Plan B Forum

Memo Cites Legal Basis for Killing U.S. Citizens in Al Qaeda

So now I guess Al Qaeda won't have to hide in a school yard they just have to advertise that they have a US citizen as a member...

Remember this sh-t is all coming down under Obama.

He kinda makes Richard Nixon appear almost benign.

I don't know about Nixon, but he clearly seems to be seduced by the power and getting off on being able to exercise it by force of will; if W had issued this memo I'd bet it wouldn't have been so blithely received.

The "media" have all but buried this story.

Whores that they are.

if W had issued this memo I'd bet it wouldn't have been so blithely received.

Man, you got that one right....

There'd be screams of "Impeachment!" and "War Crimes!" and shrill self-righteous demands that the lawyer who wrote the memo be disbarred and possibly criminally prosecuted....the liberal mainstream press would be hammering it relentlessly...

That having been said, as I've stated before, I support Obama 100% on this policy. As I do with most of his forward leaning anti-terrorism strategy; the best way to avoid future 9/11's and Afghanistans, is to go after the terrorists wherever and whenever we find them, before they can metastasize and organize to the point where they can represent that sort of threat, and a far costlier (both in treasure and lives) response is required.

I'm not going to condemn policies I approve of just because they are carried out by a President of the other party. I have many things to criticize Obama for, but on his handling of anti-terrorism and national security in general, (despite a few ill chosen missteps that he had to walk back; like closing Guantanamo and proposing major changes in The Patriot Act) he has my full support.

I agree with what LJ posted in case anyone got the wrong impression.

I see it as no different than using deadly force to save the lives of myself or my family...

dales wrote:The "media" have all but buried this story.

Whores that they are.

The article linked in the OP was from the New York Times, and written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. The story broke on NBC News. It has also been covered by the LA Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Reuters, NPR, PBS NewsHour, HuffPo, Slate, FuxNews, The Guardian, The Telegraph and the New York Daily News. If that's "buried," you have some strange ideas.

Big RR wrote:if W had issued this memo I'd bet it wouldn't have been so blithely received.

I don't think it's being blithely received at all. The ACLU has been trying for a year and a half to get access to the actual legal memorandum on which this summary was based, as part of its ongoing litigation over targeted killings. The government's apparent claim that there can be sufficient "due process" simply by virtue of executive review is laughable. "Disturbing" is a gross understatement in characterizing this policy.

keld feldspar wrote:I see it as no different than using deadly force to save the lives of myself or my family...

It is significantly different. This policy is no less than putting people on a hit list for summary execution, based on secret criteria subject to no review. It's disgustingly un-American, as it is violation of the fundamental principles on which our nation is founded.

The story just broke recently. It is complicated and serious. I would wait and see what the reaction is before trying to categorize it.

yrs,
rubato

Big RR wrote:"... if W had issued this memo I'd bet it wouldn't have been so blithely received.

Of course Ws judgement was proven to be so bad that no one would wish to submit any important decision to it. Ever. We are still repairing the damage caused by his lack of intelligence.

yrs,
rubato

The story just broke recently

Of course to anyone with a passing familiarity with the news, it is only the story of this memo that has broken recently...(Though the existence of something like this should have been assumed; it's standard government procedure in clandestine warfare to have memos like this produced)

The news of the terrorist traitors being taken down in the field by drone strikes broke within days of when they happened back in September and October of 2011.

Yes, these things have been reported, but they certainly haven't been harped on day in and day out with crusading zeal by the mainstream press the way say, enhanced interrogation was....

Sue U wrote:

keld feldspar wrote:I see it as no different than using deadly force to save the lives of myself or my family...

It is significantly different. This policy is no less than putting people on a hit list for summary execution, based on secret criteria subject to no review. It's disgustingly un-American, as it is violation of the fundamental principles on which our nation is founded.

No it's not, they are all out of country working for an organization that the US is at war with. If they are members of that organization within the US they might have a leg to stand on.

I don't doubt that the spooks have IDd individuals based on an organizational hierachy, cut the head the rest will die. Of course we're working with a hydra here, but this is no less asymetric than what they are doing and that is decidedly UNAmerican to the point of ANTIAmerican.

No sympathy here...

disgustingly un-American

That's absurd hyperbole...

If a German-American had moved to Germany and become a high ranking officer in the Wehrmacht, he would have been just as legitimate a target as any German would have been. The exact same principle applies here.

The problem here is that a lot of folks want to fantasize that the struggle against the Islamo-fascist terrorists is a "law enforcement" issue, with all the attendant domestic, civilian legal niceties, rather than a war-type situation which of course is what it is.

The problem is that the nature of what constitutes war is changing, a consensus on what the rules should be has not been established, and policy is being made on the fly to fill the vacuum. The question of whether a nation can be deemed to be perpetually at war, whether the entire globe can be deemed to be part of the theatre of war, and whether anyone seen to be a threat, however amorphous, against the nation can be taken out summarily anytime, anywhere as a result, is a legitimate concern.

I do have to say that if a memo like this came out during the Bush years, there would have been an uproar of tenfold (maybe 100 fold) scale.
But it's Obama, so Gitmo is now ok, water boarding is now ok and anything else is now ok.

Keld,

I have no doubt that there are bad guys out there plotting to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. But assassination is not the way to bring them to justice.

Jim:

An American who defected to the Germans during WWII may have been a target in battle, but not for assassination or summary execution off the battlefield. Moreover, simply because you declare counter-terrorist action to be a "war" doesn't make it so (as Scooter so succinctly pointed out above). And even war (allegedly) has rues. Since the Civil War at least, it has been the declared policy of the US Army that assassination has no place even in war: "The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or the subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such international outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. . . . Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism." U.S. Army General Orders No. 100 (1863).

Sue I understand yer perspective and respect it for what it is.

However as Scooter points out (without actually doing so) we are in an age of Asymetric warfare. Old rules don't always apply.

If I were in charge I would let the honchos live say to an equivalent of 06 but nobody would live to get, better still walk away under their own power after getting, close enought to say hello. The Lords of War would eventually become anathama, it works for them...

oldr_n_wsr wrote:I do have to say that if a memo like this came out during the Bush years, there would have been an uproar of tenfold (maybe 100 fold) scale.
But it's Obama, so Gitmo is now ok, water boarding is now ok and anything else is now ok.

Of course it is, the "annointed one" can do no wrong.