We have previously discussed the President’s “kill list” policy under which Obama claims the right to be able to kill any American based on his sole judgment and discretion. A confidential Justice Department memo now sheds more light on that policy and states a broader basis for such killings than previously suggested by the Administration. It is also not clear why this memo was kept secret by the Administration since it deals only with legal interpretations — not classified operational information.
Last March, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared at the Northwestern University Law School to present the new policy, claiming that the President did not need any conviction or even a charge to kill an American citizen. While he stressed that this was based on a rationale that the citizen posed “an imminent threat of violent attack,” I noted at the time that any such limitation was purely discretionary under the theory of executive power being advanced by the Obama Administration.
It now appears that the Administration lawyers reached the same conclusion. The memo notes that there does not need to be an imminent attack in terms of an unfolding plan or operation: “The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”
In plain language, that means that the President considers the citizens to be a threat in the future. Moreover, the memo allows killings when an attempt to capture the person would pose an “undue risk” to U.S. personnel. That undue risk is left undefined.
The memo, entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force,” is a tour de force of an imperial presidency. It was provided previously to both Democratic and Republican members of Congress on the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees. However, those members did nothing to stop such an extreme assertion of unilateral presidential power or to alert the public that the president was claiming far greater latitude in ordering the killings of citizens.
In an Orwellian twist, the memo insists “A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination.” It is more like a very pointed expression of presidential displeasure.
Here is the memo: 020413_DOJ_White_Paper
Source: NBC
Confusing idiom with constitutional fact; that’s the Orwellian twist that people like Mespo & Obama rely upon here.
The war on terror is an actual war?
“Oh but the 9/11 AUMF… ”
Authorized a blank check for military engagement around the globe in perpetuity?
Has the power of altering not only the definition of war but the constitution and the term ‘truth’ itself?
Where’s the ‘war on pedophiles’?
Why aren’t we targeting drones on sex slave traders or pedophiles?
They do in fact inflict far more actual harm than theoretical terror attacks.
The only thing I’d add to Gene’s commentary here is that people like Mespo are not legislating from the perspective of the good of the country; rather, it is from the narrow point of view that the law means nothing when assuaging the fears of the law makers.
Bob Kauten:
“1, August 29, 2012 at 11:26 am
Iran is hardly a “tiny, defenseless country.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28668
Minimizing threats to national security doesn’t help your cause.”
***************************
You must be hell in the telephone game.
Let me try:
Bob K said “It was eleven years ago. Must we continue abandoning our freedoms, ruining our infrastructure, and squandering lives, over this holy event?”
Now I’ll turn it completely on its ear by saying:
Bob hates roads and holy days! This is fun. It’s stream of consciousness argument. How about this one: Bob’s name is “Bob.” That means he hates all “Bills.”
Nal:
“Sounds like something Dick Chaney would say to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
********************
Here are the authors of the study. No Cheney:
• Matthew Bunn. Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and CoPrincipal Investigator of Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University’s Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs.
• Colonel Yuri Morozov (retired Russian Armed Forces). Professor of the Russian
Academy of Military Sciences and senior fellow at the U.S.A and Canada Studies Institute
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chief of department at the General Staff of the
Russian Armed Forces, 1995–2000.
• Rolf Mowatt-Larssen. Senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs, director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S.
Department of Energy, 2005–2008.
• Simon Saradzhyan. Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs, Moscow-based defense and security expert and writer, 1993–2008.
• William Tobey. Senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs and director of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear
Terrorism, deputy administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the U.S.
National Nuclear Security Administration, 2006–2009.
• Colonel General Viktor I. Yesin (retired Russian Armed Forces). Senior fellow at the
U.S.A and Canada Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and advisor to
commander of the Strategic Missile Forces of Russia, chief of staff of the Strategic Missile
Forces, 1994–1996.• Major General Pavel S. Zolotarev (retired Russian Armed Forces). Deputy director of
the U.S.A and Canada Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head
of the Information and Analysis Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense, 1993–1997,
deputy chief of staff of the Defense Council of Russia, 1997–1998.
Contributor:
• Vladimir Lukov, director general of autonomous non-profit organization “CounterTerrorism Center.
mespo, just an aside to “That’s a matter of degree not kind. And given the consequences of even a small threat it would be exceedingly hard to oversell the matter. As the abstract of the threat assessment makes clear:” But isn’t that what dear Condi [‘mushroom cloud’] Rice did?
Hi Mespo,
Still going? OK.
