Confirmed: Obama Authorizes Assassination of U.S. Citizen

Salon ^ | Wednesday, April 7, 2010 | Glenn Greenwald

[penelopesire]

You are talking apples and organes here. There is a huge difference between targeting an American citizen for assasination without due process and targeting someone like Osama Bin Laden. Surely you ‘get’ that distinction.

President Bush never went this far because he understood our rights under our constitution. Even though this guy may be a scumbag islamic terrorist and deserves the ‘death penalty’, he is entitled to a trial first. This is dangerous territory we are entering into and Zero is just getting warmed up. All he has to do now is ‘deem’ any American citizen a threat and target them for state sanctioned assasination.

[TheThinker]

The following week, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, acknowledged in Congressional testimony that the administration reserves the "right" to carry out such assassinations.

Then he has the "right" to carry out assassinations on any of us.

[Lazamataz]

Examples of people convicted in absentia are:

• Fouzia Yousaf Gillani, wife of Current Prime Minster of Pakistan Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani. (Found guilty on 10 March 2001 for Fraud of over 171.163 Million Rupees Pakistan) has been cleard of all charges due to her husbands current political seat.
• Cesare Battisti, thriller author and former member of the Italian militant group Armed Proletarians for Communism, sentenced to life. (Arrested on March 18, 2007 in Brazil.)
• Krim Belkacem, Algerian Berber resistance fighter and politician. (Assassinated on October 18, 1970 in West Germany.)
• Heinrich Boere, a Dutch or German convicted by a Dutch court in 1949 of murders on the part of the World War II German occupation authorities in the Netherlands. German courts refused to extridite Boere to the Netherlands due to his possibly having German citizenship.
• Martin Bormann, Nazi official and Hitler's private secretary, sentenced to death at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. (Disappeared on May 2, 1945. Remains were uncovered in late 1972 in West Berlin.)
• Dési Bouterse, Suriname's former military leader, sentenced to 16 years in prison and fined $2.18 million in the Netherlands for cocaine trafficking.
• Ahmed Chalabi, former Iraqi oil minister, convicted in Jordan for bank fraud.
• Ira Einhorn, anti-war activist and murderer, who challenged his conviction in Pennsylvania. (Escaped to Europe, but was extradited from France back to the US on July 20, 2001.)
• John Factor, a British-born American gangster and con man, charged with securities fraud in England and tried and sentenced to 24 years in prison in absentia after fleeing back to the United States.
• Charles de Gaulle, sentenced first to four years in prison and later to death in 1940 for treason against the Vichy Regime.
• Boleslavs Maikovskis, Latvian Nazi collaborator sentenced to death by a Soviet court in 1965 (while living in the United States).[2]
• Mengistu Haile Mariam, former dictator sentenced to death in Ethiopia for genocide.
• Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, sentenced to death by a Kuwaiti court for the 1983 Kuwait bombings. He is currently serving in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party.
• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sentenced to death in Jordan. (Killed on June 7, 2006 in Iraq.)
• Andrew Luster, convicted of date rape after fleeing mid-trial.
• Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, convicted in the US after fleeing
• Bernardo Provenzano, Sicilian Mafia boss convicted of numerous murders during his 42 years as a fugitive.
• Michael Townley, Chilean DINA agent, has been convicted in 1993 by an Italian court in carrying out the 1975 Rome murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.[3] (Currently living under the United States Federal Witness Protection Program.)
• Shalom Weiss, sentenced to the longest federal prison term in United States history for fraud, money laundering and other crimes. (Extradited by Austria on June 20, 2002.)[1] [2]
• Irakli Okruashvili, Defense Minister of Georgia from 2004 to 2006 and a personal friend of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. Okruashvili returned to prominence when he formed an opposition party to the Georgian government and accused it of corruption and plotting assassinations. He was arrested days later on charges of extortion, bribe taking, and abuse of power, and released on $6 million bail pending trial. He flew to Europe, supposedly to seek medical treatment, but tried to find political asylum. He was denied asylum in Germany, but received it in France, which refused an extradition request from Georgia. He was tried In absentia, found guilty, and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment.[4]

Some of these are American convictions.

