Author Topic: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?  (Read 22536 times)

Blakenzy

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When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« on: February 05, 2013, 09:20:52 AM »
This Department of Justice White Paper says when:

Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force
http://www.scribd.com/doc/123883608/Lawfulness-of-a-Lethal-Operation-Directed-Against-a-U-S-Citizen-who-is-a-Senior-Operational-Leader-of-Al-Qa%E2%80%99ida-or-An-Associated-Force

Read for details.
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AZRedhawk44

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2013, 09:36:26 AM »
Yay Patriot Act!  America, *expletive deleted*ck yeah!  Coming to save the emmereffing day yeah!

U-S-A!  U-S-A!

 =|


This is NOT who we are supposed to be.
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charby

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2013, 09:42:25 AM »
I remember in the 2004 election cycle I tried to get a plank on the Iowa GOP platform to abolish the Patriot Act and I couldn't get one person to agree with me on why we should do it.
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Ben

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2013, 09:57:10 AM »
It's amazing how many otherwise sane Republicans toss logic to the wind if the word "patriot" is involved. "It's the Patriot Act! Are you not patriotic?!?"

The same people who rag on liberals for nanny-statism have no problem using the "it's for our safety" slogan when it comes to the Patriot Act.
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Kingcreek

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2013, 10:00:26 AM »
Once they can justify killing the first American, the next few (thousand?) should be easier.
What we have here is failure to communicate.

cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2013, 10:06:13 AM »
guy named bert or burt brandenberg wrote a piece during the clinton regime about assassination and its non legality for foreign leaders    maybe one of you can find it
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drewtam

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2013, 03:19:17 PM »
So this is an aspect of Bush and Obama's war policies that don't get me upset.

If a citizen is on foreign soil and is in an enemy war camp (not reasonably able to be captured, as the legal docs put it); then attacking and killing said person in the course of war operations is expected. If they are making war on the US from a foreign location, then it is nonsensical to try and send in the FBI to foreign soil for a raid.

Maybe the current legal situation lacks checks and balances / oversight; but that is an entirely different argument. It seems the current argument is calling the drone assassinations completely illegitimate on the face.
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roo_ster

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #7 on: February 05, 2013, 04:14:44 PM »
Waterboarding foreign killers = war crime
Killing Americans with drones = humanitarian
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AZRedhawk44

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #8 on: February 05, 2013, 04:21:36 PM »
So this is an aspect of Bush and Obama's war policies that don't get me upset.

If a citizen is on foreign soil and is in an enemy war camp (not reasonably able to be captured, as the legal docs put it); then attacking and killing said person in the course of war operations is expected. If they are making war on the US from a foreign location, then it is nonsensical to try and send in the FBI to foreign soil for a raid.

Maybe the current legal situation lacks checks and balances / oversight; but that is an entirely different argument. It seems the current argument is calling the drone assassinations completely illegitimate on the face.

Keep in mind, drewtam, that everyone ra-ra'ed the Patriot Act in 2001, weighing it only on the merits of its immediate utility rather than the liabilities of its most malicious mis-use.

Now we see what a DHS can do with it when classifying bitter-clingers as turr'ists.

Do you really want to let this one also slide, and see the scope of this drone warfare document expanded to domestic operations against bitter-clinger turr'ists?
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HankB

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #9 on: February 05, 2013, 04:25:58 PM »
 [tinfoil]
 "They" took care of JFK, RFK, Marilyn Monroe, Ron Brown, Vicky Weaver, and Vince Foster without benefit of drones or the Patriot Act. (Maybe Jimmy Hoffa, too.)
 [tinfoil]
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RevDisk

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2013, 04:46:54 PM »
So this is an aspect of Bush and Obama's war policies that don't get me upset.

If a citizen is on foreign soil and is in an enemy war camp (not reasonably able to be captured, as the legal docs put it); then attacking and killing said person in the course of war operations is expected. If they are making war on the US from a foreign location, then it is nonsensical to try and send in the FBI to foreign soil for a raid.

Maybe the current legal situation lacks checks and balances / oversight; but that is an entirely different argument. It seems the current argument is calling the drone assassinations completely illegitimate on the face.

Meh. My policy is simple. If anyone kills a US citizen without self-defense provisions being involved or due process, they're a threat to our country. Even if you try to apply "He Needed Killing" defense, which I warrant is sometimes necessary and justified, still doesn't apply to Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi. Dude was 16, and no one credibly claims he was a militant. Basically, just that he was related to a suspected bad guy.


