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
Assassination Rationales Then & Now – And How Awlaki Didn’t Meet Any of the Criteria
by Jesselyn Radack on February 05, 2013 ( The Whistleblogger / 2013 )
http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/44-2013/2523-assassination-rationales-then-a-now-and-how-awlaki-didnt-meet-any-of-the-criteria
Excerpt:
“The newly-released cold, calculating, chilling white paper only makes the stunning scope and reach of Executive authority even scarier. For me, it’s another strike against Brennan, not in his favor. Brennan was rejected when Obama wanted him to be CIA director during his first term – primarily because of his history with the torture program while he was Deputy Executive Director of the CIA. Since then, although it would have been hard to fathom four years ago, Brennan’s record of atrocities has gotten worse. He has overseen the drone program and assassination program. Yet there is far less outcry this time around, and Brennan will be confirmed. Congress should at least put a hold on his coronation until the actual memos are provided. Our democracy deserves that, even if we don’t deserve him.
More great pieces on other aspects of this issue have been written by Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, Marcy Wheeler, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic, and Jonathan Turley.”
Here’s the full list and their letter to Obama:
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) ,
Mike Lee (R-Ut.),
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.),
Mark Begich (D-Alaska) ,
Susan Collins (R-Maine),
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.),
Al Franken (D-Minn.),
Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.),
Mark Udall (D-Col.), and
Tom Udall (D-N.M.).
http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/04/senskillopsltr.html
Drone Strikes’ Dangers to Get Rare Moment in Public Eye
Wednesday, 06 February 2013 09:16 By Scott Shane, Robert F Worth and Mark Mazzetti, The New York Times News Service
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14374-drone-strikes-dangers-to-get-rare-moment-in-public-eye
Excerpt:
Anger at America
In the days afterward, the people of the village vented their fury at the Americans with protests and briefly blocked a road. It is difficult to know what the long-term effects of the deaths will be, though some in the town — as in other areas where drones have killed civilians — say there was an upwelling of support for Al Qaeda, because such a move is seen as the only way to retaliate against the United States.
Innocents aside, even members of Al Qaeda invariably belong to a tribe, and when they are killed in drone strikes, their relatives — whatever their feelings about Al Qaeda — often swear to exact revenge on America.
“Al Qaeda always gives money to the family,” said Hussein Ahmed Othman al Arwali, a tribal sheik from an area south of the capital called Mudhia, where Qaeda militants fought pitched battles with Yemeni soldiers last year. “Al Qaeda’s leaders may be killed by drones, but the group still has its money, and people are still joining. For young men who are poor, the incentives are very strong: they offer you marriage, or money, and the ideological part works for some people.”
In some cases, drones have killed members of Al Qaeda when it seemed that they might easily have been arrested or captured, according to a number of Yemeni officials and tribal figures. One figure in particular has stood out: Adnan al Qadhi, who was killed, apparently in a drone strike, in early November in a town near the capital.
Mr. Qadhi was an avowed supporter of Al Qaeda, but he also had recently served as a mediator for the Yemeni government with other jihadists, and was drawing a government salary at the time of his death. He was not in hiding, and his house is within sight of large houses owned by a former president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and other leading figures.
Whatever the success of the drone strikes, some Yemenis wonder why there is not more reliance on their country’s elite counterterrorism unit, which was trained in the United States as part of the close cooperation between the two countries that Mr. Brennan has engineered. One member of the unit, speaking on the condition of anonymity, expressed great frustration that his unit had not been deployed on such missions, and had in fact been posted to traffic duty in the capital in recent weeks, even as the drone strikes intensified.
“For sure, we could be going after some of these guys,” the officer said. “That’s what we’re trained to do, and the Americans trained us. It doesn’t make sense.”
Robert F. Worth reported from Sana, and Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane from Washington.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/189864891.html Glad to see Franken getting involved too.
I agree. He’s certainly one of the good guys, like Feingold.
ap, He should pull out all the stops. I am a fan of Wyden. The only way to stop this is to draw more attention to it and hopefully get bi-partisan support for changes in these policies.
Swarthmore mom,
Are you implying that Wyden shouldn’t “pull out all the stops?”
Sen Wyden says the administration is “stonewalling” on targeted killings. He will “pull out all the stops” during the Brennan process to get info. Looks to me like Wyden is trying to become the next Russ Feingold. The Feingold loss to the republican teapartyer Johnson still stings.
