Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

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Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by cronus » Wed Feb 06, 2013 5:48 pm

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)
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Feb 06, 2013 5:59 pm

On Monday, Morning Joe examined the report on the Justice Department’s memo on drones. The journalist behind the report, NBC News’ Michael Isikoff, joined the crew as Joe Scarborough incredulously criticized the president’s program that gives the “right to be killed.”

The segment was pegged off the report about a Justice Department memo that concludes: “The U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be ‘senior operational leaders’ of al Qaeda or ‘an associated force’ — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.”

An “absolute mess” and “frightening” were the descriptors that immediately emerged from the panel. When dealing with these types of threats, Harold Ford, Jr. argued, “we have to make at times very messy and sometimes uncomfortable and oftentimes questionable decisions.” But now Democrats should look back at how they questioned the Bush administration’s tactics.

“If this was happening, and his name was Bush, I think there’d be a lot of criticism coming at this president,” he said.

“If George Bush had done this, it would have been stopped,” Scarborough added.

“I think it would have been certainly a huge controversy that would have erupted,” Mika Brzezinski responded, noting that the issue now is how many questions the administration will face about it.

This is a new set of standards, Scarborough added, because it involves killing Americans who have a constitutional right to go before a jury. “This is just dangerous.” Willie Geist noted that this goes beyond the concerns about being held without due process in Guantanamo Bay: It says, “We can kill you without due process.”

“Here, they’ve got a right to nothing,” Scarborough said. “The right to be killed by an indiscriminate drone strike if somebody’s suspicious in the U.S. government.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/scarborough- ... n-stopped/

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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Gerald McGrew » Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:01 pm

What could possibly go wrong?

FFS.
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by sandinista » Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:33 pm

Does this really surprise anyone?
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by cronus » Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:40 pm

sandinista wrote:Does this really surprise anyone?
He's apparently got a killers kick out of this sort of executive 'crumple-like' power? He'll do the same with homeshores given the right conditions. In view of the precarious state of the global economy any need to bring the troops home could mark the beginning of the whole death squad thing. I'm glad I'm not an American today.
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Audley Strange » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:08 pm

Things will get a bit worse, but then the inhabitants of Endor will drag them into an intractable guerrilla conflict and their empire will collapse. They've already went off script by scrapping the plans for the Orbital Weapons platform.
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by cronus » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:11 pm

Middle names Hussein and he's hunting Americans? :coffee:
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:13 pm

sandinista wrote:Does this really surprise anyone?
Does anyone object?

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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Gerald McGrew » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:34 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
sandinista wrote: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?
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by sandinista » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:40 pm

Gerald McGrew wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
sandinista wrote: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.
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Gerald McGrew » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:44 pm

Or from right-wing media.
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by sandinista » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:52 pm

Gerald McGrew wrote:Or from right-wing media.
same thing.
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Re: Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

Post by Audley Strange » Wed Feb 06, 2013 8:21 pm

Yeah I noticed the courtier like laudation from the right wing media since Obama stepped into the Whitehouse.

You're not really a proper president until even your base hate you.
"What started as a legitimate effort by the townspeople of Salem to identify, capture and kill those who did Satan's bidding quickly deteriorated into a witch hunt" Army Man

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