Guess what Obama says the US Goverment can now do to American citizens!

[Steven Soderburgin]

You'll never guess!

 

[SpecialKO]

Good god....

This is so bad. I don't think I can express in words how bad this is.

 

[Baerdog]

Do not want.

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

Something fun to think about: the only people who would have the standing to be able to challenge the constitutionality of this in the Supreme Court are people who would be assassinated if they showed their face!

 

[Chibibar]

In times of war, isn't Treason is punishable by death without trial?

 

[SpecialKO]

In times of war, isn't Treason is punishable by death without trial?

Only for soldiers in battlefield conditions, I think, and I dunno if that's ever happened.

Under normal circumstances, no.

 

[Andromache]

Question, on the moral front.
This guy is reportedly in Yemen.
He's reportedly actively taking part in terrorist plots against the US.

How, morally, does he differ from any other random Al Qaeda living in Yemen that might also be targeted?

The NY times article linked by Salon is a tad bit less mouth-frothy in it's coverage of the event.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.html?hp

As a general principle, international law permits the use of lethal force against individuals and groups that pose an imminent threat to a country, and officials said that was the standard used in adding names to the list of targets. In addition, Congress approved the use of military force against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. People on the target list are considered to be military enemies of the United States and therefore not subject to the ban on political assassination first approved by President Gerald R. Ford.

Yeah, the NYT source is the first source I'd actually trust (not completely, but moreso than the Salon opinion page, by default)

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

I don't really know or care how he morally differs, but legally, he is a U.S. Citizen and thus is subject to the protections of the Constitution, including due process and trial by jury.

 

[sixpackshaker]

I don't really know or care how he morally differs, but legally, he is a U.S. Citizen and thus is subject to the protections of the Constitution, including due process and trial by jury.

When you take up arms against your nation in a foreign land, that right becomes murky.

And No we should Not carry out assassinations against our citizens, but he could be trundled off to GITMO, or die in a battle in an attempt to capture him.

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

When you take up arms against your nation in a foreign land, that right becomes murky.

No, not really, it's laid out pretty clearly in the Constitution!

Also, it's not even really clear if al-Awlaki has even done enough to say that he's "taken up arms" against the US. Here are a couple relevant articles! http://washingtonindependent.com/81...-strong-enough-for-the-government-to-kill-him

http://washingtonindependent.com/81550/why-is-it-legal-to-kill-anwar-al-awlaki

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

Wait now..I'm confused.
In the Journalist killing thread, you seemed more concerned about the moral implications and less concerned that the soldiers actions were authorized and acceptable under the rules of engagement, and were well within the letter of the law.

In this thread, you are unconcerned about the moral implications, and only about what you feel the letter of the law is.

I didn't say I was unconcerned with the moral implications. What I said was I didn't care about how he morally differed from active members of Al Qaeda. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand here. I do think that this authorization, which IS a new thing in that it has been officially authorized by the President, is immoral. The issue is that he is a U.S. Citizen and by authorizing the assassination of a U.S. Citizen, bypassing due process, that runs up against not only what is moral but also what is legally allowed by the Constitution.

EDIT: Also, lol at you saying I'll take whatever position puts the administration in a bad light. I voted for Obama, shit.

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

Of course, I would consider assassination to be immoral no matter what, but the fact that this flies in the face of due process is fucking terrifying to me.

 

[Chibibar]

Of course, I would consider assassination to be immoral no matter what, but the fact that this flies in the face of due process is fucking terrifying to me.

sadly I voted for Obama. It doesn't make any better that Bush "create" the order, Obama approves it (still just as bad) The constitution exist to protect its citizen from acts like this the only exception I thought was Treason and you could be execution (or desertion from the military) but I was corrected on those count.

 

[drawn_inward]

If there is proof that this dude is a threat, I hope they take him out. Obama has my support for that.

Terrorists and traitors do deserve to die. That sounds harsh, but if you have such a huge problem with the government, you can either try to change things by voting or contacting your representative or start a grassroots movement or you can fucking leave. When you take sides with the enemy, when you plot destruction and death, you deserve daisy cutters.