“Bob Kauten:
“I merely said that he’s cheerleading for the imperial adventures that get them killed unnecessarily. He is. He’s done “attack Iran” crusades, before.”
********************
Nope, never. But like most of your assertions why let a fact or two cause your rhetoric to stumble.
mespo727272
1, August 29, 2012 at 11:26 am
Iran is hardly a “tiny, defenseless country.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28668
Minimizing threats to national security doesn’t help your cause.”
Never crusade to attack Iran? How about really often? Carthage must be destroyed. “Threats to national security”? Whose? Thanks, Cato the Elder. We’ll take that under advisement.
Nope, not stumbling, yet. You push your “attack Iran” agenda, every chance you get. Since we’d sparred on this matter, before, I recalled it.
It comes so naturally to you, that you don’t remember it.
“Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse”, or Iran, or any small country.
mespo, yes, there could be threats of small nuclear attacks from terror groups. But not from nation states, IMO. Your long comment above, re terror groups, may be on target but buys into the post 911 framing which has conflated nation states with terror groups, as if the terror groups were really the equivalent of nation state. That theory is very retrograde thinking which locks one into the trap of seeing a good segment of the world as enemy. Meanwhile the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, and (but for the recent blip) the Europeans attend to matters, variously, of more domestic concern. So who’s got it wrong?
This is much of the reason that 1) demonizing nation states, even the ones we don’t like, doesn’t make strategic sense. They have much the same interest in controlling nuclear material. 2) putting actual effort into building a reasonable consensus with nation states makes more sense than projecting belligerency, both ways. It seems to me, the US has the wherewithal to project belligerency in any number of forms, with the military muscle to humiliate any nation that would talk back, whereas our so-called “enemies” have primarily the belligerent talk format open to them. If the US put let me guess, 1/1oooth of the resources into dissolving international tension, that we do into playing the confrontation game, we might get somewhere.
We are getting into the territory of the US being [as much] the problem as the solution. And I don’t think we should go there.
Sounds like something Dick Chaney would say to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Bob :
I don’t care for imperialists, nationalists, fear-mongers, or religious fanatics. Very frequently, they’re the same people. Not always.”
**********************
Forgot to mention I don’t care much for people who equivocate in matters of morality when a choice is demanded by circumstances. Dante didn’t either. He made those fastidiously neutral folks the nameless, faceless creatures denied entrance into Heaven and Hell and compelled them to chase around a blank banner. I see what he meant now.
ap:
“And, as is often the case with “cheerleaders”, they’re comfortably positioned…and will never experience the heat of battle.”
************************
I wait with baited breath to hear your most exciting combat story, after which I will rush out to query my physician about every malady he has ever suffered and unless his medical history mimics my own exactly, I will discharge him as one who could not possibly understand my plight since he has not personally suffered it himself. BTW the irony is delicious since the defeatists around here would no more volunteer to defend their “corrupt” nation than vote for Obama. But they are certainly willing to criticize those “fools” who would sacrifice themselves “for nothing.”
Good folks!
DonS,
” … the body of commenters on this thread is not necessarily representation of the population at large, though I’d have to think about that a bit more.”
That is exactly what mespo’s aside remark concerning culture did to me yesterday … I needed to think about it.
Cultural strains are buried deep within a society’s conscious being and their push/pull are seldom recognized by the general population and propagandists make good use of that ignorance. However, all that aside (including the gun culture issue), it is something to consider.
I don’t know if Tony C is reading this thread but he might have something to contribute on that matter.
I’m checking a bunch of sociology sources to see what sorts of studies are out there regarding the American cultural positions on home grown tyranny/tyrants ingrained within us and driven by the Constitution.
Nate:
“I finished my service, got out, and discovered it was all lies.”
************************
And just who told you that?
Gene H:
“I didn’t say it wasn’t a real threat, Mark.
I said it is being oversold.”
***********************
That’s a matter of degree not kind. And given the consequences of even a small threat it would be exceedingly hard to oversell the matter. As the abstract of the threat assessment makes clear:
“Given the potentially catastrophic consequences, even a small probability of terrorists getting and detonating a nuclear bomb is enough to justify urgent action to reduce the risk.”
Bob Kauten:
“Yes, many earnest people were sacrificed for absolutely nothing, in Vietnam. They thought that they were doing the right thing.”
