That is the preferred way to do things, but the part of Yemen he was in is not under the control of the friendly (to the US) part of the Yemeni government. He was even charged, tried, and convicted in Yemen but the Yemeni government could not get him. Your scenario was not possible.
Yes it was: 1. Yemeni government to US embassy: "We've convicted this man of terrorism charges in absentia, but our forces can't bring him in." 2. US embassy: "We'll see what we can do." 3. President Obama: "Send in Seal Team 6 with a mission to apprehend the target if at all possible, kill if necessary." He doesn't even have to worry about Seal Team 6 getting trapped in semi-hostile territory like he did with the Pakistan raid.
The key difference between that scenario and what actually happened is that it gives Al-Awlaki the option to surrender and (attempt to) refute the charges against him in a court of law. You're right about one thing: his father did try to get him removed from the kill list using the legal process. The courts refused to consider the case because his father lacked standing to sue, requiring that Al-Awlaki travel to the US to contest the kill order, which would mean he would be shot on sight.
There's another way this can happen, though: 1. Insert false information into Wikipedia without attribution on a subject that is likely to be of public interest. 2. Wait for a harried news reporter to pick up on the false information and use it in their article without attribution. 3. Go back and answer the [[citation needed]] with a link back to the news reporter's article.
Illegal? Maybe not morally justified... but illegal?
Heck yes, illegal, violating several of the highest laws of the land: Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
All reasonable interpretations make an American citizen, as Al-awlaki was, a "person" under this amendment, killing him was obviously depriving him of life, and no due process was involved. Article 3, Section 2: "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;"
Regardless of Eric Holder's claims to the contrary, the only due process allowed under the Constitution involves the judiciary. Sixth Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
None of that happened.
The legal ways for the US government to kill a citizen are: 1. Convict him of a crime for which the death penalty is a possible sentence, sentence him to death, and carry out the sentence. That didn't happen. 2. Respond to his deadly force against those trying to arrest him with deadly force. That didn't happen either. 3. Kill him in the middle of an active military battle. This is really a subset of the second case, as he always has the option of surrender during battle. That didn't happen either - he never fired a shot at the cruise missile headed towards him. That's it. Nothing else justifies the use of deadly force against an American citizen.
If the Obama administration wanted to deal with Al-awlaki, here was the legal way to do it: 1. Present evidence to a grand jury sufficient to obtain an indictment. 2. Issue a warrant for his arrest. 3. Work with the Yemeni authorities (who have good relations with the US) to arrest him and extradite him to the US for trial. If he shoots at whoever's doing the arrest, then you can shoot back. 4. Put him through a standard civilian trial, and if convicted, punish him.
Here's what actually happened: 1. The CIA presented secret evidence to the president regarding why Al-awlaki was a Bad Man who should be killed immediately. 2. The president ordered a drone attack on Al-awlaki, who is promptly blown to smithereens with no chance of knowing what he was accused of or what the evidence was against him.
His hands are kind of tied... He's not allowed to move them to the US, and he can't send them to other countries
Why not? What law prevents him from granting them a US visa and turning them loose somewhere on US soil? What law prevents him from sending them to another country? The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution demands that he either try them or let them go. That supercedes any other consideration, especially whether it's politically convenient for him to do so.
That, along with the completely illegal killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, and in a second airstrike killing his son (who's sole crime appears to have been being Anwar Al-Awlaki's son) indicates that no, it's not that Obama's hands are tied, it's that Obama is getting exactly what he wants.
Oh, don't worry - even the guys in Gitmo get trials. If they're found guilty, they're either executed or locked up forever. If they're found not guilty, they go back into prison until the prosecution finds something else to charge them with. It's completely fair!
I think what GP is referring to is that the last time Iran attacked a foreign country was when they went after Iraq (partially at the behest of the Reagan administration) back in the 1980's. More to the point, there's no credible evidence that Iran presents a serious threat to the civilian population of US, UK, or Israel.
Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
You clearly have no clue what Keynesian economists actually want to do, because the European countries that are currently in massive trouble did exactly the opposite of what Keynes advised: They cut government spending drastically during a recession trying to keep their budgets balanced. It didn't work for Herbert Hoover either.
You probably never studied actual Keynesian economics, but simply understood it to mean "spend lots of money the government doesn't have under all circumstances". That's not what Keynesians actually advocate - they instead argue that government should spend more money during recessions and then save money / pay down debt during booms. And yes, that's different than the Democratic Party line.
As it is, I'm not voting for a lesser evil this year, as I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the difference between 98% evil and 100% evil isn't worth it. Instead, I'll be finding the best third-party candidate I can, and if none is available I'll write myself in.