I am more pissed at a traitor than a random Iraqi/Afghan/Saudi/Syrian/Iranian/etc.

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

Terrorists and traitors do deserve to die. That sounds harsh, but if you have such a huge problem with the government, you can either try to change things by voting or contacting your representative or start a grassroots movement or you can fucking leave. When you take sides with the enemy, when you plot destruction and death, you can STFU and GTFO.

If it's good enough for Saddam Hussein, it's good enough for Barack Hussein!

 

[drawn_inward]

Terrorists and traitors do deserve to die. That sounds harsh, but if you have such a huge problem with the government, you can either try to change things by voting or contacting your representative or start a grassroots movement or you can fucking leave. When you take sides with the enemy, when you plot destruction and death, you can STFU and GTFO.

If it's good enough for Saddam Hussein, it's good enough for Barack Hussein![/QUOTE]


I am not saying we randomly take out folks. I'm not suggesting Stalin's plan of action. I am not even suggesting McCarthyism. I am talking about killing threats to the US and our allies. I am talking about keeping innocent people safe.

I don't know if this dude in question is a true threat or not. If he's not, leave him be until he is.

I can definitely see how this could be a slippery slope though.

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

And what is to prevent the definition of "threats" to expand and the definition of "innocents" to grow increasingly limited?

 

[Krisken]

No excuses. This is just stupid wrong.

 

[Shegokigo]

This gets:

:biggrin:

from me. Now if only I could get an application for the job....

 

[crono1224]

Well, there's two slippery slopes here that I can discern:
There's the slippery slope of what happens if we keep expanding the definition of terrorist until the executive branch just kills anyone they want without due process.

To take the slippery slope to the opposite extreme:
Lets say that Osama Bin Laden and some of the worst terrorist leaders in the world are in a bunker along with a lot of grunt terrorists. One of the low-level terrorists happens to also hold US Citizenship. You can take out the bunker easily with a bunker-buster. Do we do nothing, because we haven't served due process on the lone terrorist in there that happens to be american? Are we forced to try to go in there and arrest that lone American, rather than cleanly handling the situation with a minimum of US casualties?

To the second one, clearly we need to risk our own lives and do it by the book. But to expand on that I guess thats the question, you got 100 of the worlds deadliest terrorist all together (evil meeting or whatever), but you have 1+ innocent people, do you bomb the place and kill a hundred and lose 1 or more innocent people?

I think this precedent is slippery, but the question is, what if say a person has top secret information about whatever and you don't have time to get in and detain them?

 

[Shawn]

So the only difference between Obama's term and that of any other president's is that they have actually admitted they assassinate American Citizens when they feel it is important?

 

[SpecialKO]

There's the slippery slope of what happens if we keep expanding the definition of terrorist until the executive branch just kills anyone they want without due process.

That is pretty much exactly what they are doing. Who he is and what he may have done do not matter, because his right to due process has been removed.

Lets say that Osama Bin Laden and some of the worst terrorist leaders in the world are in a bunker along with a lot of grunt terrorists. One of the low-level terrorists happens to also hold US Citizenship. You can take out the bunker easily with a bunker-buster. Do we do nothing, because we haven't served due process on the lone terrorist in there that happens to be american? Are we forced to try to go in there and arrest that lone American, rather than cleanly handling the situation with a minimum of US casualties?

What you're describing is a battlefield condition where the guy in question is not the target. In the other thread, you and the others made it quite clear that within the rules of engagement, it's possible that an American citizen could be killed if he is (even unwittingly) contributing to a situation where other Americans could be killed. What this order does is make an American a legal target for direct assassination outside of a warzone.

A better example of this extreme may be, say, an unarmed gathering of terrorists, say a dinner, in a non-extradition country we are not specifically holding military operations in. A special forces team has been given the order to assassinate everyone there, including the rogue American. I am genuinely not sure how this order would apply, seeing as how he is in the company of other targets, even if they're unarmed.

