When President Obama approves a drone strike against someone he identifies as a terrorist, John Brennan explained at his confirmation hearing last week, the missile fired from that unmanned aircraft is delivering prevention, not punishment. Posted on 02/13/2013 10:19:55 AM PST by Kaslin
When President Obama approves a drone strike against someone he identifies as a terrorist, John Brennan explained at his confirmation hearing last week, the missile fired from that unmanned aircraft is delivering prevention, not punishment.
"We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there's no other alternative," said Brennan, the counterterrorism adviser Obama has picked to run the CIA.
A Justice Department white paper leaked a few days before Brennan's hearing likewise describes death by drone as an "act of national self-defense," part of an "armed conflict" with al-Qaida and its allies. Yet the white paper also speaks of due process for American citizens condemned to death by the president, a requirement it says can be met through secret discussions within the executive branch. This contradiction at the heart of Obama's "targeted killing" policy, combining the rules of the battlefield with the rules of the courtroom, makes a muddle of both.
Last month, in a decision that upheld the president's right to keep the memos summarized in the DOJ white paper under wraps, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon noted that "the concept of due process of law," guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, "has never been understood to apply to combatants on the battlefield actively engaged in armed combat against the United States." That is how the Obama administration describes members of al-Qaida and allied groups: Regardless of nationality, they are enemy combatants who legally can be killed at will, wherever they happen to be.
Yet in a speech last March, Attorney General Eric Holder argued not that the Due Process Clause is irrelevant in this context but that President Obama's kill orders comply with it.
"The Constitution's guarantee of due process is ironclad, and it is essential," Holder said, but "due process and judicial process are not one and the same." Similarly, in an interview with CNN last September, Obama claimed the procedures for identifying people subject to summary execution by drone, though confined to the executive branch, are "extensive" enough to comply with "our traditions of rule of law and due process."
By saying that due process applies to drone strikes on suspected terrorists in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, the administration implicitly concedes that such operations are fundamentally different from shooting an enemy soldier during a battle. In the latter case, both the identity of the enemy and the threat he poses are clear, and so is the argument for self-defense. When it comes to people marked for death by the president, however, all of these issues may be matters of dispute.
During Brennan's confirmation hearing, Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was at pains to portray Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the three Americans killed by drones so far, as "a senior operational leader" of al-Qaida who posed "an imminent threat" -- the sort of target discussed in the DOJ white paper. Feinstein herself had to testify on these points because neither Brennan nor any other administration official will discuss the evidence against people targeted by drones.
The lack of transparency is especially troubling because the administration's definition of "imminent threat" does not hinge on plans for a specific attack. Furthermore, the white paper explicitly leaves open the possibility that the criteria it describes, while sufficient to justify a presidential death warrant, may not be necessary, and it acknowledges no geographic limit on Obama's license to kill. Brennan conspicuously dodged the question of whether the president can order hits on U.S. soil.
Given this alarming combination of deadliness and silence, it is not hard to see why, as McMahon put it, "some Americans question the power of the executive to make a unilateral and unreviewable decision to kill an American citizen who is not actively engaged in armed combat operations against this country." The real puzzle is why so many Americans seem happy to trust the president with this power.
I will say that for Obama. He is a Muslim killing machine.
Indiscriminate lethal capability controlled by remote pilots directed by an innocuous government apparatus, all directed by a corrupt, immoral, unprincipled Executive Branch that only concentrates on effecting its hidden agenda.
That should bring much comfort into the minds of the citizens of this country when they see these Predators, Raptors and smaller UAS killers orbiting their cities and countryside.
51% of the people in this country voted for him. To vote for him you would have to be stupid. Conclusion 51% of the american populace is stupid. If you're stupid, then you don;t realize that what can be done to one person can be done to every person.
Due process is one of the safeguards that separate us from murderous governments like Pol Pot's Cambodia, Nazi Germany, Mao's China, the former USSR, etc. 0bama has taken another step along the path he wants to convert the USA form a free country to a tyrannical police state. Heil 0bama.
He is only tamping down on the Muslim Brothers who do not subscribe to his global plan. The ones that are with him are invisible to the unseen orbiting fleet.
Not really a puzzle. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. I still believe the election was stolen. The numbers just don’t add up and too many things happened in the swing states that just don’t pass the smell test.
Al Q'aeda today, the Tea Party tomorrow. Today he's doing the legalistic homework that will allow him to target Typical White People meeting in living rooms to organize Tea Party campaigns tomorrow.
“That should bring much comfort into the minds of the citizens of this country when they see these Predators, Raptors and smaller UAS killers orbiting their cities and countryside.”
Thoughts, anyone, on the application of the Second Amendment to the above problem?
Drones could end up being a 2 way street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf6JKJyFLVI
Quad X9 Heavy Lift 1135mm 33kg Hobby King Beer Lift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVwt7oWC5fc
HK Beerlift Entry 47.04kg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlvipzPWnE0
Audi Self-Parking Demonstration - CES 2013
“MAD”, Mutual Assured Destruction seemed to work as far as preventing Super-Power nuke exchanges and for WWII use of chemical weapons.
Or incendiary grenades.
< / Dorner >
I’m quite shocked they’re actually speaking about “national defense” instead of it being part of an overseas war zone, so hall’s fair, or at least nation security—which is more nebulous—or national interest—which is most nebulous of all. Do they honestly expect us to believe they’re only assassinating people who pose an imminent threat to the homefront? In those “due process” conversations within the White House—most likely consisting of a passing, “Oh, by the way Bob, I wanna blow up so and so tomorrow. That cool?” “Whatever.” at the watercooler—are we to believe they’re actually discussing how likely it is targets will cause another 9/11 in a few days? Because I don’t.
Or maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt, and the national defense assassination standard is like Wickard v Filburn. Meaning they don’t pretend the homeland is in immediate danger, but considered along with all other terrorist forces the individual in question could be considered to produce a “substantial effect” upon defensiveness...ah, nevermind. This makes no sense.
You are missing “or there has to be something in it for you.”
For a lot of individuals and many large corporations, there is quite a bit of loot in Obama’s re-election for them.
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