Because this is something that the Washington establishment, which involves most people in both major parties, have decided is not going to be an election issue, along with Gitmo, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, the imprisonment and killing of American citizens without trial, the noticeable lack of prosecutions of Wall St bankers for fraud, and mass surveillance of Americans by the NSA.
Basically, it doesn't affect anybody who's rich enough or powerful enough to own a private jet, so nobody with the wealth or power to influence elections cares about it.
I could imagine an Apple under Woz turning out much the same way as the Bell Labs story: Lots of world-changing technology, very little profit.
Jobs and Woz needed each other to make Apple a reality. Jobs needed Woz to have really cool products to sell early on - without Woz, he either would have ended up yet another commune-dwelling hippie, or maybe yet another marketing jerk in a suit (like That Guy in Futurama). Woz needed Jobs to go independent and sell his stuff on a mass scale - without Jobs, he'd probably be happily designing stuff for HP or some other big firm and playing with hardware tinkering and open-source software in his spare time.
The thing about restrictions on firearms which are different from restrictions on protests is that protests are not designed to kill people. You are quite probably thoroughly responsible about keeping your gun properly stored so that your child doesn't blow his own head off, but many gun owners aren't responsible and some are crazy or criminal. The goal of gun laws should be to force gun owners to be responsible with their weapons and keep them out of the hands of the crazies and criminals.
It's so nice to have integrity, I'll tell you why. 'Cause if you really have integrity, It means your price is very high! -Tom Lehrer "Selling Out"
In other words, sure you can, you just have to raise the amount you're willing to pay. It's sort of like the classic joke of an old fart to a pretty young woman saying "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "Well, ok." "Would you sleep with me for five dollars?" "What kind of girl do you take me for?" "We've already established that, we're just haggling over the price."
We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security
... or they might have some other mandate. We the People have no way of knowing what they've been ordered to do, nor what they're actually doing (which may or may not coincide with what they've been ordered to do, again we have no way of confirming anything)
Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if they ever do, then we hold their noses to the grindstone.
And how exactly do we find out whether the NSA is breaking that trust, when all definitive about their activities is classified? What the public does have access to are a number of former NSA officials who've stated publicly that the NSA is committing serious crimes and provided some evidence to that effect - those former officials are now in prison.
Yes, it's a monster, but it's our monster.
Who's "our"? Which side of what conflict is the NSA actually on? I don't know that either, because all of their activities are classified.
The short version of your post is "We should just trust with no evidence whatsoever that the US government is following it's laws and doing the right thing." That's just plain stupid, at least as dumb as "We should just trust with no evidence whatsoever that George W Bush personally organized the 9/11 attacks" or "The CIA assassinated JFK".
In the United States at least, there are recent well documented cases of this exact tactic: 2008 Democratic Party Convention 2004 Republican Party Convention Older uses of the same tactic are included in the reports of the Church Committee. But yeah, that's all wild conspiracy theories.
One of the basic rules of political protest: If you're at a peaceful demonstration, and somebody starts suggesting violence, (A) don't listen to him and certainly don't take his advice, (B) identify him as likely police, and (C) make sure protest organizers are alerted to what's going on.
A riot is generally not something you easily mistake for an orderly protest.
Imagine this scenario, if you will: A large group of citizens are walking across a bridge holding signs, singing songs, and chanting. When they get to the end of the bridge, an empty bottle comes flying out of the crowd. Police attack the crowd, ostensibly to protect themselves from the bottle. Chaos ensues, many protesters are beaten and arrested, some are trampled while the crowd is trying to flee.
Was that an orderly protest or a riot? Include in your analysis consideration of the fact that the person who threw the bottle may be somebody in the employ of the police force.
Traffic is a result of ( volume of cars) > (capacity of road).
That's not the only cause of traffic jams. Some other causes, just off the top of my head: - Lanes ending, either due to construction or accident. - Major exit ramps onto another road with traffic issues. Not only does that screw up the right lane, it also screws up the next lane over with the jerks who drive past the line of cars waiting and then try to force their way into the line. - A single slow driver can wreak significant havoc just by cruising down the right lane at 45 mph. The reason is that now the not-quite-as-slow 55 mph driver pulls into the next lane over to pass them, forcing the 60 mph driver into the left lane, leaving the 75-80 mph drivers going insane behind them. - Sun glare and other natural conditions slowing down drivers, especially timid drivers.
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That is the preferred way to do things, but the part of Yemen he was in is not under the control of the friendly (to the US) part of the Yemeni government. He was even charged, tried, and convicted in Yemen but the Yemeni government could not get him. Your scenario was not possible.
Yes it was:
1. Yemeni government to US embassy: "We've convicted this man of terrorism charges in absentia, but our forces can't bring him in."
