The White House on Tuesday defended targeted assassinations of Americans thought to consort overseas with terrorists as “necessary,” “ethical” and “wise,” as the Obama administration faced fresh questions about its sharply expanded drone war.
“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats—to stop plots, prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. “These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise.”
Carney’s comments came after NBC News published a Justice Department memo that lays out a broad rationale for targeting individual Americans anywhere outside the U.S. for assassination—without oversight from Congress or the courts, and even if the U.S. citizen in question is not actively plotting a specific terrorist attack.
The 16-page document, obtained by NBC News, emerged days before John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser and the foremost architect of America’s hugely controversial unmanned aerial vehicle war, goes before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a Thursday hearing on his confirmation as CIA director.
Obama campaigned in 2008 as a fierce critic of George W. Bush’s national security policies, notably interrogation practices widely seen as torture. He also left little doubt that he would order unilateral strikes inside another country if he deemed them necessary. In office, he has apparently learned to stop worrying and love executive power—the literal power of life and death over fellow U.S. citizens overseas when he suspects they are consorting with extremists groups that may be targeting America. So, under what circumstances does he have the right to act?
The memo says “an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government” must decide that the target is a “senior operational leader” of al-Qaida or “associated forces”; “poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States”; and that an attempt to capture that individual is “infeasible.”
“Targeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat of violent attack to the United States is not unlawful. It is a lawful act of self-defense,” the document asserts.
“Imminent threat”? That seems reasonable and is a traditional standard for military action. Except, as NBC investigative reporter Michael Isikoff notes, the memo adds that “the condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”
Instead, that previously mentioned “high-level official” can determine that the potential target was “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of an attack and that “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.”
Isikoff notes the memo does not define “activities” or “recently,” leaving that up to the administration to determine on a case-by-case basis.
A reporter asked Carney about the case of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the teenage son of Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida supporter killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen. The boy, 16, was killed in another drone strike about two weeks after his father. Was the son a “senior operational leader” of a terrorist group, a reporter asked. That seemed to stump Carney. “I’m not going to talk about individual operations that may or may not have occurred.”
But Obama wages this 21st-century war in a manner “consistent with the Constitution and our laws,” while aides review the difficult legal and ethical questions “with great care and deliberation,” Carney said.
The memo notes that the president can order a strike against al-Qaida far beyond the battlefield of Afghanistan, and it makes clear that he will not be constrained by national sovereignty. Either a country will give the green light to drone strikes on its territory, or America will strike if that country is “unable or willing” to do so.
This is no surprise. Obama famously said in the 2008 campaign that he would order an attack inside Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, whether or not Islamabad signed off. He made good on that promise, ordering the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011, which killed the terrorist leader.
The memo is sure to trigger another round of questions from Congress about the drone war, which has been shrouded in secrecy. And it comes at a time when that campaign is powerfully unpopular overseas, according to a June 2012 Pew Research poll. While 62 percent of Americans approve of the approach, 44 percent of respondents in staunch ally Britain do. And the numbers plummet in countries with large Muslim populations: 6 percent in Egypt, for instance, and 9 percent in NATO ally Turkey.
That’s in part the reflection of anger over civilian casualties from such attacks. Obama has grappled with that problem ever since the very first drone strike on his watch, a Jan. 23, 2009, attack that reportedly claimed the life of “an innocent tribal elder” in Pakistan. A May 2012 New York Times report said the administration minimizes civilian casualties by counting “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.”
The memo drew a withering response from the American Civil Liberties Union.
“This is a profoundly disturbing document, and it’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority—the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact.”
Read original here: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-memo-justifies-drone-war-killing-americans-164123578–politics.html
Obviously, that the US has not and does not intend to engage in such acts is entirely non-responsive to the question that was asked: whether they believe they have the authority to do so. To the extent any answer was provided, it came in Brennan’s next answer. He was asked:
That’s as conclusive as it gets: the DOJ white paper does not – does not – answer the question of whether the president’s assassination power extends to US soil. It does not impose the requirement that capture first be infeasible before the president can target someone for execution. It expressly says it is imposing no such requirements. To the contrary, it leaves open the question of whether the president has this power where capture is feasible – including on US soil. That’s precisely why these senators are demanding an answer to this question: because it’s not answered in this memo. And that’s precisely why the White House refuses to answer: because it does not want to foreclose powers that it believes it possesses, even if it has no current “intent” to exercise those powers.
Better Off With Gaddafi Than Obama?
By: The Liberty Beacon™ Staff
Published March 9, 2013, in COMMENTARY
By: Dave Hodges, The Liberty Beacon
Question, when does their dictator become more of a dictator than our dictator? Answer, when our dictator is in his last term and has nothing to lose.
