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Leaked: Obama's Rules For Assassinating American Citizens
cathyreisenwitz writes "For over a year now journalists, civil liberties advocates, and members of Congress have been asking the Obama administration to release internal memoranda from the Office of Legal Counsel justifying Obama's targeted killing program. While the White House continues to deny that such memos exist, NBC is reporting that it has acquired the next best thing: A secretish 16-page white paper from the Department of Justice that was provided to select members of the Senate last June." Spencer Ackerman at Wired says the leaked rules "[trump] traditional Constitutional protections American citizens enjoy from being killed by their government without due process" by redefining the concept of "imminence."
Good question. You should have brought it up when the legislation was passed in September 2001. Here's the applicable language from the Authorization to Use Military Forced (AUMF):
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
You see the "he determines?" The Obama administration didn't make that up, because it's currently valid law. And it will be valid law until it is defeated in court or repealed. Section (b) says the AUMF complies with the War Powers Act which is complete BS, and the AUMF in total is an over delegation of congressional power a la Chadha.
But I don't make the rules.
Well, sub-section 3 says "entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state" which Al Qaeda is not a foreign state. This is the same reason we keep detainees in Quantanamo instead of prisoners of war or prisoners. The Bush administration claimed they weren't enemy combatants because they didn't fight for a foreign state (standardized uniform and all that). Number 7 is more applicable, because it allows citizenship to be stripped for "bearing arms against the United States." However, section (b) states that the burden to prove loss of citizenship is on the party claiming the loss not on the supposed, um, loser. That's basic due process. Essentially if the government said he was no longer a citizen they have to prove it first.
No. Try reading the memo. From the very first page it mentions it is for high level ranking al-Qa'ida located outside of the US.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
"Nobody at this point actually thinks their pathetic handgun is going to protect them against tyranny by a government armed with SWAT teams, drones, and nuclear missiles, do they?"
Yes. Actually taking out an entire army strike team is pretty easy with the right stuff. Full armor, It's not hard at all to injure the lot of them and then use them as bait to get more. Drones are zero effort to take down. 30-06 hunting rifle will down one in seconds. Or are you brain dead and think the US army drones are like what you see when you play Black Ops II.. Sorry kid. But a lot of hunters have guns that make the army's M16 a girly gun. I hunt bear and use a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.700_Nitro_Express 700 Nitro Round in my rifle. That round will kill someone in armor because it will be the same as a sledgehammer to the chest. Buddy of mine has a Barret 50. That will take out most helicopters and hit a target behind a brick wall by shooting through it.
I suggest you look at how the Taliban has pretty much spanked the US army really hard in Afghanistan with only rocks and mules. In the USA there area LOT more resources for an uprising to decimate the Military and police. Plus you have the problem that it's hard to make a soldier kill his own family and friends, so the US army sent in against the American citizenry will end with a lot of officers accidently killed by grenades. In viet-nam officers were fragged by the troops quite a bit.
So the fools like you that have zero education in history and negative education in combat or even firearm use have no clue at all.
The original design was sovereign States who delegated a small, well-defined subset of their powers to a common body
That common body was structured so as to make it somewhat self-limiting, somewhat difficult to expand its reach..
It was also structured with layers of increasing responsibility that theoretically would help elevate the finest people to higher offices, even as it filtered out to a degree some of the more extremist voices.
How about American Citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki? He was born in Denver, Colorado on August 26, 1995 at 1:16 PM. He was killed by an American drone strike in Yemen on October 14, 2011. He was 16 years old at the time. Does anyone have any evidence that this teenager posed an imminent threat to the US?
Oh, yes, as Robert Gibbs said in an interview, it was Abdulrahman's fault that his father - who he hadn't seen in over two years - was an alleged terrorist. That's the threat he posed to America, and that's what justified killing him.
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He was there because his family moved there. He was participating in a barbecue when he was murdered. He had been trying to find his dad for some time because he missed him.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097899,00.html
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/
And of Al Awlaki himself? He was killed because of his youtube postings. Freedom of speech, so long as you don't say stuff the Feds hate. That list of things the Feds hate? Sure to grow.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good