wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on Oct 3, 2011 1:38:25 GMT -5
The US government has now asserted its right to have US citizens assassinated without charges being laid, and without a trial.
Even Nazi and Japanese war criminals got a trial, so this bullshit about "due process of war" is exactly that.
When are American citizens planning to get around to demanding that their government obey the Constitution? Never? Exactly how much abuse of due process are Americans prepared to put up with in the name of a false sense of security from a grossly exaggerated threat? I suppose anything goes as long as the US citizen has a Muslim-sounding name and is accused of being a terrorist at a press conference held after the deed has been done.
Obama is now officially as big an a-hole as Bush ever was. You don't have a government any more, you have benevolent (?) dictators.Memo gave approval for al-Awlaki hitPeter Finn, Scott Shane October 2, 2011WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorising the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born radical cleric who was killed by a US drone strike on Friday, according to administration officials. The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a US citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. ''What constitutes due process in this case is a due process in war,'' said one of the officials. The administration has faced a legal challenge and public criticism for targeting al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, because of constitutional protections afforded US citizens. The memorandum may represent an attempt to resolve, at least internally, a legal debate over whether a president can order the killing of US citizens overseas as a counterterrorism measure. The operation to kill al-Awlaki involved CIA and military assets under CIA control. Administration officials said on Friday that at least 23 senior extremist Islamic leadership figures had been killed or captured in US or allied operations in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere since August 2009. A second American killed in Friday's attack was Samir Khan, a driving force behind Inspire, the English-language magazine produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. An administration official said the CIA did not know Khan was with al-Awlaki, but they also considered Khan a belligerent whose presence near the target would not have stopped the attack. The top al-Qaeda bomb-maker in Yemen, Ibrahim al-Asiri, is also believed to have died in the drone strike. Al-Asiri is the bomb-maker linked to the device hidden in the underwear of a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. ''This is further proof that al-Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven,'' the US President, Barack Obama, said on Friday. ''We will be determined, we will be deliberate, we will be relentless, we will be resolute in our commitment to destroy terrorist networks that aim to kill Americans.'' Last year, the Obama administration invoked the state secrets privilege to argue successfully for the dismissal of a lawsuit brought in US District Court in Washington by al-Awlaki's father, Nasser, seeking to block the targeting of his son. The decision to place al-Awlaki on a capture or kill list was made early last year, after intelligence officials concluded that he played a direct role in the plot to blow up a civilian aircraft and had become an operational figure within al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen. The US-educated son of a US-educated Yemeni technocrat, al-Awlaki embodied the puzzle of radicalisation: How did a US citizen come to call for mass murder, in eloquent English, deftly mastering the megaphone of the internet? Al-Awlaki's calm justifications for violence against his fellow Americans, recycled across the web for years, had a profound impact on a small number of young Muslims in the US, Canada and Britain. That legacy will mean that impressionable young people are likely to discover him in the future, perhaps with his status enhanced as jihadists hail his martyrdom. Washington Post, The New York Times, Associated Press Read more: www.theage.com.au/world/memo-gave-approval-for-alawlaki-hit-20111001-1l2jq.html#ixzz1ZhJvkMyH
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Post by patchoulli on Oct 3, 2011 2:07:11 GMT -5
I don't think it's a way of protecting the US against future acts by terrorists (which is as you stated, "a grossly exaggerated threat")at all. I think there's more to it. Bin Laden and Al Awlaki knew things the US didn't want the general populace to know. Perhaps they were on the verge of telling some of those things. Wonder who's next. Very sinister stuff.
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 9:57:20 GMT -5
It's an interesting question. Nazis were brought up.
Had Adolf Hitler been born in Arkansas then at six months old moved with his family to Germany and all the rest happened as history tells us, then would the allies' only option have been to rule out killing Hitler in favor of capturing him for trial?
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Post by Peltigera on Oct 3, 2011 11:23:00 GMT -5
That was the preferred option, Pax - not killing Hitler - regardless of where he was born.
Legally, if the constitution of a particular nation state says people must have a trial before being executed, then that is how that nation state should behave. If their constitution says people should have a trial before being executed unless it is inconvenient, that would be another matter. Thankfully, ours rules out execution for any reason, with or without a trial.
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 11:42:03 GMT -5
Respectfully, that's a bit of a hedge on your part, Peltigera. "Preferred" leaves open the possibility of exceptions to the rule.
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Post by patchoulli on Oct 3, 2011 11:56:32 GMT -5
But there should not be ANY exceptions to the rule. The US has a Constitution which grants all US citizens a fair trial. Killing bin Laden and now Awlaki seems imo the opening of Pandora's box. I see trials as a sort of psychological tool also. We can learn from people who commit atrocities. Perhaps help to prevent them in the future.
