Obama justifies assassination of US Citizens?

[Audley Strange]

I voted for Blair even through I thought the 2nd Iraq war wasnt justified, because when it comes down to things like minimum wage, the state of the economy, the health service etc are far important than who we bomb abroad.

British soldiers getting killed abroad very sad but honestly not relevant to my day to day life

What a narrow minded slave you are.

[Seth]

According to news reports, the more detailed information coming to Congress says pretty much what I said in a dense legal argument that's classified. The gist is, however, that outside the US, a citizen who levies war against the US loses the protection of the Constitution afforded to loyal citizens. This goes back at least as far as WWII, and probably earlier. Obviously, if there is a US citizen who has taken up arms of a foreign nation against the US, we're not going to hesitate to kill them under the laws of war just because they claim citizenship.

And I have to completely agree with this rationale. Protection from the Constitution requires loyalty to the Constitution to at least some minimal degree, such as not waging war or committing terrorist acts against the US.

Also, a Congressman interviewed intimated that there is a substantial burden of proof that must be accumulated showing that the individual is engaged in hostile acts before an attack can be authorized.

I don't have a problem with that policy at all.

[MrJonno]

I voted for Blair even through I thought the 2nd Iraq war wasnt justified, because when it comes down to things like minimum wage, the state of the economy, the health service etc are far important than who we bomb abroad.

British soldiers getting killed abroad very sad but honestly not relevant to my day to day life

What a narrow minded slave you are.

Considering Blair won the election with a majority of people being against the war I'm in good company. The only political party that was against the war got slaughtered at the election.

Foreign policy simply is not an electoral priority in a country without conscripton and a relatively small army from a narrow part of society. There is no 'military' vote soldiers vote on economic/class grounds like everyone else

[pErvinalia]

Just came across this article today on the issue of the OP.

There is no way around it. This president is a grave violator of the law and of the US Constitution. Like George W. Bush before him, it is incumbent upon the Congress to establish whether his transgressions rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

I know, as the author of the book The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), that this is a stretch demand. President Bush and his consigliere Vice President Dick Cheney were both serially in violation of the law and the Constitution, and the Democrats who controlled both houses of Congress back then, despite the Quixotic efforts of myself and others like former Congresswoman Liz Holtzman and fellow journalist John Nichols, failed to challenge either of them. At the time, I wrote that failure to hold Bush and Cheney to account for their outrages would mean a subsequent president could commit the same crimes with impunity.

President Obama has proved me correct.

Even though the House is now under the control of the opposition party, there is not the slightest sign that any member of either the Republican or Democratic Party dares to put forward a bill of impeachment. Democrats are unwilling to challenge the head of their party, while Republicans, chastened by the disaster that their petty impeachment of President Bill Clinton caused them, are afraid to get burned again.

But make no mistake. The abuse of power — and the assumption by a president of the absolute, unchallengeable right to execute an American citizen, or anyone, actually, citizen or not — by a president is a big step towards tyranny which, if unchallenged, is hard to step back from.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/07/ ... impeached/

[pErvinalia]

Also this: http://www.alternet.org/will-liberals-r ... 790287&t=8

Last year Brown University’s Michael Tesler released a fascinating study showing that Americans inclined to racially blinkered views wound up opposing policies they would otherwise support, once they learned those policies were endorsed by President Obama. Their prejudice extended to the breed of the president’s dog, Bo: They were much more likely to say they liked Portuguese water dogs when told Ted Kennedy owned one than when they learned Obama did.

But Tesler found that the Obama effect worked the opposite way, too: African-Americans and white liberals who supported Obama became more likely to support policies once they learned the president did.

More than once I’ve worried that might carry over to bad policies that Obama has flirted with embracing, that liberals have traditionally opposed: raising the age for Medicare and Social Security or cutting those programs’ benefits. Or hawkish national security policies that liberals shrieked about when carried out by President Bush, from rendition to warrantless spying. Or even worse, policies that Bush stopped short of, like targeted assassination of U.S. citizens loyal to al-Qaida (or “affiliates”) who were (broadly) deemed (likely) to threaten the U.S. with (possible) violence (some day).

[Audley Strange]

Actually it looks exactly like tyranny to me, just still theoretical. Once the tech gets smaller and easy to mass produce, Drones will allow any regime who has them to take out any critic.

[JimC]

Coito's main point seems to be that the current Democrat leadership are doing things that could be classed as military adventurism, and that whatever criticism of these actions by the left/liberal side of politics may be, it is lukewarm compered to the criticism that a republican president would get for the same actions.

There does seem to be some truth in that point, even if it is somewhat belaboured...

It is also true that the radical left cannot be painted with this brush - sandinista has made it clear that he sees very little difference between the 2 parties in terms of the morality of exerting American power, so he and his ilk are not being hypocritical or biased in their critique, which some sections of the liberal media probably are...

Shit, did I just say something positive about sandi?

[Coito ergo sum]

[Audley Strange]

Why should anyone be surprised, it's a regime that kills it's own people quite happily anyway. One thing about Americans, they sure do like to kill Americans.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, more Americans have been killed by guns on American soil since 1960 than have been killed in all wars the US has ever been in.

[JimC]

Yeah, more Americans have been killed by guns on American soil since 1960 than have been killed in all wars the US has ever been in.

Those bare arms have a lot to answer for...

[Warren Dew]

According to news reports, the more detailed information coming to Congress says pretty much what I said in a dense legal argument that's classified. The gist is, however, that outside the US, a citizen who levies war against the US loses the protection of the Constitution afforded to loyal citizens. This goes back at least as far as WWII, and probably earlier. Obviously, if there is a US citizen who has taken up arms of a foreign nation against the US, we're not going to hesitate to kill them under the laws of war just because they claim citizenship.

And I have to completely agree with this rationale. Protection from the Constitution requires loyalty to the Constitution to at least some minimal degree, such as not waging war or committing terrorist acts against the US..

You should.

"No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court" - U.S. constitution, Article III, section 3.

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witneses against him" - U.S. constitution, Amendment 6

[Warren Dew]

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?

I'm not aware of any who actually voted against him because of it.

[Warren Dew]

3) Execution. So far (as we know), the program under Obama has only been used on high-level Al Qaeda targets, which makes it more difficult to oppose. I mean, we all want them dead, right?

All you leftists do, perhaps. We libertarians think Awlaki should have been brought back to the U.S. for trial. Heck, he didn't even kill anyone; he just published an anti-U.S. electronic newsletter. Even those of us who support capital punishment don't think he would have been executed.

[Warren Dew]

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.

Neither fact nor realization; just a false belief. Let's not forget Romney was the candidate who said "you can't kill your way to peace".