Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

[Drewish]

WW llehzeY gghha???! my phones keyboard sucks! who cares if somebody was poised m our art bush our Obama? woohoo so I'm more cynicsl than you, big deal. the point it's that if anyone here thinks of vounting four Hillary Clinton (who is all over this shot ) we hang them ou. To dry.

[pErvinalia]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... t-doj-memo

Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens

The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice. In September 2011, it killed US citizen Anwar Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, along with US citizen Samir Khan, and then, in circumstances that are still unexplained, two weeks later killed Awlaki's 16-year-old American son Abdulrahman with a separate drone strike in Yemen.

Since then, senior Obama officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and John Brennan, Obama's top terrorism adviser and his current nominee to lead the CIA, have explicitly argued that the president is and should be vested with this power. Meanwhile, a Washington Post article from October reported that the administration is formally institutionalizing this president's power to decide who dies under the Orwellian title "disposition matrix".

When the New York Times back in April, 2010 first confirmed the existence of Obama's hit list, it made clear just what an extremist power this is, noting: "It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing." The NYT quoted a Bush intelligence official as saying "he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president". When the existence of Obama's hit list was first reported several months earlier by the Washington Post's Dana Priest, she wrote that the "list includes three Americans".

What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch - with no checks or oversight of any kind - but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president's underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president - at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as "Terror Tuesday" - then chooses from "baseball cards" and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark.

(continued)

I don't like to say this too often, as people point and laugh at me, but this just reinforces it in my mind. The US under Bush and now continued and extended by Obama is fast approaching a fascistic police state.

You may point and laugh now. But remember in years to come that people were warning about this once upon a time.

[pErvinalia]

Does this really surprise anyone?

Does anyone object?

Of course. You're not aware of the liberals who are speaking out against Obama's civil liberties record?

Of course he's not. It would upset his false dichotomy view of the world.

[pErvinalia]

Does this really surprise anyone?

Does anyone object?

Of course. You're not aware of the liberals who are speaking out against Obama's civil liberties record?

There are a lot of people on the so-called left that oppose obama. You just wouldn't know it if you get your "news" from the corporate media.

I wouldn't know it from most of the individuals who say they are "left," whether here in the brainwashed US or overseas in enlightened and knowledgeable Europe. You wouldn't know it from any of the "media", right, left, or in between. Well, you'll know it from guys like "infowars" and such, but they're hardly considered "left," and you'd know it from the libertarians, but they're hardly considered left, but you absolutely would never know it from the so called "anti-war" crowd, the Democrats, the Liberals, or the mass of the "left."

Folks like you do express opposition, but even you are muted about it, and do it far more gingerly than when you express opposition to the other folks in the political spectrum that you claim are equally as objectionable. IMO.

You need to get out from under whatever rock it is you live.

[pErvinalia]

I'm liberal...

One -- liberals are not the same thing as left. I hear objections from Leftists like Sandinista. They are pretty clear that they hate the Democrats, not as much as Republicans, but they hate them both. And, they really hate the Libertarians most of all, although the Libertarians are an insignificant political force.

Liberals, on the other hand, have shown themselves, by and large, to be waving the flag and carrying water for the Obama Administration. Witness the unabashed cheerleading from MSNBC with so called Liberals like Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz and whatnot.

"Liberal" is one of those words that is used in all sorts of ways all over the world. I take it to mean equivalent to "progressives". Obama and centrist Democrats are most certainly not progressives. This is just another case of you and the Seths of America not realising that the Democrats are at best a centre-right party when judged by the standards of the rest of the western world. You think they are Liberals, Seth thinks they are Marxists. One is obviously (far) more wrong than the other, but same ignorance at base.

[cronus]

Something is terribly wrong with the average Americans complacency. Armed drones will be used to police neighborhoods with high gun crime rates and used against drug havens, it will all be gradual and all appear reasonable(at first). Like in Hitlers Germany nothing will happen overnight until the conditions are right and then it'll be too late. Some things are best stopped before they start.

