Obama Puts American on Terrorist Hit List
[Guest post by DRJ]
Barack Obama objected when the Bush Administration locked up suspected terrorists without due process. Now Obama is willing to kill a suspected American terrorist:
“The Obama Administration has taken the unprecedented step of authorising the killing of a US citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, linked to the plot to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day.
The move to place Mr al-Awlaki, 38, on a hit list was taken after a White House review concluded this year that he had moved from inciting terrorist attacks to taking part in them.
The decision is extraordinary not only because Mr al-Awlaki is believed to be the first American whose killing has been approved by a US President, but also because the Obama Administration chose to make the move public.”
As Glenn Greenwald points out:
“And what about all the progressives who screamed for years about the Bush administration’s tyrannical treatment of Jose Padilla? Bush merely imprisoned Padilla for years without a trial. If that’s a vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution — and it was — what should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination of American citizens without any due process?”
***
UPDATE: When Obama was seeking the Democratic nomination, the Constitutional Law Scholar answered a questionnaire about executive power distributed by The Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage, and this was one of his answers:5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?
[Obama]: No. I reject the Bush Administration’s claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.
So back then, Obama said the President lacks the power merely to detain U.S. citizens without charges. Now, as President, he claims the power to assassinate them without charges. Could even his hardest-core loyalists try to reconcile that with a straight face? As Spencer Ackerman documents today, not even John Yoo claimed that the President possessed the power Obama is claiming here.”
Unlike Greenwald, I’m not condemning Obama’s decision … but I am pointing out Obama’s political double standard and weak character.
— DRJ
Where are we as a nation if The Ear Leader has lost Glenn Greenwald?
AD - RtR/OS! (67c4f6) — 4/8/2010 @ 4:55 am“Where are we as a nation if The Ear Leader has lost Glenn Greenwald?”
How long have you been reading Greenwald?
imdw (017d51) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:16 am“How long have you been reading Greenwald?”
Corwin (ea9428) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:39 amKnow thine enemy.
I’m starting to believe that obama does not see himself as the elected POTUS. And that is one scary thought.
J (2946f2) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:41 amAwlaki has gone long past incitement, as his tapes to the TATP, Toronto, and Ft. Dix plotters have shown
ian cormac (22d531) — 4/8/2010 @ 6:05 amNote to imadickwad….
New unemployment claims are……UP!
How’s that rousing recovery working for you?
AD - RtR/OS! (67c4f6) — 4/8/2010 @ 6:07 amI’m not sure there is an logic to this other than the one will do what he wants, when he wants, for whatever reason why he wants.
My guess is he wants to look tough on national security to “pacify” those many Americans dissatisfied by his other decisions that put his seriousness in doubt.
A more sinister reason was suggested by Rush yesterday. This is a guy who, if captured, might have all kinds of interesting things to say about his contacts with known (like Hassan) and unknown (???) jihadists in the US.
While I’m quite able to believe he is willing to bring economic collapse to the country to help bring the radical change the country “needs” (in his opinion), I’ve attributed his foreign policy ineptness to his “blame America first John Lennon naivete'”. I suppose I could be wrong at this. It is almost unthinkable to believe a US President would purposefully put the country at risk for terrorism, but given his buddy Bill Ayers and his cohorts assumed “25 million Americans would need to die in the revolution”, it’s only almost unthinkable. It would be terrible, but if it came to that I think the leaders of the “revolution” would quickly fall to the counter-revolutionists. Americans as a whole do not believe our standard of living and political system should be akin to the USSR or China.
I hope it is obvious that is much more speculation than analysis, but human beings stay pretty much the same, it is only the technology they have at their disposal that changes. At the turn of the last century many thought that humanity had reached a level of sophistication and enlightenment that would make the 1900’s a century of peace and advancement in the human condition. When that did not happen early on, they termed WWI “the war to end all wars”. Were that sentiment true.
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 4/8/2010 @ 6:25 amAnd it was unexpected!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Initial-jobless-claims-apf-355511092.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=
Gerald A (138c50) — 4/8/2010 @ 6:56 ambut I am pointing out Obama’s political double standard and weak character.
