Posted on 10/12/2011 4:45:48 AM PDT by Libloather
Killing Citizens in Secret
David Cole
Sunday’s New York Times reported that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has produced a fifty-page legal memo that purportedly authorized President Obama to order the killing of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, without a trial. Last month, the US carried out that order with a drone strike in Yemen that killed al-Awlaki and another US citizen traveling with him. The strike was front-page news, and apparently was undertaken with the approval of Yemen authorities, yet as it was a “covert operation,” the Obama administration has declined even to acknowledge that it ordered the killing.
So now we know that there is a secret memo that authorized a secret killing of a US citizen—and both the memo and the killing remain officially “secret” despite having been reported on the front page of The New York Times. Whatever one thinks about the merits of presidents ordering that citizens be killed by remote-controlled missiles, surely there is something fundamentally wrong with a democracy that allows its leader to do so in “secret,” without even demanding that he defend his actions in public.
(Excerpt) Read more at nybooks.com ...
I see little difference in the Government taking out American turncoats in another country trying to kill American Soldiers and Civilians & A SWAT Team taking out a bank robber who is holding a gun to a hostage’s head.
al-Awlaki had taken all the steps necessary to renounce his U.S. citizenship.
This legal brief DID NOT create any new laws, but explained why the action was legal under EXISTING law.
- Killing Citizens in Secret
If it is a secret how can we know about it?
Secret means secret!
However, it seems odd that and ironic, the box Obama has put himself in.
He KILLS terrorists because he does not want to have to put them in GITMO, or figure out how to put them on trial.
odd behavior for a Nobel Peace Prize winner, no?
Oh wait.....Arafat also won too didn’t he.
LOL.
Good point
I completely support killing the traitor with any means available to the military, or CIA. However, it should not be decided in secret. We should broadcast from the top of every media source to the world: “Every lying traitor who takes up arms against the USA will be taken out.” They all need to lie awake in bed every night and worry about the slightest buzz of every aircraft anywhere in hearing distance.
So now we don’t want to kill terrorists? Hoo-kay!
It's a little hard to hide the aftermath of two Hellfire missiles hitting your car.
One of the things wrong with our democracy (aka republic) is the 'democrat' party and its wanton hypocrisy. If a republican president had taken EXACTLY the same actions Mr. Obama took vis-à-vis killing a terrorist who was an American-citizen residing in a foreign country and providing aid and comfort to our enemies, he would be excoriated by every newspaper in the country, threatened with impeachment by democrats in congress if/when he/she refused their demands to “defend his actions in public”, and quite possibly impeached anyway for violating the U.S. Constitution.
However, since it was a democrat president who killed a terrorist who was an American-citizen residing in a foreign country and providing aid and comfort to our enemies, then the democrats in congress are perfectly ‘okay’ with it.
Many, if not most, republicans in congress seem to be ‘okay’ with such activities regardless of the president’s political affiliation -- which, while absolving them of hypocrisy in this instance, may very well represent another thing that is wrong with our democracy.
I would prefer that any president from any political party who took such actions be required to publicly explain himself. I’m not saying a president should absolutely not, under any circumstances, take such actions, but given their “extra-constitutional” nature, I would like to hear the president’s argument(s) laying out the critical necessity to the survival of our nation associated with his choosing to violate the supreme law of our land.
Hello, Geico?
Killing a terrorist enemy of America is a GOOD THING. Get over it.........
Odd that a Nobel Peace prize winner would kill a terrorist? It’s not the Nobel Pacifist Prize.
Why else would we have a war on terrorism?
Would you suggest instead that we bring him to an American court so the defense team can discuss his harsh upbringing, lack of breastfeeding from mom, a cold indidfferent drunkard dad, and no prom date?
the reason they gave him the prize was certainly because he was “not” Bush.
meaning ....they were certain he would close Gitmo. Get our guys out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Certainly we wouldn’t continue using drones right?
And to the extent that we would send them into P-ahh-kee-stahn? That was unthinkable at the time.
Do you think they even imagined he would take out an american citizen?
Is your issue that Obama got the Nobel, or that he killed a terrorist. After reading your response, I’m no longer sure what your point is.
Do you personally object to the fact that the US killed Awlaki on the grounds that whe was an American citizen?
Not sure what Obama’s Nobel has to do with this discussion.
I’m relishing in the inconsistency of what liberal claim they believe in. The “Peace” prize being, actually, a “leftist” prize.
No - no argument from me about killing terrorists before they can massacre innocents.
Imagine all the howling if W had been the one to take this guy out?
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