[pErvinalia]

You know, I actually agree with Coito on this. If Bush had done this sort of thing there would have been more of an outcry, especially internationally. I mean there has been some condemnation but it's a fart in an wind tunnel compared to the shit Bush used to get. Not that the Galoot and his crazed gang didn't deserve it, their actions deserved it, but Obama really has ramped up the idea of what is essentially robot death squads to be used against whomever the regime likes.

There's definitely a big dose of cognitive dissonance about it. I'm not from America, obviously, so I can't speak as to why he isn't pilloried in the US, but here in Australia the same ignorance of what he really stands for abounds. I can't offer a good answer. I wonder if it was related to a huge sense of relief that Bush was finally gone and people were so happy with that outcome they are able to dismiss in their minds valid criticism of Obama. The other factor in this is probably a realisation that when a Repub president next gets in, they won't wind back any of this and will in fact extend it as Obama himself did. What you are seeing now from your prez will one day look positively Marxist (ibid. Seth), compared to what will be the fascist norm.

[JimC]

You know, I actually agree with Coito on this. If Bush had done this sort of thing there would have been more of an outcry, especially internationally. I mean there has been some condemnation but it's a fart in an wind tunnel compared to the shit Bush used to get. Not that the Galoot and his crazed gang didn't deserve it, their actions deserved it, but Obama really has ramped up the idea of what is essentially robot death squads to be used against whomever the regime likes.

There seems to be something in this argument; I think Obama is getting less criticism than maybe he deserves. However, part of me is happy with every islamic fanatic who dies by drone attack. The other part worries about how we can always be certain that drones are only killing murderous terrorists, and how many civilians have been inadvertently killed...

[MrJonno]

What I find amazing about this conversation that it is implied that its ok to assasinate non-US citizens. I'm not really sure the nationality of someone is really that relevant on whether its ok to kill them

[Clinton Huxley]

US citizens seem to be allowed to kill other US citizens with abandon. 12,000 murder a year? Why should the Pres not get some of that action?

[Thinking Aloud]

What I find amazing about this conversation that it is implied that its ok to assasinate non-US citizens. I'm not really sure the nationality of someone is really that relevant on whether its ok to kill them

Either it's OK for the armed forces to use lethal force to take out a serious threat, on home soil or not, or it isn't. The type of passport that threat holds ought not to be relevant to the decision, unless somehow being a US citizen gives a terrorist more rights than one who isn't.

[pErvinalia]

What I find amazing about this conversation that it is implied that its ok to assasinate non-US citizens. I'm not really sure the nationality of someone is really that relevant on whether its ok to kill them

That's true of course, but war is "assassinating" non-[insert country] citizens. And war is an acceptable practice (if it meets certain standards. Lol.).

[pErvinalia]

What I find amazing about this conversation that it is implied that its ok to assasinate non-US citizens. I'm not really sure the nationality of someone is really that relevant on whether its ok to kill them

Either it's OK for the armed forces to use lethal force to take out a serious threat, on home soil or not, or it isn't. The type of passport that threat holds ought not to be relevant to the decision, unless somehow being a US citizen gives a terrorist more rights than one who isn't.

I think the real problem with this and the NDAA, and other draconian state powers, is the "thin edge of the wedge" argument. That is, they are probably fine (to an extent) if used sparingly and for external threats and are transparently overseen (which a lot of these never are), but while ever there is the option to use it domestically it poses a threat to an enlightened and free(ish) society.

[Coito ergo sum]

Does this really surprise anyone?

Does anyone object?

Of course. You're not aware of the liberals who are speaking out against Obama's civil liberties record?

Of course he's not. It would upset his false dichotomy view of the world.

Linky to the droves of "Liberals" speaking out about Obama's civil liberties record? Mass protests? Marches? Signs? Liberals on MSNBC excoriating the President?

[Coito ergo sum]

You need to get out from under whatever rock it is you live.

Says a podunk hayseed from East Jabib, Australia.