2. US embassy: "We'll see what we can do."
3. President Obama: "Send in Seal Team 6 with a mission to apprehend the target if at all possible, kill if necessary."
He doesn't even have to worry about Seal Team 6 getting trapped in semi-hostile territory like he did with the Pakistan raid.
The key difference between that scenario and what actually happened is that it gives Al-Awlaki the option to surrender and (attempt to) refute the charges against him in a court of law. You're right about one thing: his father did try to get him removed from the kill list using the legal process. The courts refused to consider the case because his father lacked standing to sue, requiring that Al-Awlaki travel to the US to contest the kill order, which would mean he would be shot on sight.
There's another way this can happen, though:
1. Insert false information into Wikipedia without attribution on a subject that is likely to be of public interest.
2. Wait for a harried news reporter to pick up on the false information and use it in their article without attribution.
3. Go back and answer the [[citation needed]] with a link back to the news reporter's article.
It depends what you're prospective employer is doing. For instance, it would be very useful when applying to work for the Mitt Romney campaign.
Illegal? Maybe not morally justified... but illegal?
Heck yes, illegal, violating several of the highest laws of the land: ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be
All reasonable interpretations make an American citizen, as Al-awlaki was, a "person" under this amendment, killing him was obviously depriving him of life, and no due process was involved.
Article 3, Section 2: "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;"
Regardless of Eric Holder's claims to the contrary, the only due process allowed under the Constitution involves the judiciary.
Sixth Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
None of that happened.
The legal ways for the US government to kill a citizen are:
1. Convict him of a crime for which the death penalty is a possible sentence, sentence him to death, and carry out the sentence. That didn't happen.
2. Respond to his deadly force against those trying to arrest him with deadly force. That didn't happen either.
3. Kill him in the middle of an active military battle. This is really a subset of the second case, as he always has the option of surrender during battle. That didn't happen either - he never fired a shot at the cruise missile headed towards him.
That's it. Nothing else justifies the use of deadly force against an American citizen.
If the Obama administration wanted to deal with Al-awlaki, here was the legal way to do it:
1. Present evidence to a grand jury sufficient to obtain an indictment.
2. Issue a warrant for his arrest.
3. Work with the Yemeni authorities (who have good relations with the US) to arrest him and extradite him to the US for trial. If he shoots at whoever's doing the arrest, then you can shoot back.
4. Put him through a standard civilian trial, and if convicted, punish him.
Here's what actually happened:
1. The CIA presented secret evidence to the president regarding why Al-awlaki was a Bad Man who should be killed immediately.
2. The president ordered a drone attack on Al-awlaki, who is promptly blown to smithereens with no chance of knowing what he was accused of or what the evidence was against him.
Unfortunately, when you did that, you violated this patent, so all the proceeds of your patent have to go to those guys.
His hands are kind of tied ... He's not allowed to move them to the US, and he can't send them to other countries
Why not? What law prevents him from granting them a US visa and turning them loose somewhere on US soil? What law prevents him from sending them to another country? The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution demands that he either try them or let them go. That supercedes any other consideration, especially whether it's politically convenient for him to do so.
That, along with the completely illegal killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, and in a second airstrike killing his son (who's sole crime appears to have been being Anwar Al-Awlaki's son) indicates that no, it's not that Obama's hands are tied, it's that Obama is getting exactly what he wants.
I do, but given that she's only a very bright 3-year-old I'm not considering her a big risk for making a bomb anyways.
Oh, don't worry - even the guys in Gitmo get trials. If they're found guilty, they're either executed or locked up forever. If they're found not guilty, they go back into prison until the prosecution finds something else to charge them with. It's completely fair!
No hard feelings.
I think what GP is referring to is that the last time Iran attacked a foreign country was when they went after Iraq (partially at the behest of the Reagan administration) back in the 1980's. More to the point, there's no credible evidence that Iran presents a serious threat to the civilian population of US, UK, or Israel.
Perennial Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich proposed precisely that, actually.
Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
You clearly have no clue what Keynesian economists actually want to do, because the European countries that are currently in massive trouble did exactly the opposite of what Keynes advised: They cut government spending drastically during a recession trying to keep their budgets balanced. It didn't work for Herbert Hoover either.
You probably never studied actual Keynesian economics, but simply understood it to mean "spend lots of money the government doesn't have under all circumstances". That's not what Keynesians actually advocate - they instead argue that government should spend more money during recessions and then save money / pay down debt during booms. And yes, that's different than the Democratic Party line.
At the very least, the grinding of gears will make for a change of pace.
You know what really grinds my gears? People who's policies were tried in the 19th century and utterly failed to come up with good results.
What about Kodos, Senator Kelly, or maybe Skroob?
As it is, I'm not voting for a lesser evil this year, as I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the difference between 98% evil and 100% evil isn't worth it. Instead, I'll be finding the best third-party candidate I can, and if none is available I'll write myself in.