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Post by Peltigera on Oct 3, 2011 12:15:49 GMT -5
But there should not be ANY exceptions to the rule. The US has a Constitution which grants all US citizens a fair trial. <snip> Actually, your constitution does not give that right to US citizens, it gives it to all people. Your government cannot lawfully deprive anyone, citizen or no, of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
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Post by Peltigera on Oct 3, 2011 12:16:34 GMT -5
Respectfully, that's a bit of a hedge on your part, Peltigera. "Preferred" leaves open the possibility of exceptions to the rule. Nothing wrong with hedges!
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 12:22:58 GMT -5
It seems Pelitgera that you and I are the only ones who, given my thought experiment, would have felt that assassinating Hitler was an acceptable course of action under any circumstances.
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Post by Peltigera on Oct 3, 2011 12:38:37 GMT -5
I wouldn't be happy with it, Pax. But then I am not happy that 6 million-odd people died in the concentration camps - or that 60-70 millions died as soldiers and collateral damage.
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Pax
Are We There Yet? Member
quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 12:42:06 GMT -5
That's the thing. We can discuss whether, under the circumstances, it was right to assassinate Awlaki. I just don't think it's a realistic discussion whether assassinating Awlaki was acceptable, at ALL, under ANY circumstances.
Personally I don't have a problem with it, for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that we are, after all, at war with these people.
It's another good discussion whether we should be at war at all, but it was declared (well, resolved -- I DO have a problem with that) by us, so, whether you like it or not, America behaves as if it were at war because it is -- and assassinating enemy leaders is a time-worn tactic in war.
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Pax
Are We There Yet? Member
quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 13:34:51 GMT -5
ps., come to think of it, I'd say that it's on THAT basis that you could argue that Awlaki's assassination was unconstitutional -- we're not technically at war because Congress never formally declared war as they are required to do by the Constitution.
Given fifty years of history where America has "resolved" itself into war -- the last declared war was WWII -- I seriously doubt that even under the best of circumstances the Supreme Court could be persuaded to rule that Awlaki's death is unconstitutional based on this war never having been formally declared as constituationally required. Sad, I admit, but true.
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Post by patchoulli on Oct 3, 2011 13:43:32 GMT -5
So if bin Laden's assassanation was okay, then it will be okay if other governments around the world do it to our folks too? Awlaki was executed, probably for what he knew and could expose. He was an American, true, but does that mean it's okay for the US government to off us, without the option of a trial, if they suspect us of wrong doing? It is just another form of the death penalty. Only scarier because who knows who is next? Me? You? For what we discuss here?
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on Oct 3, 2011 14:42:23 GMT -5
Personally I don't have a problem with it, for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that we are, after all, at war with these people. Are you really at war with individuals? That is not possible as a legal measure - you can only be at war with another country and al Qaeda is not a country. You can certainly be after them for their criminal actions, but then you have to apply due process, whether it is convenient or not. Sadly, too many Americans have gone for the convenient over their so-called freedoms. Which, of course, means that these freedoms you are so proud of no longer exist.
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 15:20:16 GMT -5
If you say so.
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Pax
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quod erat demonstrandum.
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Post by Pax on Oct 3, 2011 16:10:49 GMT -5
ps., you know what, it's absolutely offensive that an opportunity is never allowed to go by to take a swipe at how the US is a police state, its people are stupid, etc. I have never gone after your countries like that, much less consistently, and don't kid yourselves that it's because your countries are angels; you know better. This is part of the reason I stopped posting here and watched as two weeks would go by before anyone posted ANYthing.
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Post by Peltigera on Oct 3, 2011 16:24:58 GMT -5
There is a major difference between the people in the USA and the people in other countries (as a broad brush generalisation) in that it is quite normal for USians to tell the rest of us how great their country is and how they are much freer than the rest of us. I have never, in the 15 years I have been discussing global politics on the web, heard a citizen of any other country do that.
The thing is, if you keep boasting (you as in USians, not you as in Pax) how great and free you and your country are, you must expect a response. No, my country is not perfect but does not claim to be and we British are far from angels but do not claim to be - but we do not execute our citizens, we do not execute our children and we do not sentence people to life in prison for petty theft - the Land of the Free does. And that does require comment.
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on Oct 3, 2011 16:35:41 GMT -5
ps., you know what, it's absolutely offensive that an opportunity is never allowed to go by to take a swipe at how the US is a police state, its people are stupid, etc. . Please feel free to point out where I used those terms. (Hint: I didn't).
