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
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/obamas_drone_war_and_the_conservative_media/
http://www.amazon.com/National-Insecurity-Cost-American-Militarism/dp/0872865894/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism [Paperback]
Melvin A. Goodman (Author)
This title has not yet been released.
“Mel Goodman has spent the last few decades telling us what’s gone wrong with American intelligence and the American military, and now, in National Insecurity, he tells us what we must do to change the way the system works, and how to fix it. Goodman is not only telling us how to save wasted billions–he is also telling us how to save ourselves.” — Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker
“Upon leaving the White House in 1961, President Eisenhower famously warned Americans about the dangers of a “military industrial complex,” and was clearly worried about the destabilizing effects of a national economy based on outsized investments in military spending. As more and more Americans fall into poverty and the global economy spirals downward, the United States is spending more on the military than ever before. What are the consequences and what can be done?”
Melvin A. Goodman, a twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA, brings peerless authority to his argument that US military spending is indeed making Americans poorer and less secure while undermining our political standing in the world. Drawing from his firsthand experience with war planners and intelligence strategists, Goodman offers an insider’s critique of the US military economy from President’s Eisenhower’s farewell warning to Barack Obama’s expansion of the military’s power. He outlines a much needed vision for how to alter our military policy, practices, and spending in order to better position the United States globally and enhance prosperity and security at home.
Melvin A. Goodman is the Director of the National Security Project at the Center for International Policy. A former professor of international security at the National War College and an intelligence adviser to strategic disarmament talks in the 1970s, he is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed The Failure of Intelligence.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/02/the-senators-and-the-drone-man.html Obama’s drone man escapes the senate “unscathed”.
5 Homeland Security ‘Bots Coming to Spy on You (If They Aren’t Already)
By Robert Beckhusen
02.08.13
6:29 AM
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/dhs-drones/
Is This the Secret U.S. Drone Base in Saudi Arabia?
By Noah Shachtman
02.07.13
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/secret-drone-base-2/
Excerpt:
If this picture does prove to be of a secret U.S. drone base, it wouldn’t be the first clandestine American airfield revealed by public satellite imagery. In 2009, for instance, Sen. Diane Feinstein accidentally revealed that the U.S. was flying its robotic aircraft from Pakistani soil. The News of Pakistan quickly dug through Google Earth’s archives to find Predator drones sitting on a runway not far from the Jacobabad Air Base in Pakistan – one of five airfields in the country used for unmanned attacks. The pictures proved that the Pakistani officials were actively participating in the American drone campaign, despite their public condemnation of the strikes. Until then, such participation had only been suspected. While the drone attacks continued, the U.S. was forced to withdraw from some of the bases.
So far, reaction to the Saudi base has been relatively muted. American forces officially withdrew from Saudi Arabia years ago, in part because the presence of foreign troops in the Muslim holy land so inflamed militants. It’s unclear how the drone base changes this calculation, if at all.
1) “The hypebole is declaring that a nuclear device on Pennsylvania Avenue or Wall Street won’t effect the type of destruction of the economy that the terrorists seek.”
Except for the many millions (if not billions) spent on back up systems and planning for such vacuums. If the “resulting anarchy” is a foregone conclusion, then those monies and plans are wasted. As for destroying the economy, well, the terrorists have already done a pretty good job in that area by creating a situation where the hawks have an endless perpetual state of war in which to dump money sorrily needed elsewhere taking care of our people and infrastructure.
2) “By the way, the reason those odds are so low in dying in a terrorist attack has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we are applying constant pressure to those terrorists I’m sure.”
Straw man. I didn’t say that it didn’t and this isn’t about pressure on terrorists. It’s about shredding the Constitution in the name of expediency and a power grab by an ever increasingly unitary Executive. The President works for me, or more accurately, us. Not the other way around. And I’ll be damned if he was ever given permission to kill US citizens based on secret evidence and without due process other than by his own rubber stamp “legal” goon squad. Not all forms of pressure are created equal.
3) “The rest of your comment is just carrying water for Bob. He’s a big boy with a one track mind. He can fend for himself, I thimk.”
Not in the slightest. Bob is a big boy and he can defend himself although I’ll stipulate he does have a bad case of Kant on the brain. However, in this instance, we have mutual interest even if we reached our similar conclusions via different paths.
I am in the middle on this one. Think that the terrorist threat is real but one must be very careful not to exaggerate it . Congress must exercise oversight and not continue to wash their hands of enacting any laws concerning drones. The white house memos should be interpreting the laws not making them up as they go along. One can only go so far in blaming an “imperial” president when congress has abdicated their duties.
Bob Kauten:
“No need to reply, unless it’s cathartic for you. I’m done with this topic, for now. I feel no need to check back.”
****************
See ya, Bob. If I were in the hole you dug, I stop digging too. Not catharsis, merely observation. Never did get your answer to my question, though — from you or MM.
Maybe I did.
Gene H:
“Pure hyperbole, unless of course you think a terrorist group could mount the kind of nuclear attack required to destroy an entire country.”
******************
The hypebole is declaring that a nuclear device on Pennsylvania Avenue or Wall Street won’t effect the type of destruction of the economy that the terrorists seek. It’s been in all the papers, Gene. They don’t need an Hiroshima in an interdependent world.
By the way, the reason those odds are so low in dying in a terrorist attack has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we are applying constant pressure to those terrorists I’m sure.
The rest of your comment is just carrying water for Bob. He’s a big boy with a one track mind. He can fend for himself, I thimk.
Bob Kauten:
“Next sunny day, take a leisurely walk outside. Note that, by far, the majority of people you meet on your walk, are not trying to kill you. They probably bear you no ill will, at all.”