Because this is something that the Washington establishment, which involves most people in both major parties, have decided is not going to be an election issue, along with Gitmo, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, the imprisonment and killing of American citizens without trial, the noticeable lack of prosecutions of Wall St bankers for fraud, and mass surveillance of Americans by the NSA.
Basically, it doesn't affect anybody who's rich enough or powerful enough to own a private jet, so nobody with the wealth or power to influence elections cares about it.
I could imagine an Apple under Woz turning out much the same way as the Bell Labs story: Lots of world-changing technology, very little profit.
Jobs and Woz needed each other to make Apple a reality. Jobs needed Woz to have really cool products to sell early on - without Woz, he either would have ended up yet another commune-dwelling hippie, or maybe yet another marketing jerk in a suit (like That Guy in Futurama). Woz needed Jobs to go independent and sell his stuff on a mass scale - without Jobs, he'd probably be happily designing stuff for HP or some other big firm and playing with hardware tinkering and open-source software in his spare time.
The thing about restrictions on firearms which are different from restrictions on protests is that protests are not designed to kill people. You are quite probably thoroughly responsible about keeping your gun properly stored so that your child doesn't blow his own head off, but many gun owners aren't responsible and some are crazy or criminal. The goal of gun laws should be to force gun owners to be responsible with their weapons and keep them out of the hands of the crazies and criminals.
No, only 3. Similarly, it's sad they never made a third Godfather movie, or a sequel to the Matrix.
It's so nice to have integrity,
I'll tell you why.
'Cause if you really have integrity,
It means your price is very high!
-Tom Lehrer "Selling Out"
In other words, sure you can, you just have to raise the amount you're willing to pay. It's sort of like the classic joke of an old fart to a pretty young woman saying "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "Well, ok." "Would you sleep with me for five dollars?" "What kind of girl do you take me for?" "We've already established that, we're just haggling over the price."
This seems like either the deeds of mighty Captain Pirk of Star Wreck fame, or the "invention" of transparant aluminum.
We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security
... or they might have some other mandate. We the People have no way of knowing what they've been ordered to do, nor what they're actually doing (which may or may not coincide with what they've been ordered to do, again we have no way of confirming anything)
Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if they ever do, then we hold their noses to the grindstone.
And how exactly do we find out whether the NSA is breaking that trust, when all definitive about their activities is classified? What the public does have access to are a number of former NSA officials who've stated publicly that the NSA is committing serious crimes and provided some evidence to that effect - those former officials are now in prison.
Yes, it's a monster, but it's our monster.
Who's "our"? Which side of what conflict is the NSA actually on? I don't know that either, because all of their activities are classified.
The short version of your post is "We should just trust with no evidence whatsoever that the US government is following it's laws and doing the right thing." That's just plain stupid, at least as dumb as "We should just trust with no evidence whatsoever that George W Bush personally organized the 9/11 attacks" or "The CIA assassinated JFK".
In the United States at least, there are recent well documented cases of this exact tactic:
2008 Democratic Party Convention
2004 Republican Party Convention
Older uses of the same tactic are included in the reports of the Church Committee.
But yeah, that's all wild conspiracy theories.
One of the basic rules of political protest: If you're at a peaceful demonstration, and somebody starts suggesting violence, (A) don't listen to him and certainly don't take his advice, (B) identify him as likely police, and (C) make sure protest organizers are alerted to what's going on.
A riot is generally not something you easily mistake for an orderly protest.
Imagine this scenario, if you will: A large group of citizens are walking across a bridge holding signs, singing songs, and chanting. When they get to the end of the bridge, an empty bottle comes flying out of the crowd. Police attack the crowd, ostensibly to protect themselves from the bottle. Chaos ensues, many protesters are beaten and arrested, some are trampled while the crowd is trying to flee.
Was that an orderly protest or a riot? Include in your analysis consideration of the fact that the person who threw the bottle may be somebody in the employ of the police force.
Well, the mistake there was that you expected the US Congress to give it at least 1 reading before passing it.
Traffic is a result of ( volume of cars) > (capacity of road).
That's not the only cause of traffic jams. Some other causes, just off the top of my head:
- Lanes ending, either due to construction or accident.
- Major exit ramps onto another road with traffic issues. Not only does that screw up the right lane, it also screws up the next lane over with the jerks who drive past the line of cars waiting and then try to force their way into the line.
- A single slow driver can wreak significant havoc just by cruising down the right lane at 45 mph. The reason is that now the not-quite-as-slow 55 mph driver pulls into the next lane over to pass them, forcing the 60 mph driver into the left lane, leaving the 75-80 mph drivers going insane behind them.
- Sun glare and other natural conditions slowing down drivers, especially timid drivers.