*******************
I’m happy, Bob, to know that you know that American soldiers were sacrificed for nothing. Most folks feel sacrificing yourself in the name of duty to country is something, but who are we to argue with you. As for the cheerleading epithet, I find that people who truly believe in something defend it. Those who don’t, lead the chorus against it. Your defense of MM’s failure to answer the fundamental question of citizenship (it’s oh so complicated beyond a mere “binary” choice you know) concerning his support of the attackers of my country speaks volumes about you and your ilk. MM’s non-answer is loud and clear. Now we know you hum the same tune.
I didn’t say it wasn’t a real threat, Mark.
I said it is being oversold.
No matter what justification a rogue state or a terrorist group might use in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, the result would still be the same: them being overwhelmingly reduced to their constituent atomic components or dying from radiation poisoning. Our response to such an attack would be overwhelming and catastrophic for all involved. Any country harboring them would turn their country inside out to get them and hand them over or they would suffer the same fate. Terrorists? They may not fear death, but they’d certainly get some for their efforts. There would be no place to hide if they attacked us (or anyone else for that matter) with a nuclear weapon. Every country would be hunting them. Would I prefer to avoid a nuclear terrorist attack? Sure. But conventional terrorism is about as likely to kill you as your own furniture, so when you factor in the difficulty of getting and/or making a nuclear weapon (especially compared to a biological weapon), the chances are quite slim. And when you make a threat out to be greater than it is?
That’s fear mongering.
Gene H:
“Fear mongering. A nuclear device works as a threat better than it does as an attack vector.”
*******************************
Not for these terrorists. By the way, it’s only fear mongering if the threat is not real — otherwise its an exercise in caution.
• Nuclear terrorism is a real and urgent threat. Urgent actions are required to reduce the risk. The risk is driven by the rise of terrorists who seek to inflict unlimited damage, many of whom have sought justification for their plans in radical interpretations of Islam; by the spread of information about the decades-old technology of nuclear weapons; by the increased availability of weapons-usable nuclear materials; and by globalization, which makes it easier to move people, technologies, and materials across the world.
• Making a crude nuclear bomb would not be easy, but is potentially within the capabilities of a technically sophisticated terrorist group, as numerous government studies have confirmed. Detonating a stolen nuclear weapon would likely be difficult for terrorists to
accomplish, if the weapon was equipped with modern technical safeguards (such as the electronic locks known as Permissive Action Links, or PALs). Terrorists could, however, cut open a stolen nuclear weapon and make use of its nuclear material for a bomb of their own.
• The nuclear material for a bomb is small and difficult to detect, making it a major challenge to stop nuclear smuggling, or to recover nuclear material after it has been stolen. Hence, a primary focus in reducing the risk must be to keep nuclear material and
nuclear weapons from being stolen by continually improving their security, as agreed at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in April 2010.
• Al-Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons for almost two decades. The group has repeatedly attempted to purchase stolen nuclear material or nuclear weapons, and has repeatedly attempted to recruit nuclear expertise. Al-Qaeda reportedly conducted tests of conventional explosives for its nuclear program in the desert in Afghanistan. The group’s nuclear ambitions continued after its dispersal following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Recent writings from top al-Qaeda leadership are focused on justifying the mass slaughter of civilians, including the use of weapons of mass destruction, and are in
all likelihood intended to provide a formal religious justification for nuclear use.
• While there are significant gaps in coverage of the group’s activities, al-Qaeda appears to have been frustrated thus far in acquiring a nuclear capability; it is unclear whether the group has acquired weapons-usable nuclear material or the expertise needed to make
such material into a bomb. Furthermore, pressure from a broad range of counter-terrorist actions probably has reduced the group’s ability to manage large, complex projects, but
has not eliminated the danger. However, there is no sign the group has abandoned its nuclear ambitions. On the contrary, leadership statements as recently as 2008 indicate that the intention to acquire and use nuclear weapons is as strong as ever.
• Terrorist groups from the North Caucasus have in the past planned to seize a nuclear submarine armed with nuclear weapons; have carried out reconnaissance on nuclear weapon storage sites; and have repeatedly threatened to sabotage nuclear facilities or to
use radiological “dirty bombs.” In recent years, these groups have become more focused on an extreme Islamic objective which might be seen as justifying the use of nuclear weapons. These groups’ capabilities to manage large, complex projects have also been
reduced by counter-terrorist actions, though they have demonstrated a continuing ability to launch devastating attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in the Russian heartland.