Libya under Mr. Gaddafi, was Africa’s most prosperous democracy. Their government was much more responsive to the people than the United States. In fact, Libya has the United States beat on the on the issue of democracy prior to the assassination of Gaddafi. That does not seem possible but the fundamental difference between the United States democratic systems and Libya’s Jamahiriya’s direct democracy is that in Libya, citizens were given the chance to contribute directly to the political decision-making process.
The United States has a very tightly controlled indirect form of democracy. Americans have no say in how the government is run. Americans only get to pretend to elect the “criminals” who are running this country into the ground. In contrast, all Libyans were allowed to voice their views directly, just not in one parliament of only a few hundred elite politicians, but in hundreds of committees attended by tens of thousands of ordinary citizens. Far from being a military dictatorship, Libya, before the murder of Gaddafi, was the most prosperous and democratic nation in Africa.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
The government of Gaddafi brought the Libyan government from poverty and debt, to prosperity and debt-free status in 41 years. In Libya, healthcare is free and Libyan pharmacies and hospitals are comparable to high-grade European medical facilities. This contrasts with America, where our death by doctor fatalities reached 225,000 last year.
Unlike America, where we horde our wealth to the tune of $128 trillion of underground resources (e.g. oil, natural gas, etc.), Gaddafi’s oil-revenue-sharing program helped bring a good measure of prosperity to each Libyan as they receive $500 (Dollars) deposited into his or her bank account each month. Did you know that if the first bail out to Wall Street had been applied to America’s home mortgages, all Americans would now own their homes free and clear? Speaking of homes, when Libyans marry, each couple is gifted $60,000 to do with as they please. In America, we double tax our couples under the so-called marriage penalty tax.
Unlike America, where college tuition costs rose at a rate eight times faster than the cost of living, Education from grade school through to college is free in Libya and the Libyan government paid for college students to study specialty subjects overseas.
Libya gives free land and seeds to anyone who wants to farm that land. In America, we “swat team” raw dairy farmers, organic food producers and the Amish. Meanwhile, farmers are increasingly being forced to use unlabeled, cancer-causing, GMO seeds. Forty loaves of bread cost just $0.15 at the time of Libya’s revolution. The prices for our food staples have doubled over the past 18 months.
At the time of Gaddafi’s assassination, the price of gas was around $0.14 per gallon. Meanwhile American gas prices are approaching between five and six dollars for a gallon of gas. The major reason gas prices are exploding is because our dollar is losing value. The world is running from the dollar. The stock market is greatly escalating. If you know your 1929 history, you know what lies next.
Libyan working mothers enjoyed a range of benefits including cash bonuses for children, free day care, free health care centers, and retirement at 55. In America, our medical industrial establishment makes as difficult as possible to raise a child. American retirement age will soon go to 70 and Obama has designs on stealing our pensions, IRA’s and 401K’s.
Losing Our Rights To Protect US From Al Qaeda
For years, our politicians, who stole our constitutional rights, told the American sheep that “AL-Qaeda” was the big enemy in the “War on Terror”. This is very reminiscent of what happened in Libya in the days after the toppling of Gaddafi. At the time, the Daily Mail and other international media organizations posted pictures of the black AL-Qaeda flag flying high and proud over the courthouse in Benghazi. Then our Ambassador was murdered to cover up the fact that he ran CIA guns to al Qaeda in the Gaddafi overthrow.
The Middle East Wars Really About Forcing the World Into Dollars and Private Central Banking
Attorney Ellen Brown argues, in the Asia Times, that Libya, like Iraq, under Hussein, challenged the supremacy of the dollar and the Western banks. The plan to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. On the periphery of this enemies list is also Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
Isn’t that interesting that the Axis of Evil nations, as we call them, have one thing in common. What is it that these countries have in common? In the context of banking, one fact that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). This puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. To some degree, the avoidance of being a debt slave to the central banksters is not permitted and such violators risk having the full force of the US military being brought down upon them to enforce the “right” for the central bankers to force involuntary servitude their holy order.
As the Obama administration indiscriminately kills thousands of people in places such as Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan with drone strikes, we now know that they are preparing to do the same to American citizens. Our “Fast and Furious” Attorney General, Eric Holder, recently announced that Obama can do the same to Americans. Meanwhile, at the time of Gaddafi’s death, the United Nations designated Libya the 53rd highest in the world in human development. I never thought I would write the words in which I marveled at how Libyans were treated better by Gaddafi than Americans are by Obama. Make no mistake about it, Gaddafi was a thug, but a thug who provided more for his people on a comparative per capita basis than Obama does for the American people. What does it say that a known terrorist is more compassionate towards his people that Obama? Perhaps, it is Obama who is the real terrorist. And what has become of Libya since Gaddafi’s death? They are headed back to the Dark Ages courtesy of the central banker sponsored Al-Qaeda who now runs the country. Have you noticed that anything these central bankers touch turns to pure manure? If our country ever gets disassembled in the same manner, Libya provides a good barometer of what lies ahead for most Americans.
The world, has indeed, been turned upside down.