As usual you’re being far, far too kind in this assessment. When the GOP comes back into power this hypocricy will be repeated endlessly – his acolytes in the MSM and the public better get ready for it.
Dmac (21311c) — 4/8/2010 @ 6:59 amKilling people on the hearsay evidence of politicos, journalists and spies, all well known for their bedrock honesty, seems fine to me, especially without due process, or any process at all for that matter.
I wonder though, are those three groups, politicos, journalists and spies, all that fond of you?
Fred Z (c1782b) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:02 am“How’s that rousing recovery working for you?”
I think its terrible. I’ve said for a while that Geithner needs to go. That guy cares more about banks than people. I’m not too confident that his replacement will be any better. Capital rules.
imdw (cbc3e9) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:06 amSo, imdw: what do you think of Obama targeting a US citizen for assassination?
Some chump (c2555f) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:12 amClassic “Reform” politician.
Not even honest enough to stay bought. If you can convince him that it’s to his advantage, he’ll geek.
mojo (8096f2) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:29 amThis is just another example of Obama’s brazen hypocrisy.
More fascinating is that he has given up any pretense of hiding the fact that he was lying to the American public throughout the ’08 campaign.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:41 amdisagree – sort of – that there’s hypocrisy (at least on this issue)…
People make distinctions between what can be done to an ‘enemy’ American while he’s engaged in fighting our guys in combat… what can be done to him if he’s Ross and ‘taking a break’… and what can be done to him if he’s caught.
Obama argued that people falling into the last category are due certain protections which the Bush Administration wasn’t providing… but taking that position doesn’t mean enemy Americans get a free pass no matter what they do.
steve sturm (369bc6) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:42 amThat was a good effort, steve, but if the Left held that Bush was wiping his arse with the Constitution by holding them without trial, I fail to see how they can be alright with Teh One skipping the trial and going straight to the death penalty.
JD (18e145) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:52 amWouldn’t it be funny if Dumbo put himself on the terror hit list?
PCD (1d8b6d) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:57 amCredit where it is due – Greenwald is one of the rare people on the left who believed what they were saying while Bush was in office, and is willing to keep saying it now. Most of those people possess the cynical dishonesty of a Soviet Commissar.
Subotai (5abcfd) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:04 amPeople make distinctions between what can be done to an ‘enemy’ American while he’s engaged in fighting our guys in combat
Except that this guy is not “fighting our guys in combat”.
Subotai (5abcfd) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:05 amSo, imdw: what do you think of Obama targeting a US citizen for assassination?
Cue bizarre non sequitur non-response.
Subotai (5abcfd) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:07 amCome on, hold your horses! I’m sure Robert Gibbs is just about done polishing The Won’s apology to George W. Bush – reflecting on how different things look to someone in the Oval Office than someone making stump speeches.
Still waiting…
in_awe (44fed5) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:13 amExcept that this guy is not “fighting our guys in combat”.
Comment by Subotai — 4/8/2010 @ 8:05 am
No, it’s worse – he’s directing them in their fight against our guys.
AD - RtR/OS! (67c4f6) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:21 amWaste him!
JD: who says the left is okay with him ‘going straight to the death penalty’? they don’t like any drone attacks, whether on Americans or foreigners.
And here’s a gripe I have about those on the right: Obama every once in a blue moon does something that makes sense, and rather than applaud him for the rare good move, they b***h that it is inconsistent with one or another of his previous stupid statements. Yes, it is, but what, other than patting yourselves on the back for your great insight, are you hoping to accomplish with this? It’s not as if he makes his decisions based on the reaction from the right, but what good does it do to point out he’s (in your mind) hypocritical? The way you all complain, I almost think you’d rather Obama not have made this decision.
steve sturm (369bc6) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:21 amI’ll condemn Obama’s decision.
One of the fundamental objections that led to the Long Parliament was an objection to the Stuart monarchy’s arbitrary use of power against English citizens. The fear of a return to that under King James II was one of the causes of the Glorious Revolution. As a result, eighteenth century Whig political culture presumed that the King did not have the power to simply declare a citizen to be a criminal and punish him for his crimes, and that understanding of executive power was the background understanding in American culture at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
This act of President Obama’s doesn’t procedurally amount to a declaration that al-Awlaki is a criminal who has been sentenced to die for his crimes, but it substantively does. Authorizing an execution in this fashion assumes powers which the President does not have, in violation of the Constitution.
