What happened to the vaunted American ideal of presumption of innocence? One-man think tank Noam Chomsky poses, and answers, this question in this speech he gave Monday at New York City’s Barnard College about the recent drone-assisted death of Anwar al-Awlaki and the status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Chomsky takes aim at President Obama in the opening moments of the speech, brought to you courtesy of “Democracy Now!,” calling the Awlaki incident “another step forward in Obama’s global assassination campaign, which actually breaks some new records in international terrorism.” He also has a few questions about the Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange to mitigate any unchecked optimism. Take a look in the clip below. –KA

“Democracy Now!”:

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