Even the NYT, former home of Judith can-I-whore-for-some-war Miller, and ‘better check with the govt to let them tell us what’s too embarrassing to print’, get’s in the act with an editorial on the white paper. I wouldn’t say they tear Obama a new one, but they leave no equivocating doubt as to where they stand:
” . . .it was disturbing to see the twisted logic of the administration’s lawyers laid out in black and white. ”
[snip]
“This dispute goes to the fundamental nature of our democracy, to the relationship among the branches of government and to their responsibility to the public. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/to-kill-an-american.html?hp&_r=0
But as Obama says, ‘we don’t need no stinkin oversight’, to loosely paraphrase much more offensive language..
Dredd Yes, but my boring case shows that these protections can be withheld. In my case, there was no grand jury but the USMS sent a fax saying I was wanted for a felony. I never got a document from the feds saying what a government interest was and DOJ sent me an email saying that they were opposed to having an evidentiary hearing about whether or not I engaged in abusive litigation even though they filed in federal court that I did and that was why I was imprisoned. I actually stated and supported the tort of First Amendment Retaliation. A bail hearing is supposed to include a right to a lawyer and witness but I was told the first time that I didn’t have a right to a lawyer or witnesses. The Bail Reform Act says that bail can only be withheld for certain crimes and I wasn’t accused of any of that. An order to hold someone without bail has to have certain contents and Nottingham’s orders did not contain those contents. The second time I was held there was an assistant U.S. Attorney who said that the government was not a party, my public defender said I had a right to a bail hearing, but I was denied one and then held as a high security prisoner with convicted felons for 3 weeks. So there was no jury. DOJ pled in federal court just recently that I didn’t have a right to confrontation because I wasn’t accused of a crime. The witnesses against me weren’t sworn and I wasn’t allowed to cross them. There wasn’t a prosecutor. When I was imprisoned by DOJ for 5 months I was denied an attorney and denied law library access. (Since I don’t have a criminal record, I didn’t know the Rules of Criminal Procedure.)
This is the same government that is now claiming broader authority to kill Americans.
I was wondering how Mr. obama’s little fan club on here would react to this. Remember how much grief President Bush received about enhanced interrogation including “waterboarding”? You would have thought it was the crime of all crimes committed. So much that wingnuts labeled President Bush as a “war criminal”. And that waterboarding was only done three times, with a doctor present, and done only for a few minutes.
Now we hear this about Mr. obama? Where’s the outcry, where’s all that whining from the wingnuts???
Can we say DOUBLE STANDARD??????
The 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments require presentment of evidence to a grand jury, the return of a true bill, right to bail, defense counsel, access to prosecutor’s exculpatory evidence, a jury trial by peers, confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses, and a unanimous jury guilty verdict prior to the loss of liberty or life.
Barking up this tree is wasted time and breath. I will explain if necessary.
The body count is much higher in the USA every year. This was a campaign move by Obama.
This is not new. People are taken out constantly without a trace, and the ev. survivors are offered “deals they can’t refuse” to quote Marlon B.
Neither is prosecutorial persecution, even that was there when HUAC chased reds in Hollywood.
Here’s a quote by an actor who gave up his resistance. Hope you are old enough to have seen him. Lee J.Cobb.
“Lee J. Cobb was one of those actors who was originally blacklisted but eventually cooperated with the HUAC:
“When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit – being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That’s minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. In 1953 the HCUA did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn’t borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it’s worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn’t worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I’d do it. I had to be employable again.””
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm
Blouise,
“Will the numbers necessary to take action through their vote show up at the booth?”
If it goes to a R vs D elecrtion, then it is too late. The time to kill undesireables is in the primary. Then even fewer vote, a populist movement would have greater possibility to effect who the machine has to support. Popullism is still news in this country, and shows that the process begins at your home district.
Not my idea, just loaned.
Of course we can throw up our hands and say that they can counter this by throwing coffer money in the primary race. Worth a try anyway. .
Boy, am I late, the train has already 175 cars.
GeneH,
Thanks for the fractql aspect. But not only analysis. It is wrong on any scale in which it is synthesized or used. From prosecutorial persecution to whole groups of American citizens with constitutional shield removed. It all looks the same at any scale.
In this case equally wrong. No essential difference. That is why we have a Constitution, to eliminate such possibilities by applying it at all levels.
Not observed any more, of course.
Botany has loopy taxonomy.
I will check back in the morning. I am done for the day.
Gene,
Yep, that was one of them but technically speaking, it should be sporangium rather than sporange since sporangia is the plural form of the word.