[Jeff Head]

We are leaving to begin the long drive to Houston on Saturday or Sunday. We will probably stop at my brother's in Denton for a day or two and be in Houston next weekend. The following week is full of appointments with the four surgical teams, CT scans, blood tests, and MRIs.

Then the following week (April 27th and 30th) are the surgeries.

The prayers, faith, encouragement, kindness and help shown me and my family has been a blessing from God and an inspiration. I cannot express how much they are helping me and my wife and kids. God bless all who help others and do so out of the goodness and compassion of their hearts.

I look forward, if it is God's will, to the time when I get past this and can be once again in a position to help others as myself and family are being helped now.

[GunRunner]

The Constitution has always provided a military solution to insurrections. No Miranda rights required.

Bullsh!t.

Even during the Whiskey Rebellion, Washington served the insurrectionists with papers to appear in court, and all the accused received a court trial, even those who were executed.

You don't lose your Constitutional rights with respect to the US government simply because you're overseas.

[divine_moment_of_facts]

Didn’t this Administration recently condemn Israel for sending out a hit squad to do pretty much the same thing to a Palestinian terrorist in a hotel?

[MestaMachine]

Not hardly. Awlaki knows things. He might have valuable information of attacks that have not yet taken place here.
We did not do THIS even for bin laden. Bin Laden was wanted dead or alive. There is NO such admonition here. There is something about this particular person that changes everything. We want to know what...and why.
Is that too hard to understand?
And if abu can do this, any merc with a black heart can be given the same instruction and it might be anyone this administraion considers an enemy. The track record of this administration and what it does to enemies, real or perceived, makes me very uncomfortable with this order.
abu has set off an intifada agaonst Israel in which people have been killed. He has no conscience. THAT is a problem whether you acknowledge it or not.
Khalid Sheik Mohammad’s head should be rotting on a pike somewhere in full view of the entire world. Yet abu has done everything in his power to save this worthless creature who, if tried in a civilian court, might someday breathe free. That doesn’t bother you?
WHAT changes with Awlaki? Something isn’t right here.

[Lazamataz]

Aw hell, this should be public. I am so PRIVILEGED to have been a small part of the people who helped you. I so hope this makes the difference and that you and I are friends for another decade, and another still. LOVE YOU!

[MestaMachine]

Exactly!

[bamahead]

Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
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[popdonnelly]

If the American citizen takes up arms against the United States, don’t they become a legitimate target?

[Matchett-PI]

bttt

[Mortrey]

Don’t know if this has already been posted, but it’s a must read...

“This particularly applies to Democrat National Chairman and ex-governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine. He has been burned by his ignorance in this area while serving as governor. His behavior in this endorsement of Dar al Hijrah could be considered dereliction by those willing to cut him a break. I think ex-Governor Tim “Judas” Kaine’s commissions are far worse than mere dereliciton.”

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/03/are-virginia-democrats-dumbed-down.html

[Future Snake Eater]

The man is an enemy combatant whose death would disrupt Al Qaeda planning.

Possibly, but capturing and interrogating him would be far more useful. Then a quick trial, find him guilty/not guilty (I'm assuming he's really a bad guy, so guilty would be the verdict), take him out back and shoot him.

An American citizen shouldn't be targeted like this. This opens a HUGE can of worms; you can't expect such authority to be wielded justly by these people. It WILL be abused.

[wideminded]

Mecca isn’t in Texas.

Neither is Anwar al-Awlaki.

Nuke Mecca after a fair trial.

It has already been announced multiple times that Adam Gadahn was probably killed by a Hellfire missile and no one here said anything about his right to a fair trial.

[BP2]

Code Pink — where are you when we need you the most? < /sarc>

[RatsDawg]

“and some wish to have GW and Bush added to the hit list.”

In other words, they want all Republicans/conservatives added.

[MestaMachine]

Please recite the Second Amendment to yourself and ask that same question again. Do you realize what you are saying?

[Grunthor]

“The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them”

If his name were “John Smith” I might have more of a problem with it.

I’m not sure how to feel about myself now.