Posted on 09/30/2011 4:58:50 PM PDT by americanophile
Today in Yemen, U.S. air strikes killed American citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi. Al-Aulaqi has never been charged with a crime. Last year, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights represented Al-Aulaqi's father in a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. We argued that such killings violate the Constitution and international law, but the case was dismissed in federal court last December.
In response to today's killing of Al-Aulaqi, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said:
The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law. As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific, and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the President — any President — with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country. In a hearing before a federal court last November, government lawyers argued the president should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans he has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. As National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner added today: "If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the President does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."
(Excerpt) Read more at aclu.org ...
Al Queda was declared an enemy of the state by action of the President and Congress in 2001. As a soldier in arms with AQ Al Awlaki was fair game for the military as a designated enemy of the state.
If the government determines that The Christian right, Tea Party, and etc are enemies of the state and military action is to be taken against them I will be among those who will take up arms against the government. God save the republic.
As to Ruby Ridge and Waco these were out of control police actions that should have been adjudicated. That they were not is symptomatic of political decisions that have been counter to responsible government.
The killing of Al Qaeda operatives is not consistent with circumstances in which excessive police force has been employed. These are unique categories of government activity.
Of course they are. And we are getting more “unique categories” as we go on.
The man was not accessible to be charged and indicted. He was acting in a manner dangerous to the people of the United States. What he was doing was NOT SECRET, he was an open and proud member of an organization actively seeking to harm our people and our country. He was not available to effect a normal arrest for the legal process.
What you are doing is sophistry. You are setting an impossibly high standard for our government to act in our interests. By your standard a criminal can commit ongoing mayhem without consequence so long as he can evade capture and charges. The constitution does not set this standard, you and the ACLU do.
We weren’t aiming at him, it was the guy standing next to him.
Collateral damage, oh well.
Mark
Was he actually a combatant? I am not aware of him actually picking up a weapon and stepping onto a battlefield. If anything, I think he'd be more akin to a "Tokyo Rose" who exhorted others to treasonous acts. Or if you like, more like a Charles Manson, who didn't actually commit any of the murders for which he received a death sentence. But he was tried in front of a jury. I believe that Tokyo Rose was condemned to death after WWII, however there has been no declaration of war by congress.
It's complicated.
Mark
Are you sure you want to give any President, especially Obama, the right to order the assassination of anyone with whom is disagrees and dislikes? I'm pretty sure Michelle Maklin and Rush Limbaugh would wind up on his list too. After all, their "arms" are just words, published electronically as well.
Mark
Tokyo Rose was convicted of treason in 1949 and served a 6 year sentence. She was pardoned by President Ford in 1977 after it was revealed that the most damaging testimony against her was coerced. She died in 2006 at the age of 90.
Dillinger was a convicted bank robber and murderer who had escaped from prison, and was known to be armed and dangerous (with BARs).
Mark
Re: Tokyo Rose.
Thanks for the correction.
Mark
I am however a fervent supporter of the Constitution that exists to guarantee my rights
You have an overly broad interpretation of the constitution and view it as something to be manipulated and in the end have no meaning whatsoever.This anchor baby we killed in Yemen had NO constitutional rights after he declared war on the USA. He’s dead legally. You’re WRONG
District attorneys and the Justice Department bring charges in criminal actions; I’m not a party to any criminal action and I’m not a law enforcement officer. You should really take a civics 101 course before you come on here and try to tear down a system that is designed to safeguard your rights. All you’ve done is demonstrate your ignorance, while trashing the Constitution, advocating for unrestrained despotism and denigrating those who are trying to protect your civil liberties. It’s a good thing, in the end, that rights are inalienable, because if they had to be earned people like you wouldn’t have any.
What’s your Constitutional source for this proncouncement? Oh I forgot, you don’t require one...it’s fine with you as long at the president does it and you’re happy with the result.
What’s your Constitutional source for this proncouncement? Oh I forgot, you don’t require one...it’s fine with you as long at the president does it and you’re happy with the result.
“Are you sure you want to give any President, especially Obama, the right to order the assassination of anyone with whom is disagrees and dislikes? I’m pretty sure Michelle Maklin and Rush Limbaugh would wind up on his list too. After all, their “arms” are just words, published electronically as well.”
I think it would have been better for the State department to consider his words and actions to be a renunciation of his citizenship and declare him no longer a citizen and not covered under the rights of US citizens; putting him on the kill or capture list effectively did this, but it would have been better to formalize it.
But in any event, I think it’s pretty clear that there is a big difference between this POS and Malkin and Limbaugh.
Nonsense ! the dead mad Mohamadan was a enemy battlefield commander killed on the field . He is no different than a American of German descent who went to Germany just prior to WWII & wore the uniform of the Waffen SS who got himself killed in a airstrike in France .
Hyperbolic bs.
LOL, whatever dude, this sort of thing has a way of coming back to bite folks. I really hope you're right! But I suspect you will be proven wrong.
I'll put money on it. Nothing unconstitutional about it. Read LOAC.
Thats right. I think he was the Lord Haw Haw in this war against radical Islam. Every war seems to have one. In Vietnam it was Jane Fonda. Good riddance to this freakish spawn of Yemeni parents who never should have been let into this country.
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