Posted on 04/07/2010 7:24:39 AM PDT by kristinn
In late January, I wrote about the Obama administration's "presidential assassination program," whereby American citizens are targeted for killings far away from any battlefield, based exclusively on unchecked accusations by the Executive Branch that they're involved in Terrorism. At the time, The Washington Post's Dana Priest had noted deep in a long article that Obama had continued Bush's policy (which Bush never actually implemented) of having the Joint Chiefs of Staff compile "hit lists" of Americans, and Priest suggested that the American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was on that list. 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.
Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield. I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they're sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind. I won't repeat those arguments -- they're here and here -- but I do want to highlight how unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical this is in light of these new articles today.
Just consider how the NYT reports on Obama's assassination order and how it is justified:
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, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday. . . .
American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said.
It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president. . . .
"The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words," said an American official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke of the classified counterterrorism measures on the condition of anonymity. "He’s gotten involved in plots."
No due process is accorded. No charges or trials are necessary. No evidence is offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family). None of that.
Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets (advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist "involved in plots." These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?
(Excerpt) Read more at Salon.com
Already working on it...
So, Americans, with impunity, can engage in armed conflict in support of terrorist organizations against US forces, because the government bailed out AIG?
Wrong one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSx7nZQC2VI&playnext_from=TL&videos=7jpfkKi1B5U
Right one...
US “re-verts” are not true muslimes and hence do not deserve the full citizen treatment. Only non American “middle eastern” looking muslims can be considered pure by The 0.
So, Americans, with impunity, can engage in armed conflict in support of terrorist organizations against US forces, because the government bailed out AIG?
No; that’s not at all what I was saying. What I was saying is that our government only ‘believes in’ laws and rules when it suits them.
You brought up the Hague convention as a matter of law [the definitions thereof] and I countered with another matter of law. The ‘enemy combatant’ designation is a misnomer [as regarding the Hague]; there are “lawful combatants” {uniformed soldiers} and “unlawful combatants” {what we’ve been calling ‘enemy combatants’}.
IE the ‘enemy combatants’ term, as used today, is an example of [our] government “playing the [word] game” with ‘legalese.’
I am with you bro.
Just limit it to who ever the President identifies as an islamic terrorist. Then is OK to kill them by executive fiat.
...and Joos. Them too - can't trust 'em.
...and wet backs. Them too - "Press One for english my a$$...
...and queers. Them too - damned perverts.
...and Irishmen. Them too - never liked any of 'em anyway.
Who else is on your list; and who's list are YOU on?
Not so simple is it?
Your resident Tyrant is no different from any other tyrant that has ever been and his end will necessarily have to be the same. CO
>Your resident Tyrant is no different from any other tyrant that has ever been and his end will necessarily have to be the same
As was written some time ago:
“The history [...] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.”
I’ll see your 12,300 and raise you another 150 million whits on November 2nd!
scary!!!!
Maybe not but someone operating against American interests overseas and engaging in terrorism should be capped with extreme prejudice. Otherwise we are back to the premise that enemy combatants should be brought to trial.
Adam Gadahn should be waterboarded and killed
Thank you for doing my research for me, It pretty much proved my point.
I’m not usually snarky. I was just returning a snarky volley.
Your link also had the list of “in absentia” trials Laz posted to prove his point. considering the section that preceded the list, he was being more than a little misleading.
That order came straight from the bj in office at the time...as well as blatantly ignoring the Posse Comitatus Act. Janet Reno couldn’t do Waco on her own.
What happened to bj for that? NOTHING.
Precedence was set. Remember that they THOUGHT Gore would win the presidency. What do you suspect might have happened if he had?
Waco and Ruby Ridge set precedent. Bush kept his hands clean and just paved the road, but Bush isn’t president anymore...and abu has been systematically following clinton precedent since he first got the nomination.
It’s as if the intervening years of Bush never existed. He started right where bj left off.
Explain yourself, because you utterly suck in every way.
So Obama is against water on the head but approves assassination of US citizens?
You know what’s REALLY scary? How many people on this thread have to mentally edit their remarks for fear the wrong people might be watching?
And you know they are....
Kennedy. Thieu, leader of our ally, South Vietnam, 1 November 1963. How did that work out?
“Can’t trust Salon.”
That was my first thought. As juicy as this article is I shall wait to fully indulge.
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