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For everybody commenting on this article, please take 45 minutes to read the document. It applies only to the following scenario: 1) The US Citizen has to be
by ghshephard 14y ago
For everybody commenting on this article, please take 45 minutes to read the document. It applies only to the following scenario:
1) The US Citizen has to be a Sr. Operational Leader of al-Qa'ida.
2) An informed high level official of the US Government has determined that the targeted individual poses an imminent threat of Violent Attack against the United States.
3) Capture is infeasible, and the United states continues to monitor whether capture is feasible.
4) The operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.
This Document does not consider American Citizens who are not Sr. Operational Leaders of al-Qa'ida. If you are just an American Citizen who has become a low-level Al-Qa'ida terrorist who is planning imminent attacks on the United States, that the government has discovered, and they are unable to capture you, this document does NOT provide justification to target you.
It's a dense document, and hard to read with all that NBC NEWS watermarking, but take the time to read it before commenting on it.
- rgrieselhuber 14y agoIt still violates due process.
- rayiner 14y agoIt might, but it doesn't clearly do so. Due process does not mean a trial. It means what is reasonable under the circumstances. The length of the paper tries to show that there are no reasonable alternatives in the case capture is not feasible. It's a non trivial argument.
- rgrieselhuber 14y agoYes it does, because the protections provided by the constitution allow for the deprivation of life, liberty, property, etc. in accordance with the "due process of law." There is no law here. Only an arbitrary, internal memo.
- rayiner 14y agoPursuant to the AUMF.
- rgrieselhuber 14y agoYeah, there is no room for abuse in that little gem. The US Supreme Court has already decided at least once that the AUMF could not be cited in defense of the goverment's actions (in this case, military tribunals) because those actions violated the principles of the Geneva Conventions, among others. That's the whole problem with this. The accused never get a chance to defend themselves in court, are presumed guilty and sentenced without any reasonable defense.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 14y agoNone of those things are due process problems necessarily.
- JabavuAdams 14y agoPolice routinely use lethal force against armed suspects. The armed bank-robber doesn't get a trial before he gets shot. While this is a low-bar, morally, it's not something unlawful. It's not even particularly controversial, unless there's a clear abuse of power. The difficulty with this kind of armed-conflict is similar to the problems with prosecuting higher-ups in organized crime. They won't be holding the gun, or directly doing the dirty work. They are actively involved in planning operations, though. Is this a dangerous policy? Sure. Will there be cases of abuse? Yes, like any government policy (note, I'm not singling out government here; it's a property of any collective system where individuals don't bear full responsibility for their decisions).
- anigbrowl 14y agoYou need to offer your reasons for drawing that conclusion if you expect to have it taken seriously.
- rgrieselhuber 14y agoI did. See the other thread.
- anigbrowl 14y agoI think there's a major qualitative difference between what process you owe to people who are already in your custody and that which you owe to people who are at large and attempting to do you harm. Likewise we find the death of a suspect or convict while in custody far more troubling that that of someone who engages in a shootout with police rather than face capture.
- ghshephard 14y agoIn particular, this part is interesting on page 10: "Finally, the department notes that under the circumstances described in this paper, there exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations. It is well established that "matters intimately related to foreign policy and national security are rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention" because such matters "frequently turn on standards that defy judicial application," or, "involve the exercise of a discretion demonstrably committed to the executive or legislature" Were a court to intervene here, it might be required to inappropriately to issue an ex ante command to the President and the officials responsible for operations with respect to their specific tactical judgment to mount a potential lethal operation against a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces. And judicial enforcement of such orders would require the Court to supervise inherently predictive judgments by the President and his national security advisors as to when and how to use force against a member of an enemy force against which Congress has authorized the use of force [emphasis mine] edit: The entire foundation for Document this is based on the following from page 14: "The United States is currently in the midst of a congressionally authorized armed conflict with al-Qa'ida and associated forces, and may act in national self defense to protect U.S. persons and interests who are under continual threat of violent attack by certain al-Q'aida operatives planning operations against them."
- ck2 14y agoRiiiiggght. Because the military and law enforcement obey rules and don't break them all the time with ZERO punishment for doing so, or if it's bad enough they find one scapegoat for the whole chain of command like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England We enable pretty freaking horrible things all the time but the worst is that we justify it. How about the kid in Gitmo who killed himself after being found innocent TWICE but they still refused to release him?
- AndrewKemendo 14y agoEngland served jail time and was dishonorably discharged. The others in Abu Ghraib were also punished in accordance with General Court Martial proceedings, so I'm not seeing the "ZERO punishment" part of that.
- bcoates 14y agoSo in other words, it's not "Obama's Rules for Assassinating American Citizens." Samir Kahn was a propagandist/journalist, Anwar al-Awlaki was a YouTube troll.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoWhat is the requirement to be identified as an operational leader of al'qaeda? What checks and balances are in place to prevent extra-judicial killing of US citizens outside of American soil? Are there any? Also, what happens if, say, you happen to accidentally do business, unknowingly, with such a person and end up in the same vicinity as them when a drone strike is opportune? Is your life forfeit regardless of the other restrictions? Why is this a matter of an internal white paper instead of a national federal policy debate? This is not a good trend.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Ygg2 14y agoI'd be willing to believe that is all if Obama (or was it Bush) didn't start enlisting children as possible militant targets. If they can bend that rule to change statistics, they or someone else could bend the rule to mark anyone as target. Example 1. Well you looked like one because of the beard 2. You or someone that looks like you promised to "Cleanse the US from face of Earth", etc. 3. You had a piece of wood that looked like a gun, so capture was infeasible 4. State you belonged, sponsored some terrorist 10 years ago.