Presient Obama will claim that the proper analogy for this isn’t extrajudicial punishment as used by the Stuarts, but is killing the enemy on the battlefield. I understand the impulse for that, but it cannot be: if the battlefield extends everywhere, then the constitutional restrictions on executive power are meaningless.
———————-
I voted for President Obama in the Democratic party primary in part because I thought he would be less likely than Secretary Clinton to continue what I thought were unconstitutional arrogations of power to the executive under President Bush. In some ways – the outsourcing of policy development to Congress, for example – he has shown unusual deference to the limitations of executive authority. But in cases like this, he has shown my faith in him to have been misplaced.
But the fundamental lesson I take from this – and it’s a lesson which I find disturbing – is that as a people Americans don’t object to this: that we’re OK living in a world in which the President of the United States can decide that a US citizen is a threat and order them killed without any sort of due process.
I think all of the founding fathers would weep.
aphrael (73ebe9) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:55 amIt is the right decision, but the hypocrisy reeks when you look at what Candidate Obama said about George Bush.
AD - RtR/OS! (67c4f6) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:56 amCorrect, AD, there is are no principles and/or rules behind it, unlike the tribunals who stand behind two hundred years of precedents who both the Court
ian cormac (22d531) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:04 amand later Obama dismissed so blythely
Do you think maybe al-_Awlaki has aleady been taken out and Obama’s statement is just a pre-emptive move to protect the perpetrators be they one of us or a foreign service?
elissa (42e91d) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:16 amObama did not do anything. Some third level people in the CIA, DOD and DOJ came up with it, and Axelrod or Eamanuel typed his approval into the teleprompter.
nk who shops at Goodwill (db4a41) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:21 amAt least I hope it’s third level people. I would really worry if the President or any of his cabinet micromanaged to the level of some bigmouthed, mangy Arab in some some fleabitten sand desert.
nk who shops at Goodwill (db4a41) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:27 amWe seem to forget that one or more of the “Tokyo Rose’s” were U.S. Nationals, and no-one would have shed a tear if they had been killed in the bombing raids on Japan. As it was, one or more were tried and convicted in Military Tribunals following the War.
Alaki has determined that his loyalty to IslamoFascism is greater than his loyalty to the country he swore allegiance to, and has taken up the struggle against that country.
AD - RtR/OS! (67c4f6) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:27 amIf not Treason, it is at least Sedition; and there is at least the assumption – if not direct proof – that he has directed others in acts against this country,
which should warrant the DP.
—that we’re OK living in a world in which the President of the United States can decide that a US citizen is a threat and order them killed without any sort of due process. I think all the founding fathers would weep–
You make a good point aphrael. But while we are at it, I think the founding fathers might also weep at the ease at which some people can become US citizens despite their apparent disloyalty to our very founding ideals, or merely because their mothers happened to be present in the US when they were birthed.
elissa (42e91d) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:36 am“So, imdw: what do you think of Obama targeting a US citizen for assassination?”
Sounds pretty shitty. Are you surprised? This guy voted for FISA. For impunity.
[note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]
imdw (0aa3bf) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:42 amaphrael has principles, which distinguish him from most of his political persuasion.
JD (d55760) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:01 amI think I may have cursed in responding to steve, as I got filtrated. I will summarize – steve, you could not be more wrong. I am please he is pursuing this. At the same time, it is readily apparent that he and his ilk showed a complete lack of principles or even basic ethics in their attacks on Bush, given their propensity to go even further than Bush in some instances, and at the least maintain others. They elevated crass dishonest partisan politics above national security. Nothing the matter with pointing that out, and in fact, were the media doing its job, they would be doing so.
JD (d55760) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:04 amAnd here’s a gripe I have about those on the right: Obama every once in a blue moon does something that makes sense, and rather than applaud him for the rare good move, they b***h that it is inconsistent with one or another of his previous stupid statements. Yes, it is, but what, other than patting yourselves on the back for your great insight, are you hoping to accomplish with this?