 

[PatrThom]

You'll never guess!

Yes I will. It's been all over reddit, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google News, etc. all day.

--Patrick

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

You'll never guess!

Yes I will. It's been all over reddit, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google News, etc. all day.

--Patrick[/QUOTE]
That's not guessing. >:[

 

[@Li3n]

In times of war, isn't Treason is punishable by death without trial?

Only for soldiers in battlefield conditions, I think, and I dunno if that's ever happened.

Under normal circumstances, no.[/QUOTE]

Didn't they used to execute spies?!

Plus, wasn't the order about capture or assassination?! So basically they just made sure that if he gets shot there won't be any legal ramifications for anyone involved.

Terrorists and traitors do deserve to die. That sounds harsh, but if you have such a huge problem with the government, you can either try to change things by voting or contacting your representative or start a grassroots movement or you can fucking leave. When you take sides with the enemy, when you plot destruction and death, you deserve daisy cutters.

The british circa the 18th century called... they say you owe them a few lives.

 

[Steven Soderburgin]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/08/olbermann/index.html

There are many legitimate criticisms voiced about Keith Olbermann, but he deserves substantial credit for his coverage last night of a story that is as self-evidently significant as it is under-covered: Barack Obama's assassination program aimed at American citizens. He not only led off his show with this story, but devoted the first two segments to it, and made many of the key observations and asked virtually all of the right questions. The videos of those two segments, worth watching, are below.
What's most striking to me about all of this is that -- as I noted yesterday (and as Olbermann stressed) -- George Bush's decision merely to eavesdrop on American citizens without oversight, or to detain without due process Americans such as Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, provoked years of vehement, vocal and intense complaints from Democrats and progressives. All of that was disparaged as Bush claiming the powers of a King, a vicious attack on the Constitution, a violation of Our Values, the trampling on the Rule of Law. Yet here you have Barack Obama not merely eavesdropping on or detaining Americans without oversight, but ordering them killed with no oversight and no due process of any kind. And the reaction among leading Democrats and progressives is largely non-existent, which is why Olbermann's extensive coverage of it is important. Just imagine what the reaction would have been among progressive editorial pages, liberal opinion-makers and Democratic politicians if this story had been about George Bush and Dick Cheney targeting American citizens for due-process-free and oversight-less CIA assassinations.
Republicans are not going to object to any of this. With rare exception, they believe in unlimited executive authority and denial of due process. They see Obama's adoption of the core Bush/Cheney approach as a vindication of what they did for eight years (and also see it, not unreasonably, as proof that progressive complaints about Bush's \"shredding of the Constitution\" were not genuine but rather opportunistic, cynical and motivated by desire for partisan gain). As a result, even the most Obama-hating right-wing extremists will praise him and cheer for what he's doing. At the same time, the people who spent eight years screaming about things like this (when Bush/Cheney were doing them) are now mostly silent if not finding ways to justify and defend it (we don't need due process because the President said this is an American-Hating Terrorist). As White House servant Richard Wolffe said in the second Olbermann segment below (and Wolffe's commentary was actually fairly good), the White House is \"very proud\" of its presidential assassination program, which is likely why they decided to leak it to the NYT and the WP yesterday.
Here again, we see one of the principal and longest-lasting effects of the Obama presidency: to put a pretty, eloquent, progressive face on what (until quite recently) was ostensibly considered by a large segment of the citizenry to be tyrannical right-wing extremism (e.g., indefinite detention, military commissions, \"state secrets\" used to block judicial review, an endless and always-expanding \"War on Terror,\" immunity for war criminals, rampant corporatism -- and now unchecked presidential assassinations of American citizens), and thus to transform what were once bitter, partisan controversies into harmonious, bipartisan consensus:

 

[zero]

To take the slippery slope to the opposite extreme:
Lets say that Osama Bin Laden and some of the worst terrorist leaders in the world are in a bunker along with a lot of grunt terrorists. One of the low-level terrorists happens to also hold US Citizenship. You can take out the bunker easily with a bunker-buster. Do we do nothing, because we haven't served due process on the lone terrorist in there that happens to be american? Are we forced to try to go in there and arrest that lone American, rather than cleanly handling the situation with a minimum of US casualties?

