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 ...
Yes he talked, yes he provide religious preaching. I have not seen anything that claims physical attacks. We do not allow the government to kill without an actual threat, otherwise we could be next.
The problem is the War on Terror has an asymmetric battlefield where the theatre of war spans every country on the globe.
The legal reasoning behind the targeted killing of this guy would be the same if he was in Yeman or Kansas. That is why the Administration won’t release the policy paper.
Tactical achievements are nothing to celebrate given the global big picture.
You mistake me for a Bush fanboy. I am always a skeptic when it comes to government regardless of whether its authority is exercised by Democrats or Republicans. I certainly would have criticized Bush for this. I would have criticized Reagan for this. The President is not supposed to be a king.
Well, I can say is you find yourself siding with the ACLU on this one ...
We’ll just have to disagree on this, which is fine.
So you don’t think he should have been killed?
Let's see if I understand this?
If I want to bump someone off, it will be okay as long as my daughter says my wife gave me permission.
ML/NJ
Glad he be dead. Who needs to know about it?
You mean like the idea that a President has absolutely zero Constitutional authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner of an American citizen who had never even been indicted, must less convicted of a single crime.
Nor was his American citizenship revoked, ever.
Maybe your comfortable with the idea that a President can, without any sort of judicial review at all, order the killing of a US Citizen and then claim that the entire process is completely secret and subject to no public or judicial scrutiny at all.
Today it's this Alwaki nut job, next year it will be Tea Party types. I'm willing to bet you'll be singing a different tune when that happens.
So much for transparency.
A former Attorney General put like this:
“...to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists ... They give ammunition to America’s enemies”
This is pretty much the Constitution’s definition of treason which is punishable by death. One either trusts in the goodness of the US government, or one sides with the terrorists. It was bad enough when Ashcroft spouted this dangerous nonsense. Holder has now drafted a secret authorization that gives Obama the supreme authority to kill Americans, and many (if not most) conservatives are down with that. Evidently the US has a new category of useful idiots.
A Founding Father put it like this: "Those who give up liberty for security will end up with neither." I'd say Ben Franklin tops the former Attorney General. Wouldn't you?
Evidently the US has a new category of useful idiots.
Many of them have evidently taken up residence right here on FR.
Many of them have evidently taken up residence right here on FR.
Few American liberal have this capacity, I know, but one must hope that most Freepers have the critical thinking skills that can cut through the folly of granting the President the supreme powers of a king.
WRT Ashcroft and Franklin, all I can say is "no contest". In his own time, and for history, Franklin was recognized as a genius of the highest order. I have no doubt that he would be appalled at the current state of affairs.
Only if you take an oath of allegiance as part of joining a foreign army. See your passport for this information.
I'm in full accord with getting rid of the bastard. However, I do think the President should make public his legal reasoning. Under just what circumstances may the President order the killing of an American citizen, without indictment, trial and sentencing? There have to be some limits, or everyone here on FR is ultimately at risk.
I’m glad to see al-Awlaki was blown into hopefully small pieces. I’ll let the rest of you argue over the details.
“we’re all just a reichstag from the coupling of cattle cars...’for the children’ of course...”
Perhaps, but Isoruko Yamamato would disagree.
Americans are individually armed as no people have ever been.
Thanks sickoflibs. And at least he didn’t make the guy wear underwear on his head. Oh, wait, from the pictures, it looks like he wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
Automatic Birth-right citizenship of child born here of non-American/non-legal parents makes no sense.
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