Posted on 10/03/2011 8:02:55 AM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
Outside the U.S. government, President Obama's order to kill American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process has proved controversial, with experts in law and war reaching different conclusions. Inside the Obama Administration, however, disagreement was apparently absent, or so say anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post. "The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials," the newspaper reported. "The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said."
Isn't that interesting? Months ago, the Obama Administration revealed that it would target al-Awlaki. It even managed to wriggle out of a lawsuit filed by his father to prevent the assassination. But the actual legal reasoning the Department of Justice used to authorize the strike? It's secret. Classified. Information that the public isn't permitted to read, mull over, or challenge.
Why? What justification can there be for President Obama and his lawyers to keep secret what they're asserting is a matter of sound law? This isn't a military secret. It isn't an instance of protecting CIA field assets, or shielding a domestic vulnerability to terrorism from public view. This is an analysis of the power that the Constitution and Congress' post September 11 authorization of military force gives the executive branch. This is a president exploiting official secrecy so that he can claim legal justification for his actions without having to expose his specific reasoning to scrutiny.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
One could not make this stuff up.
Nothing on this from hollywood liberals, e.j. dopey, michael moron, the view chicks, roseanne. Its like it never happened
I don’t see where the article establishes any duty to explain why this was done. I think most people can figure it out.
Just as there are some ideas so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them, there are other ideas so self-evident that only an intellectual can be befuddled by them.
Fleeing felon s can be killed if they pose a danger to the public. This is the use of force policy in every state and the federal system. Look at the killer they shot in Northern Cal the other day by three Sac snipers.
How can there be any dissent about killing an “American” who is serving as an officer in the enemy’s staff and command?
He’s an enemy, and you kill him, just like any other enemy commander or staff officer.
Regardless of my disdain for this administration there are some things which should not be revealed to the public. I don’t really care what legal reasoning they used to take this guy down. In my mind he was a legal target and a combatant....further his ordering the panty bomber to use a plane to “bomb” our nations soil is enough an act of war for me.
If you go and fight for the other side don’t you automatically lose your citizenship?
It was justified, the drone hit, as well as withholding the reasons.
It’s the hypocrisy.
Hammered Bush over treatment of terrorists at GITMO and water boarding of terrorists. Wanted to close GITMO over rights violations. Wanted to have civilian trials of terrorists. Wanted to give full rights to terrorists to the point of absurdity. Wanted Bush and Cheney prosecuted over water boarding terrorists.
Now they blow up a citizen without a care about his rights or due process...or whether he suffered before dying...
Just blow him up, it’s okay now, we won...
sadly, we all will be in that boat sooner or later as der bambam circles his camels...
We should have just blown up Abu Ghraib...
What's the big deal? it‘s not like Obama committed a actual war crime doing something 'illegal' (we were lectured) like water-boarding or easedropping on his phone calls. He just killed a US citizen. Code Pink and Micheal Moores say to move on, nothing to see here. Legal justidfication classified.
It’s friggin’ amazing isn’t it?
Total outrage with Bush/Cheney over the treatment of terrorists...and terrorist’s rights...
Now they don’t give a damn...
Why is it completely ignored that there were two U.S.citizens killed?
I am all for killing Moslim terrorists, but to avoid having anyone the “Regime” doesn't like being dubbed a terrorists and summarily executed, what happened with
this case should cause America to demand open and transparent laws be passed.
That's my take too. The killing was justified. But the secrecy flies in the face of everything Obama shouted in his 2008 campaign about the Bush Administration's handling of terrorists.
I have noticed a difference in how Dems and Republicans fight politically. Dems have no reservations about calling Republicans out for doing things that they are generally for. If a Republican raises taxes Democrats will use that to beat them in the next election, even when they were previously beating the drum telling the media it was irresponsible that they (same Republican) were opposed to raising taxes.
Alternatively Republicans are hesitant to call out Dems for violating their own rules, for being hypocrites.
George W Bush can’t waterboard 3 high value targets who are still alive waiting for trial, but Obama can just kill people, including American citizen’s without a due process. Typical liberal.
I’ll forgive an awful lot, including hypocrisy, if it results in dead jihadis.
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