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Post by patchoulli on Oct 3, 2011 16:53:12 GMT -5
Pelti is right, Pax. We just never hear another country shouting how great it is while behind its back it's torturing, assassinating, letting drones kill innocent people, and just as Pelti said, we are the barbarians that execute our own people. Now, with the murder of Awlaki, we seem to be doing that even without so much as a trial. (Believe me, I don't think he was someone worth saving but we should have given him a trial). To those that are not USians - we, the people, are mostly good folks, we're kind and caring and compassionate. We're individualistic and we're fun and we're creative. We love our families and we help our neighbors. But I don't think we have a clue as to how to deal with what is going on in our government and our media and our corporations. The only thing close to what is going on now is what went on in the nineteen twenties but this time it's much darker and more sinister. Those of us who still have the energy and physical capacity to get out and protest don't remember the twenties and those who do are too old to make much noise. We voted and got our voice heard and our man was elected. Look what that got us. I think one has to be able to look in the mirror and understand that what he/she sees might need some sprucing up. If you don't want terrorists killing your folks, don't kill their folks. If you want to holler about what a great country you live in you have to make sure it really is great. Otherwise it's pretty much like the Wizard of Oz.
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oskar
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Post by oskar on Oct 4, 2011 4:26:15 GMT -5
To top it all off the US is violating its own laws and Constitution to the approving roar of the sheeple.
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Post by patchoulli on Oct 4, 2011 6:14:40 GMT -5
We have no leaders. People who have been dumbed down by the media and consumerism find it hard to think for themselves. Charismatic leaders will rule even if they do not have the best interests of the people in mind.
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on Oct 4, 2011 6:25:50 GMT -5
No need to take my word for it. Here's the view of a prominent American journalist writing in an august journal. Americans, believing themselves to stand proudly for the rule of law and human rights, have become for the rest of the world a symbol of something quite opposite: a society in which lawbreaking, approved by its highest elected officials, goes unpunished. Thus President Obama’s exhortation that the country look forward and not back takes on a different coloring: the country has entered a twilight world when it comes to the law and is unlikely soon to emerge from it.Mark Danner, "Our State of Exception", New York Review of Books www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/13/after-september-11-our-state-exception/?page=4
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on Oct 4, 2011 18:34:47 GMT -5
Or perhaps you might be prepared to listen to the ACLU's view ...Invitation to a Dialogue: Human Rights Since 9/11Published: October 4, 2011To the Editor: In recent weeks there has been much discussion about how to judge America’s human rights record in the decade after 9/11, and the balance between civil liberties and security. Could things have been worse? No doubt. We did not, for example, experience anything on the scale of the Japanese-American internment during World War II, and the government backed off some of its more Orwellian plans in the face of public opposition, including a huge database of personal information chillingly entitled the Total Information Awareness program. But we should not underestimate the damage that has been done to our values, our reputation and the rule of law in the past decade. The response to 9/11 included torture, extraordinary rendition, prolonged detention without charges or trial and secret imprisonment. Those grave abuses are an indelible part of our human rights legacy, even if they primarily occurred at Guantánamo and other overseas sites. As recent events show, the government claims the unreviewable right to kill American citizens far from any battlefield based on uncertain standards and secret evidence. Thousands of Americans now find themselves on government watch lists with no meaningful way to challenge their designation or have their names removed. An enormous increase in government surveillance reaches far beyond those suspected of terrorism, inviting ethnic and religious profiling. And, with each passing year, the risk increases that legal changes adopted after 9/11 that erode our civil liberties, like the Patriot Act, will become permanent fixtures of our legal system. Finally, 10 years after 9/11, we have yet to hold accountable those who violated human rights in our name, or provide any meaningful remedy for those who suffered as a result. STEVEN R. SHAPIRO National Legal Director American Civil Liberties Union New York, Oct. 3, 2011 www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/opinion/invitation-to-a-dialogue-human-rights-since-911.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
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oskar
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Post by oskar on Oct 4, 2011 19:12:03 GMT -5
As recent events show, the government claims the unreviewable right to kill American citizens far from any battlefield based on uncertain standards and secret evidence.
Even the ACLU fails to see it. Even they seem to think that killing a USian is worse than killing someone else.
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Post by patchoulli on Oct 5, 2011 4:10:08 GMT -5
I would doubt anyone who would work for the ACLU would think killing an American is worse than killing someone else. They are pretty enlightened folks. It's more like the piece has the attitude of "now we're even killing our own citizens" in hopes of maybe opening more eyes to what is going on.
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Post by Peltigera on Oct 5, 2011 4:19:23 GMT -5
Even the ACLU fails to see it. Even they seem to think that killing a USian is worse than killing someone else. It is - if the killing is done by the USA government. One of the prime purposes of a government is to protect its citizens. The USA government exists, in part, to protect USA citizens and fails to do that when it kills them.
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