Few people would mourn the passing of radical U.S. cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi. However, his reported death from a U.S. air strike raises the long-standing question over President Obama’s insistence that he can unilaterally label a citizen as a terrorist and order his killing. It is one of the policies (of many) that Obama continued from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and was one of the subjects of my column yesterday in the Los Angeles Times.
As with the killing of Bin Laden, the celebration of the death of an infamous individual can obscure the question of the authority — and the limitations — of a president in ordering the killing of U.S. citizens.
Under the current policy, the President effectively promises to be careful in the selection of assassination targets. It is a decision left entirely to him and his designated subordinates. It runs contrary to constitutional guarantees protecting persons accused of crimes. The President can claim that the location of such individuals abroad is the key distinction since courts limit the application of constitutional protections and limitations outside of our border. Yet, we have already seen that the Justice Department argues that other rights can be similarly waived in the country like due process rights and the right to counsel for anyone accused being an enemy combatants. The enemy combatant policy and cases largely eradicated the domestic/foreign distinction used in the past.
Because of his high-visibility status, we were informed of al-Aulaqi’s killing. However, nothing in this policy requires a president to be informed of such assassinations and the congressional oversight committees are widely viewed as rubber stamps for intelligence operations. It is not simply a question of whether a president can order such a killing of a citizen (which Bush also previously ordered), but the circumstances under which such an order can be given. Obama put al-Aulaqi on a hit list many months ago. There is no process, however, to secure any judicial review or to satisfy any showing despite over a year of such targeting. These questions remain unanswered because the Obama Administration has been successful in blocking public interest lawsuits seeking judicial review of his assassination list.
Previously, the Administration succeeded with an almost mocking argument that al-Aulaqi’s family could not file a lawsuit seeking review of the power to assassinate because al-Aulaqi himself should appear to ask for review. Thus, after saying that it would kill al-Aulaqi on sight, the Justice Department insisted that he should walk into a clerk’s office and ask for declaratory judgment. Even if his family were to sue for wrongful death, the Administration would likely use the military and state secrets privilege to block the lawsuit. Thus, the President has the authority to not simply kill citizens but to decided whether they can sue him for the act.
Even if a president has this authority, the existence of the power to kill citizens without any check or balance runs against the grain of the constitutional system. What do you think?
Update: It appears that two U.S. born cleric may have been killed.
Source: Washington Post
Here is also Glenn Greenwald’s piece on the subject.
Thank you oro for stating that as plainly as it could have been.
“It was not “liberals” or “conservatives” who did this. It was both parties acting with the massive support of the American public, as tyrants in the public sector licked their chops. This was a result of security-minded madness, and even now hardly anyone cares.
Today, every single citizen, no matter how free he or she may feel in daily life, is in reality a sitting duck. You can be made to disappear. There is essentially no way you can escape once the feds sweep you into their net. There is no justice. The total states of the past used to pretend to have trial-based convictions. The total state of the present doesn’t even bother. It just puts a sack over your head and takes you away.”
http://mises.org/daily/5693/The-Police-State-Abolishes-the-Trial
U.S. Const. Amd. VI — No person shall be . . .deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law[.]
Whether the killing was constitutional or not, citizenship is immaterial. The words are “no person,” not “no citizen.”
Bin Laden had the same rights as al-Aulaqi, and al-Aulaqi had no more rights than Bin Laden.
BTW, I think the wording of this Amendment truly can be called American exceptionalism.
Angryman,
Of what good are the protections written in the constitution if you are unwilling to extend them to people born outside of an arbitrary geographical boundary? The portections arent meant for AMERICANS, they are intended to apply to everyone, or else you are engaging in the very same logic that lead to this murder. He was a terrorist, therefore he has no protections. He was a pakistani, or afghan, he has no protection. You are making the exact same argument you are disagreeing with.
Here! Here! This is way over the line
This is obviously an impeachable offense. Any member of congress who does not offer or cosign a resolution of impeachment is nothing more than an accessory to murder.
Man, this one kills me. Although I guess I don’t care what tactics they use to eliminate Alqueda, the fact that this man is an American citizen gives him the right to protection under the law as much as anyone else.
Had he been killed in a fire-fight during a general attack, I could accept that but if they wanted to target this man, they should have taken him alive and shipped him back to stand trial for treason, terrorism, etc.
The constitution was written to protect our citizens from their own government as someone recently pointed out. Maybe here. Anyway, I think it bears repeating.
Time to go to Canada?
Junction,
I missed the part where we started declaring wars on individuals. In reality, we havent delcared war on anyone in almost 70 years. So you need a new slogan other than, it was war, shit happens.
No this was a murder, with no evidence, no trial, no accountability, no assumption of innocence, no presentation of facts, no possibility of a legal defence or recourse.
All hail the god-emperor. Every life on the planet is his to extinguish at his leisure.
The only people who do not tremble in fear are those delusional enough to believe the hellfire missiles will never be pointed at them.
Scribe,
If the evidence was so damning, present it in a court of law and let everyone make up their own minds. Do not commit murder and expect me to just except your assurances that it was for the best.
@tomdarch – Apparently my Internet connection is not as clear as yours. I thought we were talking about cockroaches being given no quarter.
What did I miss? Your assaults on Christians? Nope, got that. Your assault on the right? Nope, got that. Although disguised as what if’s, you messages were perfectly clear, and I don’t even have my beer goggles on… (yet).