• The Japanese terror cult Aum Shinrikyo pursued nuclear weapons in the early 1990s, but appears to have abandoned this interest. Few other groups have shown sustained interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. There is precedent to suggest that extremist groups
such as Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed might cooperate with al-Qaeda (or that al-Qaeda and North Caucasus groups might cooperate) in pursuit of a nuclear bomb, as the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiya (JI) rendered substantial assistance to al-Qaeda’s
anthrax project from roughly 1998 to 2001.
• Cooperation between Russia and the United States, the two countries with the largest nuclear stockpiles and the most extensive experience in cooperation to improve nuclear security and interdict nuclear smuggling, is particularly important in reducing the danger
nuclear terrorism could pose to the security of those two countries and the world.
• International intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation targeted on countering nuclear smuggling and identifying and stopping terrorist nuclear plots are also important steps to reduce the danger of nuclear terrorism.
~The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism (2011)
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Joint-Threat-Assessment%20ENG%2027%20May%202011.pdf
Funny, I never see this report challenged — only avoided.
Why bother when something like saran so much easier, I understand, to make/get? (scares the hek out of me, all of it.)
@ Nate – I’m glad you have been able to let go of some of those demons. Passionate skepticism, as you seem to have figured out, doesn’t have to drown me in unproductive emotion. Good for you.
Blousie – “the Constitutionally driven cultural strain against tyranny/tyrants is very evident on this and other threads.” If I understand what you are saying here, I would only add that the body of commenters on this thread is not necessarily representation of the population at large, though I’d have to think about that a bit more.
Gene – also, much of what you said including [what I call] the obsolescence of strategic nuclear weapons in a countries’ arsenal, and why the effort should be enhanced to eliminate stockpiles. Ever since the absurdly self negating fact of ‘mutually assured destruction’ dawned on the geniuses who previously used ‘mutual deterrence’ to justify more and more warheads, we’ve been backing away from the cliff; just not fast enough.
Also, agree, “Any country that is a manifest threat should be dealt with as such.” — who ever intimated elsewise?
And glad you said “It is also the height of American exceptionalism and arrogance to tell other countries we are free to determine what kind of governments they might choose considering our own history.”
Isolationism is a red herring; trouble is the wingers see the logical policy counterpart as that gunboat diplomacy. Not me. We love to travel 😉
Bob Kauten:
“I merely said that he’s cheerleading for the imperial adventures that get them killed unnecessarily. He is. He’s done “attack Iran” crusades, before.”
********************
Nope, never. But like most of your assertions why let a fact or two cause your rhetoric to stumble.
“Eventually they get around to threatening us or their own populations. We can’t afford to wait until one of the new crop of criminals or fools get their very own working nuclear device.” – mespo
Fear mongering. A nuclear device works as a threat better than it does as an attack vector. A dirty bomb or a fission weapon used against us might kill hundreds of thousands. And the party who did it would have their entire country turned in to a sheet of glass. It is simply not advantageous in any way shape or form to actually attack us (or the Soviets for that matter) with a nuclear weapon. We have enough warheads and the delivery systems to get them anywhere we want to ensure that such a play is a death sentence for any and all who would do such a thing. The nuclear threat is overplayed.
However, I’ll give you that the biological and chemical threat is underplayed, harder to trace and less inviting of total annihilation than a nuclear attack.
And much of what DonS said.
However, I’d like to add that allowing countries to their own self-determination is not the equivalent of isolationism. Any country that is a manifest threat should be dealt with as such. That being said, there is a difference between an actual threat and simply engaging in policy we don’t approve of so we decided to force policy upon them. What business of ours is it if a country wants to adopt some other economic system than our manifestly broken free market extreme capitalism? None. And yet we’ve knocked out democratically elected leaders and installed puppet dictators for that very reason in the past. It is no wonder our foreign policy is resulting in enemies rather than allies. The “all stick/gunboat” method of diplomacy is an inherently losing game of diminishing returns.
It is also the height of American exceptionalism and arrogance to tell other countries we are free to determine what kind of governments they might choose considering our own history.
I’m not advocating isolationism. That’s a ridiculous idea. I’m saying we shouldn’t be surprised we gain enemies by acting like a thug instead of actual diplomats. Either our alleged values and systems are strong enough to make the case for emulation or they are not, but forcing them upon others who may not want them is inherently wrong and hypocritical.
I was going to add, but I believe ap’s re-quote is a perfect example, that the Constitutionally driven cultural strain against tyranny/tyrants is very evident on this and other threads.
Not all cultures promote or tolerate tyranny equally, however, human nature is human nature. “It can’t happen here” is a myth of epic proportion. -Gene H.
Right on the mark.