If We Do It, It's Not Illegal.
The 'debate' that has begun still centers around the killing of American Citizens. The citizens of Other countries can, apparently , be killed without any legal problem. They live in terror of 'imminent' death dealt from drones or by secret assassination teams. And 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 will take place in the immediate future,"
State Terrorism? Or a Stalinist staking of the world??
Obama Targeted Killing Document: If We Do It, It's Not Illegal
| Tue Feb. 5, 2013 8:53 AM PST
If a high-ranking administration official does it, it's not illegal. At least not when we're talking about ordering the death of an American citizen the administration believes to be associated with Al Qaeda.
That's the conclusion of a Department of Justice "white paper" obtained by NBC's Michael Isikoff, who published it Monday night. The paper outlines the Obama administration's legal rationale for the targeted killing of US citizens suspected of terrorism
Although the administration has previously said that President Barack Obama makes the final call on targeted killing decisions involving Americans, based on recommendations from high-level national security officials, the white paper says that a decision of what it calls "extraordinary seriousness" need not involve the president—nor even multiple people. Instead, the paper argues, a single "high level-official," whose authority is undefined, can approve a death sentence for an American citizen as long as the target is too difficult for the US government to capture and the loss of civilian life that would result from a targeted killing is not deemed excessive.
When the paper says "imminent threat of violent attack against the United States," however, "imminent" means something other than what you might expect. All it means is that the executive branch of the US government must make a secret, unilateral determination that the person it wants to kill is a member of a terrorist organization: "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 will take place in the immediate future," the paper notes.
The Obama administration claims that the secret judgment of a single "well-informed high level administration official" meets the demands of due process and is sufficient justification to kill an American citizen suspected of working with terrorists. That procedure is entirely secret. Thus it's impossible to know which rules the administration has established to protect due process and to determine how closely those rules are followed. The government needs the approval of a judge to detain a suspected terrorist. To kill one, it need only give itself permission.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/obama-targeted-killing-white-paper-drone-strikes
Targeted Killings: Obama’s Endless War
Even as it pulls forces out of Afghanistan, the Obama administration wants to continue high-tech targeted killings in the war against terrorists.
This article appeared in print as A War That Never Ends
Updated: February 3, 2013 | 9:29 a.m.
January 31, 2013 | 8:20 p.m.
Killing fields: A funeral for Pakistanis reportedly killed in a drone attack. (AP Photo/Hasbunullah, File)
In a seminal speech in April 2012, Brennan went further than any administration official in describing the program’s basic outlines. In the process, he acknowledged that a secret, executive-branch operation that leaves such carnage in its wake is an uncomfortable fit for a democratic society. “Our counterterrorism tools do not exist in a vacuum,” Brennan admitted. “They are stronger and more sustainable when the American people understand and support them. They are weaker and less sustainable when the American people do not.”
In that spirit, could Brennan tell the American people at his confirmation hearings what legal justification the administration used to authorize the extrajudicial targeting of suspected American terrorists? How do “signature strikes” against unidentified individuals comport with the administration’s pledge to target only those Qaida and affiliated terrorists who represent an “imminent threat”? Why is a “capture or kill” counterterrorism program weighted in its execution so overwhelmingly toward the latter? How do officials calculate the possibility of civilian casualties in the proposed “disposition matrix”? Why does it take judicial review and a warrant to wiretap the private communications of U.S. citizens but not to target suspected citizen terrorists for assassination?
A more transparent debate about the program at Brennan’s confirmation hearings is also likely to highlight just how dramatically a decade of war has transformed America. Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. officials routinely criticized Israel for its targeted-assassination program aimed at Palestinian terrorists. Today, deadly strikes by armed robotic drones are so routine that the media give them only passing mention. The U.S. targeted killing program also enjoys support from a majority of the public and from a relatively compliant Congress.
As the government has honed the ability to eliminate enemies of the state in a clandestine war without end, however, the once clear lines between all-out warfare and peacetime law enforcement continue to fade. Some Qaida suspects are granted Miranda rights and charged in federal courts, while others are kept in military prisons and prosecuted by military commissions or simply held indefinitely. Still others are eviscerated far from any acknowledged battlefield by an executive branch that claims the authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner. In a nation in a state of perpetual conflict, the danger is that those lines between war and peace will continue to blur until Americans have forgotten the difference.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/targeted-killings-obama-s-endless-war-20130131
posted by Satish Sharma at
10:13