********************
I will if you take that same walk by the former site of the World Trade Center. No doubt those poor folks thought exactly as you do before they didn’t. Acknowledging the designs of your enemies isn’t fear, it’s intelligence at work.
Mespo,
Next sunny day, take a leisurely walk outside. Note that, by far, the majority of people you meet on your walk, are not trying to kill you. They probably bear you no ill will, at all.
Being terrified of everything is a lot of work. It’s very tiring, and shortens your life. Do you think that’s working, for you?
Now, I know that you’ll make some attempt to turn this message against me. That’s all right. That’s just who you are. I forgive you in advance. You can’t really insult me. I simply can’t take offense at someone who can’t control his fears. You are not responsible for the things you say to others.
No need to reply, unless it’s cathartic for you. I’m done with this topic, for now. I feel no need to check back.
“And people like Bob, Esq. live in a fairy land where the most fundamental law of them all, self-preservation, means holding the barrel straight at you while spouting irrelevant platitudes about your evil nature even as your enemy pulls the trigger. Bravo Bob, the country will be dead but the rights and principles of its good citizens like you will somehow be miraculously intact.”
Pure hyperbole, unless of course you think a terrorist group could mount the kind of nuclear attack required to destroy an entire country.
“Pragmatism be damned!”
Speaking of damning pragmatism, let’s look at those odds again of dying in a terrorist attack of any kind let alone nuclear. Why . . . let’s look at some numbers from the NCTC Final Report from 2011.
“The total number of worldwide attacks in 2011, however, dropped by almost 12 percent from 2010 and nearly 29 percent from 2007.” (9)
Attacks by AQ and its affiliates increased by 8 percent from 2010 to 2011. A significant increase in attacks by al-Shabaab, from 401 in 2010 to 544 in 2011, offset a sharp decline in attacks by al-Qa‘ida in Iraq (AQI) and a smaller decline in attacks by al-Qa‘ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qa‘ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).” (11)
In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.” (14)
Of 978 terrorism-related kidnapping last year, only three hostages were private U.S. citizens, or .3 percent. A private citizen is defined as ‘any U.S. citizen not acting in an official capacity on behalf of the U.S. government.’ (13, 17)
Of the 13,288 people killed by terrorist attacks last year, seventeen were private U.S. citizens, or .1 percent. (17)
According to the report, the number of U.S. citizens who died in terrorist attacks increased by two between 2010 and 2011; overall, a comparable number of Americans are crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year.”
http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2012/06/05/how-many-americans-are-killed-by-terrorism/?cid=oth_partner_site-atlantic
I want to know when we are going to start using drone strikes to kill American televisions without due process as clearly they are a threat to national security.
“It’s all about some duty to some prophylactic philosophy of being “good” that matters. That’s certainly looking out for the country and paying no heed at all to the already proven fears of its leaders. We’ll all die but we’ll be moral to our last gasp!”
1) Have you seen our leaders and do you understand their financial incentives in perpetual war based on our electoral funding mechanisms? 2) Right? There is that old saying about babies and bathwater that comes to mind.
“Constitution as suicide pact –which categorical imperative is that one?”
When you destroy the Constitution to “save it”? Again, King Pyrrhus of Epirus has a lesson on that.
Bob,Esq:
“… 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..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.”
**************************
And people like Bob, Esq. live in a fairy land where the most fundamental law of them all, self-preservation, means holding the barrel straight at you while spouting irrelevant platitudes about your evil nature even as your enemy pulls the trigger. Bravo Bob, the country will be dead but the rights and principles of its good citizens like you will somehow be miraculously intact. Pragmatism be damned! It’s all about some duty to some prophylactic philosophy of being “good” that matters. That’s certainly looking out for the country and paying no heed at all to the already proven fears of its leaders. We’ll all die but we’ll be moral to our last gasp!
Constitution as suicide pact –which categorical imperative is that one?
Bob Kauthen:
“Mespo,
Get some sleep. You’ve totally lost it.
If you’re like this tomorrow, get some help.
Hope you feel better.
**********************
If that’s your way of saying “uncle,” consider it heard.
Mike A:
“And even now, neocons are screaming that we should somehow be controlling events in the so-called “Arab spring.” Is is utter nonsense. More importantly, it is immoral.”
*******************
The immorality is allowing innocents to die at the hands of their oppressors when we could do much to prevent it with little risk to ourselves. That is the moral lesson of Bosnia and Rwanda. Preventing genocide is neither immoral nor optional for the ethical nation.
“At the 2005 World Summit, Heads of State and Government unanimously affirmed that “each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” They agreed that, when appropriate, the international community should assist States in exercising that responsibility by building their protection capacities before crises and conflicts break out. However, when a state is “manifestly failing” to protect its population from the four specified crimes, the Heads of State and Government confirmed that the international community was prepared to take collective action, through the Security Council and in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
~UN website
mespo:
The rebuilding we concluded after World War II is hardly a satisfactory analogy for what we have been doing since then. Japan, Korea and the countries of western Europe were nations for hundreds of years; they were not the erstwhile creations of colonial chess players. We were not nation building, but nation restoring.
What we have been attempting to do in Iraq and Afghanistan is to create nations out of whole cloth in the foolish belief that we can export democracy like surplus grain to people who don’t want it, don’t understand it and don’t even share a sense of nationhood, as opposed to nationalism. And even now, neocons are screaming that we should somehow be controlling events in the so-called “Arab spring.” Is is utter nonsense. More importantly, it is immoral.
Bob, Esq.:
Good to see your post, especially since I completely agree with it.
Mespo,
Get some sleep. You’ve totally lost it.
If you’re like this tomorrow, get some help.
Hope you feel better.
Where’s the ‘war on pedophiles’?
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too many catholics in the u.s.
if some fundies had their way they’d escalate the war on christmas