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Title: Obama's Secret Court for Killing
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URL Source: http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano87.1.html
Published: Feb 14, 2013
Author: Andrew P. Napolitano
Post Date: 2013-02-14 07:53:45 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 432
Comments: 19
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 indicted by a grand jury; he was just targeted for death by the president himself and executed by a CIA drone. International law and the law of war, to both of which the U.S. is bound by treaty, as well as federal law and the Judeo-Christian values that underlie the Declaration of Independence (which guarantees the right to live) and the Constitution (which permits governmental interference with that right only after a congressional declaration of war or individual due process) all provide that the certainty of the identity of a human target, the sincerity of the wish for his death, the perception of his guilt and imminent danger are insufficient to justify the government's use of lethal force against him. The president may only lawfully kill after due process, in self-defense or under a declaration of war. The reasons for the constitutional requirement of a congressional declaration of war are to provide a check on the president's lust for war by forcing him to obtain formal congressional approval, to isolate and identify the object of war so the president cannot kill whomever he pleases, to confine the warfare to the places where the object's military forces are located so the president cannot invade wherever he wishes, and to assure termination of the hostilities when the object of the war surrenders so the president cannot wage war without end. But when war is waged, only belligerents may be targeted, and advocating violence against the U.S. is not an act of wartime violence and does not make one a belligerent. Were this not so, then nothing would lawfully prevent the U.S. from killing Americans who spoke out in favor of al-Qaida, and then killing Americans who spoke out against war and killing, and then killing Americans whose words became an obstacle to killing. That's the reason the enabling federal legislation enacted in support of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force specifically exempts expressive conduct from the ambit of prohibited criminal or warlike behavior that can provide the basis for any government prosecution or military belligerence. So, the feds can shoot at a guy with a bomb in his hands when he is about to explode it, but not at a guy with a megaphone in his hands when he is about to speak through it. Thus, if New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki had been shooting at American troops at the time the government took aim at him, naturally, the troops can shoot back. But when he merely encourages others to shoot, his behavior is protected by the natural law, the First Amendment and numerous federal statutes. As well, he was 10,000 miles from the U.S., never known to have engaged in violent acts, and having a private conversation at a roadside cafe in a desert when he was killed. No law or legal principle justifies the U.S. government killing him then and there; in fact, numerous laws prohibit it. The president's use of the CIA for offensive killing also violates federal law. Intelligence agents may only lawfully kill in self-defense, not offensively. Only the military may lawfully kill offensively. In the al-Awlaki case, intelligence sources have confirmed to Fox News that a team of American and Yemeni intelligence agents had followed al-Awlaki and had him under continuous observation at the time of his killing and for the preceding 48 hours. They easily could have arrested him – had he been charged with a civilian crime or a war crime, which he wasn't. Of course, the murder of his Colorado-born son and the son's American friend are not even arguably defensible, and the president's spokesman who suggested that the young al-Awlaki should have "chosen a different father" shows a seriously defective thought process and an utter antipathy for the rule of law in places of power. We now confront the truly unthinkable: a proposal to establish yet another secret court, this one with the authority to authorize the president and his designees to kill Americans. This proposal has come from Congress, which seems more interested in getting in on the killing than in upholding the Constitution. The federal government only has the lawful powers the states delegated to it. As the states cannot kill Americans without due process, neither can the feds. Congress cannot create this killing court, and no judge on such a Stalinesque court can authorize the president to kill. The president has made a political calculation that it will be easier for him to justify killing folks he can demonize than it will be to afford them due process, by capturing, housing and trying them. Now, he has come to believe that it will be easier still if unnamed federal judges meeting in secret take the heat. Politically, the president may be correct. But he has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, and he lacks the moral and legal basis to reject that in favor of killing. When he kills without due process, he disobeys the laws he has sworn to uphold, no matter who agrees with him. When we talk about killing as if it were golf, we debase ourselves. And when the government kills and we put our heads in the sand, woe to us when there is no place to hide.
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#19. To: Ada (#0)
Not sure if he's known or popular here -I've not seen much of any mention of him (he's a unique blend of left and libertarian) but Glenn Greenwald has done an outstanding job of covering this issue. His latest attack on our dictator is exceptional- I was thinking of posting it-- Obama officials refuse to say if assassination power extends to US soil The administration's extreme secrecy is beginning to lead Senators to impede John Brennan's nomination to lead the CIA Brennan has been asked the question several times as part of his confirmation process. Each time, he simply pretends that the question has not been asked, opting instead to address a completely different issue. Here's the latest example from the written exchange he had with Senators after his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee; after referencing the DOJ "white paper", the Committee raised the question with Brennan in the most straightforward way possible:---->>>MORE The comment section can be interesting, if you haven't seen it A quick look at the article titles here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/glenn-greenwald-security-liberty tells you why many D'rats hate him with a white hot passion. Now he's managing to piss off some of the Fake left in Britain. It's fun! I liked this one for the title: Yesterday, Chris Matthews - who infamously confessed that listening to Obama (sorry: President Obama) gives him a "thrill going up his leg" - hosted another discussion, this one involving former Obama campaign aide and MSNBC contributor Joy Reid, about whether the Honorable President should be mounted on Mount Rushmore (Matthews restrained himself by explaining that "I'm not talking about Mt. Rushmore but perhaps the level right below it", but then shared this fantasy: "If [Obama] were hearing us talking about him maybe mounting Mount Rushmore, getting up there with the great presidents...what would he be thinking? 'That's exactly what I'm doing?'"). A Pew poll found that in the week leading up to the 2012 election, MSNBC did not air a single story critical of the President or a single positive story about Romney - not a single one - even as Fox aired a few negative ones about Romney and a few positive ones about Obama. Meanwhile, Obama campaign aides who appeared on MSNBC were typically treated with greater deference than that shown to the British Queen when one of her most adoring subjects is in her presence for the first time...MORE>>
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Barack Obama announcing John Brennan as his choice to lead the CIA.
Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA The Justice Department "white paper" purporting to authorize Obama's power to extrajudicially execute US citizens was leaked three weeks ago. Since then, the administration - including the president himself and his nominee to lead the CIA, John Brennan - has been repeatedly asked whether this authority extends to US soil, i.e., whether the president has the right to execute US citizens on US soil without charges. In each instance, they have refused to answer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/22/obama-brennan-paul-assassinations-filibuster
MSNBC boldly moves to plug its one remaining holeLast month, MSNBC's Al Sharpton conducted a spirited debate about whether Obama belongs on Mount Rushmore or instead deserves a separate monument to his greatness...
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