Pointing out that he got elected by lying his ass off? That seems like a perfectly valid political tactic.
Subotai (5abcfd) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:10 amSort of opens the door to assassination of pretty much any American who Obama deems a threat, eh?
Like Karl Rove. Or Rush LImbaugh.
drjohn (ef957e) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:12 amBut the fundamental lesson I take from this – and it’s a lesson which I find disturbing – is that as a people Americans don’t object to this: that we’re OK living in a world in which the President of the United States can decide that a US citizen is a threat and order them killed without any sort of due process.
That world existed long before either Obama or Bush was President. The problem is that some on the left persuaded themselves otherwise – that US policy during 2001-08 was some radical break with the past.
Only some, though. I think it is clear that most of them know that what they were saying was a cynical and dishonest political ploy. Hey, what’s that line about eggs and omelets the left likes?
Subotai (5abcfd) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:15 amaphrael-
The one thing that can be done is impeach the president if we feel he is targeting US citizens inappropriately.
Assassinating people who are declared terrorists who are at war with the US does not bother me. If he wants a trial, let his lawyer call the embassy and arrange a surrender. If he doesn’t, consider himself actively at war with the country.
If the DOJ or the Congress or anybody else in the executive, CIA, NSA, etc. think the pres is out of bounds, let them call him on it.
yes, no one should be above the law, but you shouldn’t need a grand jury to try in absentia known terrorists.
aphrael, this fellow said ahead of time that the constitution was flawed and inadequate, that was enough to make me assume he should not be expected to uphold it and should have disqualified from even being a candidate.
While politicians are always parsing their words, at some point “words mean something”, and saying the Consititution is flawed is a phrase that means something. he did not call to amend the constitution on one point or another, he said they made a basic error when it was written.
I don’t think Bush trampled the Constitution. I am happy to disagree on his policies, but I do not agree that intercepting calls of known terrorists from overseas threatens the rights of US citizens. A civilized society need not commit suicide by refusing to defend itself.
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:20 amDidn’t we do this already with Adam Gadahn, there have been legal charges, but we have made no bones
ian cormac (22d531) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:28 amabout letting one of these UAV’s slip and fire a missile at him
#24 aphrael:
I don’t think that assessment is correct.
While I have no problem with the President identifying a legitimate military target, and I do not see a problem with identifying an individual as a legitimate target when they are synonymous with the command and control structure of enemy engaged in warfare against the US, I certainly don’t see the President having a “hit list” as a useful or lawful way to act as the head of the Executive Branch of government.
(I admit, the question of whether a unlawful combatant is a US citizen or not doesn’t enter the calculus for me: an unlawful combatant is an unlawful combatant, end of story.)
Whether it had been of the President’s predecessors is, again, immaterial.
Now, it could be that the description given in the reportage isn’t accurate and Obambi’s “authorization” may actually meet the test of legitimacy I outlined above.
But given our experience with the Narcissist In Chief, I gravely doubt it. And I doubt that the American people have wholeheartedly endorsed a course of action that is, on the face of it, unlawful.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:40 am“I think all of the founding fathers would weep.”
Somehow I doubt it, seeing as how they had no problem shooting Lobsters and Tories (their fellow citizens) on the battlefield, without making a whole lot of fuss about due process.
That sort of thing happens in wartime.
Dave Surls (b6f665) — 4/8/2010 @ 11:09 amsteve sturm:
The danger Obama presents is that he purports to act based on strong principles when he really acts based on pragmatism (at best) or self-interest (at worst).
If Obama’s decision is based on pragmatism — despite his repeated claim to be guided by strong principles on this issue — then it undermines our system since voters elect leaders based (in theory) on knowing what they stand for. I’m a pragmatist but even pragmatists have basic principles that guide their decision-making. So far as I can tell, the only guiding principles Obama will never sacrifice are redistributing wealth, unions, and abortion. I don’t think he would have been elected if he’d been honest about these principles, but he’s not the first dishonest Presidential candidate. In general, history and American opinion have not been kind to them.
However, if his decision is based on self-interest — i.e., he’s responding to polls or pressure from the military — then he’s weak and dangerous because he can be manipulated on decisions he claims involve important principles. And that’s even worse.
