration — we’re currently relying instead on long-distance assassination by drone strikes. That doesn’t particularly bother me, except for the likelihood that we’re losing the intelligence that could be gained by interrogating captured jihadis … but, in Awlaki’s case, the information he might have provided was far less significant than his own direct inspiration and exhortations, and any potential loss is far more than offset by the expeditious negation of this vile pollutant to humanity.