COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Anwar al-Awlaki, An Enemy of the State?


The C.I.A. has placed the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on a list for killing.

U.S. Approval to Kill a Cleric Causes Unease
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: May 13, 2010

NY Times

The Roman Senate used the term "enemy of the state" as reason for the arrest of Nero. Stalin was fond of it, but the modern Russian use was by Vladimir Lenin. After seizing power Lenin decreed:

"all leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, a party filled with enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court."

I have doubts about the wisdom of the government authorizing the killing of a US citizen outside of the courts. It is a little too Roman and totalitarian for my taste, and I am suspicious about letting that authority come from outside the courts.

Am I wrong?
___________________________________

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.

The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy.

To eavesdrop on the terrorism suspect who was added to the target list, the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen, intelligence agencies would have to get a court warrant. But designating him for death, as C.I.A. officials did early this year with the National Security Council’s approval, required no judicial review.

“Congress has protected Awlaki’s cellphone calls,” said Vicki Divoll, a former C.I.A. lawyer who now teaches at the United States Naval Academy. “But it has not provided any protections for his life. That makes no sense.”

Administration officials take the view that no legal or constitutional rights can protect Mr. Awlaki, a charismatic preacher who has said it is a religious duty to attack the United States and who the C.I.A. believes is actively plotting violence. The attempted bombing of Times Square on May 1 is the latest of more than a dozen terrorist plots in the West that investigators believe were inspired in part by Mr. Awlaki’s rhetoric.

“American citizenship doesn’t give you carte blanche to wage war against your own country,” said a counterterrorism official who discussed the classified program on condition of anonymity. “If you cast your lot with its enemies, you may well share their fate.”

President Obama, who campaigned for the presidency against George W. Bush-era interrogation and detention practices, has implicitly invited moral and legal scrutiny of his own policies.

But like the debate over torture during the Bush administration, public discussion of what officials call targeted killing has been limited by the secrecy of the C.I.A. drone program. Representative John F. Tierney, who on April 28 held the first Congressional hearing focused on the lawfulness of targeted killing, said he was determined to air the contentious questions publicly and possibly seek legislation to govern such operations.

The reported targeting of Mr. Awlaki “certainly raises the question of what rights a citizen has and what steps must be taken before he’s put on the list,” said Mr. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of a House subcommittee on national security.

Counterterrorism officials, with the support of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, say the drone missile strikes have proved to be an extraordinarily successful weapon against militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the location of all the known C.I.A. strikes except one in Yemen in 2002. By their count, the missiles have killed more than 500 militants since 2008, and a few dozen nearby civilians.

In the fullest administration statement to date, Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, said in a March 24 speech the drone strikes against Al Qaeda and its allies were lawful as part of the military action authorized by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as well as under the general principle of self-defense. By those rules, he said, such targeted killing was not assassination, which is banned by executive order.

But the disclosure last month by news organizations that Mr. Awlaki, 39, had been added to the C.I.A. kill list shifted the terms of the legal debate in several ways. He is located far from hostilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the perpetrators of 9/11 are believed to be hiding.

He is alleged to be affiliated with a Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda. Intelligence analysts believe that only recently he began to help plot strikes, including the failed attempt to bomb an airliner on Dec. 25.

Most significantly, he is an American, born in New Mexico, arguably protected by the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In a traditional war, anyone allied with the enemy, regardless of citizenship, is a legitimate target; German-Americans who fought with the Nazis in World War II were given no special treatment.

But Ms. Divoll, the former C.I.A. lawyer, said some judicial process should be required before the government kills an American away from a traditional battlefield. In addition, she offered a practical argument for a review outside the executive branch: avoiding mistakes.

She noted media reports that C.I.A. officers in 2004 seized a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, and held him in Afghanistan for months before acknowledging that they had grabbed the wrong man. “What if we had put him on the kill list?” she asked.

Another former C.I.A. lawyer, John Radsan, said prior judicial review of additions to the target list might be unconstitutional. “That sort of review goes to the core of presidential power,” he said. But Mr. Radsan, who teaches at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, said every drone strike should be subject to rigorous internal checks to be “sure beyond a reasonable doubt” that the target is an enemy combatant.

As for the question of whether Mr. Awlaki is a legitimate target, Mr. Radsan said the cleric might not resemble an American fighting in a Nazi uniform. “But if you imagine him making radio speeches for the Germans in World War II, there’s certainly a parallel,” he said.