Err... you ARE aware that the police is allowed to use lethal force against U.S. Citizens who are presenting immediate and clear danger to the lives of other citizens, right??? That's NOT what's being discussed, no slippery slope there.

 

[Tinwhistler]

To take the slippery slope to the opposite extreme:
Lets say that Osama Bin Laden and some of the worst terrorist leaders in the world are in a bunker along with a lot of grunt terrorists. One of the low-level terrorists happens to also hold US Citizenship. You can take out the bunker easily with a bunker-buster. Do we do nothing, because we haven't served due process on the lone terrorist in there that happens to be american? Are we forced to try to go in there and arrest that lone American, rather than cleanly handling the situation with a minimum of US casualties?

Err... you ARE aware that the police is allowed to use lethal force against U.S. Citizens who are presenting immediate and clear danger to the lives of other citizens, right??? That's NOT what's being discussed, no slippery slope there.[/QUOTE]

I wasn't aware that sitting in a bunker constituted immediate danger.

Or to put it in your vernacular: You ARE aware that if a criminal with a warrant is just sitting in his house doing nothing, the police aren't allowed to just storm the place and shoot him, right??? So, this IS what's being discussed. Plenty of slippery slope there.

 

[zero]

I wasn't aware that sitting in a bunker constituted immediate danger.

Or to put it in your vernacular: You ARE aware that if a criminal with a warrant is just sitting in his house doing nothing, the police aren't allowed to just storm the place and shoot him, right??? So, this IS what's being discussed. Plenty of slippery slope there.

Ok, I realize I didn't express myself correctly... in fact, far from it... So, let's cut to the chase: OF COURSE the bunker shouldn't be bombed! Get the guy alive, make him stand trial or don't touch him.

 

[sixpackshaker]

The most likely way to kill him on an assassination order would by by a sniper or a small explosive planted in his room/belongings/person. That would be going overboard. The standing order should be to capture him or kill him if he puts up armed resistance.

 

[SpecialKO]

The standing order should be to capture him or kill him if he puts up armed resistance.

I wouldn't have as big a problem with this. It at least allows for the possibility of due process if he doesn't endanger other lives by resisting.

Now, whether he would receive due process may be another question, going by the political direction this conversation has had over the past few years in this country, but it doesn't categorically deny it to him as a possibility.

 

[@Li3n]

Or to put it in your vernacular: You ARE aware that if a criminal with a warrant is just sitting in his house doing nothing, the police aren't allowed to just storm the place and shoot him, right???

Unless he/she makes any sudden moves while they're storming the place...

But it's cute how you find it acceptable as long as the person in question isn't a citizen of the US... who said your democracy isn't like it originally was in Greece?

 

[Kitty Sinatra]

But you go right on and paint that big ol' straw man on me.

Straw Man? Quit lion to us. You're the Tin Man.






. . .man, this post sucks harder than a tornado.

 

[@Li3n]

Or to put it in your vernacular: You ARE aware that if a criminal with a warrant is just sitting in his house doing nothing, the police aren't allowed to just storm the place and shoot him, right???

Unless he/she makes any sudden moves while they're storming the place...





But it's cute how you guys find it acceptable as long as the person in question isn't a citizen of the US... who said your democracy isn't like it originally was in Greece?[/QUOTE]

I think that I was pretty clear that i was on the fence on this one, and hadn't decided whether targeted killing was acceptable or not. But you go right on and paint that big ol' straw man on me. I don't mind [/QUOTE]


Should have spaced it more i guess... i was talking in general, not to you...

 

[GasBandit]

"A government big enough to give you everything you need can also take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

As stimulating as this would be to get into the "Obama! But Bush! But Clinton! But Reagan!" debate that's been done countless times, I'll just skip to the end and say, no matter which wins, the Demicans or Republicrats, we all lose.