Free Republic

President Obama warns in a new interview of a future in which a U.S. president could engage in perpetual covert wars “all over the world.” But he claims that the accountability and transparency measures he is instituting will make that less likely. In the interview, with New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, Obama expressed agreement with one of the most salient critiques of his drone war, that it risks creating “institutional comfort and inertia with what looks like a pretty antiseptic way of disposing of enemies.” Obama explained that he had looked at “the way in which the number of drone...

The FBI has been conducting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information for months. An explosive new report reveals just what it is that the FBI is looking to: emails in which then-Secretary of State Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations in Pakistan with her cellphone. From 2011 on, the State Department had a secret arrangement with the CIA, giving it a degree of say over whether or not a drone killing would take place. The U.S. drone program has killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan and other countries. Under Sec. Clinton, State Department officials approved almost every...

President Obama willingly admits he dispatched CIA agents to kill an American and his teenage son and the son's American friend while they were in a desert in Yemen in 2011. He says he did so because the adult had encouraged folks to wage war on the United States and the children were just "collateral damage." He says further that he'll do this again when he is convinced that killing Americans will keep America safe. He says he knows the adult encouraged evil, and his encouragement caused the deaths of innocents. The adult was never charged with a crime or...

This week, President Obama expressed regret for two western hostages held by Al Qaeda and accidentally killed in an "anti-terrorist operation." The deaths of these two men — American consultant Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto, both of whom had been held by Al Qaeda for several years — were indeed tragic. It would be bad enough if they were the only innocent victims killed by the US in the "War on Terror." But they aren’t. Over a thousand civilians — including dozens of Westerners — are among the thousands of people who have died in US...

On Monday, the White House memo used to justify drone attacks on U.S. citizens was released, and it appears to confirm the worst suspicions of its libertarian critics. The Obama administration had sought to keep the memo secret, and now we know why: Because there are no checks and balances; there are no classified courts. Indeed, the memo reveals that the president of the United States ordered the targeting killing of U.S. citizens overseas — in violation of their constitutional right to due process — sans any type of oversight outside of the executive.

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Monday released a previously secret memo that provided legal justification for using drones to kill Americans suspected of terrorism overseas.</p> <p>The memo concluded that the killing of an al-Qaida leader who had been born in the United States had legal justification. It said the authority to use lethal force abroad may apply in appropriate circumstances to a U.S. citizen who is part of the forces of an enemy organization. It said the killing was justified as long as it was carried out in accord with applicable laws of war.</p>

The U.S. government can kill an American citizen abroad if that person is plotting to attack Americans and U.S. authorities can't apprehend them, according to a newly declassified government memo. The document laid out the legal rationale for a drone-missile strike that killed terror suspect Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011. The 2010 memo, which a court released Monday, has been at the heart of a debate about the legality of the U.S. government ordering deadly force from a drone against a U.S. citizen overseas. The strike...

Meet John Brennan's kinder, gentler CIA, where foreign partners do the interrogation dirty work and Americans are "pleased" with drone discipline. If Chuck Hagel’s performance in his confirmation hearing last week was comparable to a deer caught in the headlights, John Brennan’s artificially earnest, overly agreeable performance before the Senate Armed Services Committee today brought to mind a kid imploring his teacher to raise his “B” grade to an “A.” “If I am confirmed, a trust deficit between the committee and the CIA would be wholly unacceptable to me, and I would make it my goal on day one of...

A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S. The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the...

The White House "kill list"--a regularly updated chart showing the world's most wanted terrorists used by President Barack Obama during kill or capture debates--may soon be getting a rule book to go with it. According to the New York Times, the administration--faced with the possibility that President Obama might lose the 2012 election to Mitt Romney--"accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures." Until now, President Obama has had the "final moral calculation" overseeing the "kill...

Seventy hours ago, at this writing, while on Air Force One, President Barack Obama issued a press release that has been utterly ignored by the Western Press. The president has openly announced a move against violent plotters inside the US government and espionage agents. He does not use the terms “AIPAC” or “the Israel lobby” but it is highly unlikely he could be referring to anything else. In fact, we can think of no other group. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/24/274332/aipac-decapitators-inside-us-govt/ Presidential Memorandum — National Insider Threat Policy and Minimum Standards for Executive Branch Insider Threat Programs MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS...

President Barack Obama on Monday refused to acknowledge the existence of a presidential “kill list” despite multiple assertions by top-ranking officials in his administration that the list exists. Ben Swann, a reporter for Cincinnati’s FOX 19, asked the president, “How do you as president utilize that power [of the presidential kill list] to assassinate … U.S. citizens?” Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/05/local-reporter-takes-obama-to-the-woodshed-on-constitutionality-of-kill-list/#ixzz25isRKODv