BTW – If you assumed I’m a middle-class, conservative Republican veteran, you’d be right. And if you assumed I’m a guy who’s spent the last 33 years of his life, defending the rights of the downtrodden, disenfranchised and unwashed, you’d be even more right. If Anwar al-Aulaqi had been in the US, I’d be first in line to take his case, but he and others like him didn’t commit crimes. They went to war, and sometimes in a war, shit happens, or as I’ve heard in German, “scheisse passiert.”
Junctionshamus – I am thoroughly impressed with your ability to so completely and absolutely avoid the topic at hand. My hat is off to you! Enjoy your Friday evening drink with pride!
So here we are again. Obama has turned out to be far less than we hoped. I have to admit, although I fall somewhere left of Obama, I almost thought his intentions were good. But if not Obama; Who?
I’m going off to a quiet corner for a cup of coffee and a Pop-Tart while I still can.
Won’t be long before all you’ll be able to get is a strong cup of TEA.
I have mixed feelings about this. First of all, although he was man who held American citizenship, he also was known to have declared war on his native land. Second, he was overseas and not in US territory. He was in an area where he was not going to be extradited and he knew it. That narrowed the options for the US. Who would arrest him and bring him to justice–and how? Also, he needed to be stopped. There are a few practical matters like that to consider.
I went through a similar train of thought earlier this morning, but it’s complicated by our diplomatic relations with Yemen, and (while I don’t know of our current relationship with Yemen) our past cooperation on Terrorism, including joint operations to investigate the Cole. We currently train their military and give them AID. Are you certain they would not have arrested either of these two if we has an indictment against them and we had asked? (I don’t know.)
I think the root of the problem lies in our lack of indictment and lack of any due process hearing to give al-Alaqi or his representatives a chance to defend him in any manner.
I have mixed feelings about this. First of all, although he was man who held American citizenship, he also was known to have declared war on his native land. Second, he was overseas and not in US territory. He was in an area where he was not going to be extradited and he knew it. That narrowed the options for the US. Who would arrest him and bring him to justice–and how? Also, he needed to be stopped. There are a few practical matters like that to consider.
I don’t think this fully passes the smell test, but at the same time I am not as concerned as some folks seem to be. Now if it had happened in–say for instance Kansas–then we have a LOT of reason to be concerned.
It was another era, but John Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde come to mind. When it comes to the use of deadly force and you are in a kind of nebulous partly-declared war, the rules seem to change. I have been reflecting on our own local law enforcement. Most officers go a lifetime without ever taking their sidearm out of its holster. However, our former sheriff killed three men in his long career. All involved men with shotguns at close range, but the sheriff killed them before they killed him. All those guys were citizens too and they ended up dead because they were an imminent and direct threat.
It seems to me that given the intel they had on Anwar al-Aulaqi (the Ft. Bragg shooting and the attempted bombing), they had the imminent and direct threat package down cold.
@tomdarch – Personally (1) Hillary has a bigger set of balls than the present and previous 3 occupants of the White House, and (2) when it comes to cockroaches, Pelosi is their queen.
Christian fundamentalists? Always a target for the Left. With one or two individual current exceptions of “Christian,” nutbags, the world is, and should be in fear of Islamofacsism, certainly more organized and a greater threat to persons of all religions, Mulsims included.
Interesting that the Tea party is always used as an example for political extremism. If they were that extreme, they wouldn’t be the Tea Party now, would they? They’re certainly not the bogeymen the left enjoys portraying them as. And since they wouldn’t be, but would be called, say, “Moveon.org” or “PETA.org” or “Wilderness Guardians/EarthFirst!,” and did constitute a threat to US national security, I would see no problem with a marriage of convenience between DuPont and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
It’s Friday, let’s quit, and go find a bar. Drinks are on Professor T, ‘cuz he started it…
Anwar al-Awlaki death: US keeps role under wraps to manage Yemen fallout
Operation to track and kill Awlaki understood to have been led by CIA and elite joint special operations command, but details scant
Dominic Rushe, Chris McGreal, Jason Burke and Luke Harding
Friday 30 September 2011 14.31 EDT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/anwar-al-awlaki-yemen?newsfeed=true
Junctionshamus – It’s not hard to imagine the following:
As the Tea Party movement continues, some factions get frustrated and irrational – as a result, they start engaging in vandalism, that escalates to bombing some government facilities, and finally a tiny group of nuts using the Tea Party name go and kill a few people. Leaders of this faction flee the country, but continue to propagandize on the internet from wherever they are. President Nancy Pelosi arbitrarily declares them to be dangerous terrorists and has these US citizens killed by CIA drone strikes.
Would you be just fine with that? Just “a few bugs getting squashed”?
I think that this parallel scenario would go a long way towards getting those on the right-wing to see why this is problematic:
Imagine that a US citizen Christian minister moves outside the US, and via the internet, leads and encourages anti-abortion activity back in the US. President Hillary Clinton declares this minister to be a terrorist because, she says, this minister’s e-mails and web postings have been encouraging the shootings of doctors and the bombing of clinics. So she orders the CIA to assassinate him…
If something like this came to pass, the right-wing would be in hysterics. But that’s exactly what is being set up by granting the presidency this sort of un-checked power.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/30/with_death_of_anwar_al_awlaki