Beyond the legal debate is the question of whether killing Mr. Awlaki would be a good idea. Many Muslim activists and scholars say it would accord him martyr status and amplify his violent message. Mohamed Elibiary, a Muslim community advocate in Texas who advises law enforcement on countering extremism, said helping the Yemeni authorities arrest Mr. Awlaki would make more sense. “I’m not saying this guy shouldn’t be treated as an enemy,” Mr. Elibiary said. “But there are smarter and stupider ways of eliminating your enemy.”

American officials say an arrest may not be possible. “If we need to stop dangerous terrorists who hide in remote parts of the world, inaccessible to U.S. troops, law enforcement, or any central government,” said the counterterrorism official, “what do you do — cover your ears and wait for a truly devastating explosion in Times Square?”



10 comments:

  1. Paralysis by Analysis.

    Kill the bum.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Although I am no fan of Awlaki,,,

    And I actually have no issues in the wet operation that would take the guy out, I do find it funnier than a roast pig at a Bar Mitzvah that Obama (and his left wing supporters) want to give civil rights to terrorists and call waterboarding torture and yet can liquidate a US citizen without any due process...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Obama has learned from Bush. You do what you want to do and then hire some lawyers for Justice who will write up the legal justification fo it.

    If the courts knock it down, you say Whoops! My bad.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. What's the big deal?

    18 U.S.C. § 2381: "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

    ReplyDelete
  5. The fella should be indicted, then tried in absentia.

    He could then be found guilty of treason. He could be found guilty of levying war upon the US.

    As it is, now, it is his rhetoric that incites violence, according to this article, not that he is an active combatant.

    Under the new Obama Standard "wio", who has advocated returning the Southwest United States to Mexico, here at the EB, could be killed, as a traitor to our nation, merely for his rhetoric.

    Supporting the radical elements of La Raza, by posting their videos, here, "wio" has joined with the enemies of the United States. Those enemies that do not respect its' laws or borders, that deny the legitimacy of US governance of the lands of the Gadsden Purchase, or even Texican Independence, from Mexico.

    “American citizenship doesn’t give you carte blanche to wage war against your own country,” ... “If you cast your lot with its enemies, you may well share their fate.”

    Without trial of any type.

    Cool beans.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even "Tokyo Rose" was given a trial.

    Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino (July 4, 1916 – September 26, 2006), was an American citizen who participated in English-language propaganda broadcast transmitted by Radio Tokyo to Allied soldiers in the South Pacific during World War II. Although on the "Zero Hour" radio show, Toguri called herself "Orphan Ann," she quickly became identified with the moniker "Tokyo Rose", a name that was coined by Allied soldiers and that predated her broadcasts. After the Japanese defeat, Toguri was detained for a year by the U.S. military before being released for lack of evidence. Department of Justice officials agreed that her broadcasts were "innocuous". But when Toguri tried to return to the US, a popular uproar ensued, prompting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to renew its investigation of Toguri's wartime activities.

    She was subsequently charged by the United States Attorney's Office with eight counts of treason. Her 1949 trial resulted in a conviction on one count, making her the seventh American to be convicted on that charge.

    In 1974, investigative journalists found that key witnesses had lied during testimony. Toguri was pardoned by U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1977.[1]

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  7. No doubt this news will have the left in high dudgeon while they run away from Obama even as the Quantanamo lawyers run to the sound of gunfire.

    Pass the popcorn, please.

    ReplyDelete
  8. rat advocates for my death...


    Under the new Obama Standard "wio", who has advocated returning the Southwest United States to Mexico, here at the EB, could be killed, as a traitor to our nation, merely for his rhetoric.

    Supporting the radical elements of La Raza, by posting their videos, here, "wio" has joined with the enemies of the United States. Those enemies that do not respect its' laws or borders, that deny the legitimacy of US governance of the lands of the Gadsden Purchase, or even Texican Independence, from Mexico.

    “American citizenship doesn’t give you carte blanche to wage war against your own country,” ... “If you cast your lot with its enemies, you may well share their fate.”

    Without trial of any type.

    Cool beans.




    Actually the Rat lies and distorts...

    I do not support La Raza and have warned members of the bar that Obama (and others) were setting up America to deal with the same threat that the Israelis deal with..

    Rat's buddys the Palestinians,vare the teachers of La Raza, The door to PLO style terrorism is opened and one can only hope that they be silenced asap.

    As for Rat hoping that I could be killed for my views?

    I am not surprised...

    Rat's glee at trying to find legal ways to murder Jews is not new..

    Thank G-d for the 2nd amendment

    ReplyDelete
  9. newsflash...

    Eric Holder ADMITS he NEVER read the AZ immigration law...

    Looking like a fool....

    ReplyDelete
  10. The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our spring, the clearer we should see through it.
    http://www.jaman.com/people/miguel2mcguire/

    ReplyDelete