DRJ (daa62a) — 4/8/2010 @ 11:27 amaphrael,
Like you, I am uncomfortable with ordering the assassination of American citizens, but I’m not willing to say it should never be allowed. To me, it depends on the available evidence and the process used to make the decision.
As I read the articles, the decision can only be made by the President. That kind of “buck stops here” responsibility gives me some comfort. And while I believe America has had Presidents who might abuse that power or take it lightly, I still believe the benefits outweigh the risks. The power to wage war includes the power to kill.
DRJ (daa62a) — 4/8/2010 @ 11:49 amThe acceptance of this action of Obama’s by Democrats reveal that all of their rhetoric in ’08 and before was a fraud.
We got all this rhetoric for years about how evil Bush was. We got specific rhetoric from Obama about how he was going to reverse all this evil. That Obama was different, smarter, more able to convince others of the wisdom of his views, and able to “restore” America from some BS sneering of the rest of the world. Those of us who opposed Obama’s candidacy repeatedly stated that if Obama believed his rhetoric he was a naive idiot, and if he didn’t, he was intentionally lying to the American public. And we were attacked for it for daring to question his rainbow-farting speeches.
Now that he’s in office, it looks like Obama cannot merely convince others, he can’t even convince himself of those great wisdoms. Sure enough, we got both — A naive idiot who intentionally lied to the American people.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/8/2010 @ 11:50 amSounds like more Bush and Nixonian Cowboy Diplomacy if you ask me!
Metallica (bb58d8) — 4/8/2010 @ 4:07 pm“Sort of opens the door to assassination of pretty much any American who Obama deems a threat, eh?”
Maybe not assassination, but for sure throwing them in those Obama work camps imdw keeps talking about.
daleyrocks (718861) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:25 pmDRJ is absolutely right that Obama’s guilty of both employing a “political double standard and [having a] weak character.” I’d go a step farther and say that the latter explains the former: Because he has a weak character — and boundless ambition — nothing he said about Iraq or Afghanistan or the Global War on Terror when Obama was a candidate had anything to do with what ought to actually be done in either place. Everything he said about either place or the GWOT as a candidate had only to do with getting himself elected. He was untethered to any reality as a non-incumbent candidate, in other words, and that set him free to take outlandish and outrageous positions that would instantly evaporate if ever forced into a confrontation with reality.
Now — and still because he has a weak character — nothing he says about either place has anything to do with what actually ought to be done there, but everything he has to say about either place has to do with getting himself re-elected. Dubya’s surge turns out to have mostly mooted re-election candidate Obama’s need to grandstand against Bush & Co.’s “blood for oil invasion,” but now that Obama’s going to have to run for re-election on an actual record as commander in chief, he says (and does) different things about the GWOT and the Afghanistan occupation than he did as a purely wanna-be POTUS. As long as the mainstream media cooperates (and they are), he can be as ruthless and unprincipled as he wants in squeezing off those Hellfire missiles from those drones.
Beldar (9fbe63) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:18 pmNon sequitur. Someone can be in favor of FISA and impunity but still stop well short of ordering assassinations of US citizens.
I’m surprised that you think otherwise.
Some chump (c2555f) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:25 pmFor a leftwing flake like Obama to now be playing La Cosa Nostra and blazing new territory — at least based on the context of the paragraph below — makes him seem more unhinged and unbalanced than ever before.
It’s sort of like an ultra-conservative pro-family, family-values man suddenly revealing he’s not just been unfaithful to his wife, but that he’s also molested his kids, the kids down the street, has been a frequent client of hundreds of hookers, is infected with numerous STDs and, most recently, picked up HIV from several guys he’s been having sex with.
There’s something deranged about the inconsistency of Obama’s dogmatism, something so lacking in his basic common sense that it’s both pathetic and even creepy—eg, if you want to issue a hit on an American terrorist, you treat it like a game of chess. IOW, you play it close to the vest, as I suspect previous White House administrations have done. You don’t parade it around as though you’re a variation of the Islamofascists issuing fatwas. Then again, I bet Obama gets some secret delight in the quirks of Islamism — and its founder, the assassination-happy Mohammed — which after all was a part of his youth.
Mark (411533) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:04 pm