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cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2013, 04:51:24 PM »
still doesn't apply to Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi. Dude was 16, and no one credibly claims he was a militant. Basically, just that he was related to a suspected bad guy.


there is that sticky part there
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RevDisk

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2013, 04:54:25 PM »
still doesn't apply to Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi. Dude was 16, and no one credibly claims he was a militant. Basically, just that he was related to a suspected bad guy.


there is that sticky part there

If either of us killed a bystander while doing something lawful, we're going to jail for involuntary manslaughter at a minimum. Standard should apply to anyone assassinating US citizens. Not that it's a great idea to start with.

Seriously, this doesn't even qualify for "slippery slope". Intentionally assassinating US citizens with no oversight or due process is NOT kosher by any definition.
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Ron

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2013, 05:01:11 PM »
Quote
still doesn't apply to Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi. Dude was 16, and no one credibly claims he was a militant. Basically, just that he was related to a suspected bad guy.

The public in the USA is neither aware of what our real foreign policy goals are (classified information) nor literate enough in the aggregate to have an educated opinion on the subject.

It is for this reason I am opposed to all our current military entanglements.

The system is so completely untrustworthy that I've gone full Ron Paul/libertarian on this subject.

Let's start the process of disentangling and bringing our men and women home. Farm that money into self defense of the country, debt elimination etc.  

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cassandra and sara's daddy

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2013, 05:03:34 PM »
It is much more powerful to seek Truth for one's self.  Seeing and hearing that others seem to have found it can be a motivation.  With me, I was drawn because of much error and bad judgment on my part. Confronting one's own errors and bad judgment is a very life altering situation.  Confronting the errors and bad judgment of others is usually hypocrisy.


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Nick1911

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2013, 05:07:37 PM »
Quote
When can the US Government assasinate Americans?

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the answer is "Whenever they want."

drewtam

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2013, 05:51:13 PM »
If either of us killed a bystander while doing something lawful, we're going to jail for involuntary manslaughter at a minimum. Standard should apply to anyone assassinating US citizens. Not that it's a great idea to start with.

Seriously, this doesn't even qualify for "slippery slope". Intentionally assassinating US citizens with no oversight or due process is NOT kosher by any definition.

So that response is still vague to me... would you be ok with drone strikes on US citizens if there was proper Congressional or Judicial oversight? Or is killing a US citizen only allowed during immediate self defense and/or after a trial back in the US?

If there is proper Congressional or Judicial oversight, that would be ok with me. I think it is ludicrous to expect a trial in-absentia before completing an attack on a combatant; or just ignore American terrorists because we can't serve a warrant nor extradite them for trial.
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seeker_two

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2013, 07:09:42 PM »
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the answer is "Whenever they want."

That's always been the answer....just ask Admiral Yamamoto & Fidel Castro...

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ArfinGreebly

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2013, 07:48:21 PM »

Well, they could try to get away with it, but it would fail, really, because they'd have to have the press covering for them, and that would never happen . . .
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Blakenzy

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2013, 08:57:17 PM »


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De Selby

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #20 on: February 05, 2013, 09:05:54 PM »
The problem here is that they've considered the entire world to be a war zone, with no time limits.  It's a classic tyrannical move - declare an everlasting state of emergency that knows no bounds, and enforce the law as you choose within it.

If they're relying on war powers, there must be some limit to what is a war zone, or else their power to kill citizens on "executive finding" of past involvement with terror is unlimited.

If they're relying on anything else, the standards of self defense are much higher, and the wish washy principles in the paper have no legal foundation whatsoever.

To mock their criticism of water torture is entirely correct - instead of arresting and imprisoning without trial like Bush, Obama is asserting the power to kill.  It's an outrage to the constitution, and an eerie first step taken by many tyrannical regimes in history.
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De Selby

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #21 on: February 05, 2013, 09:08:06 PM »
That's always been the answer....just ask Admiral Yamamoto & Fidel Castro...



Sorry, but no one at the time believed that shooting Castro or Yamamoto would've been legal if either escaped to Paris and hidden their identities, to avoid punishment by war crimes tribunals.  Those are examples of leadership strikes confined by territorial and conflict limits.  

This is a very, very different legal theory.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2013, 09:31:20 PM by De Selby »
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Scout26

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2013, 09:21:28 PM »
Yamamoto was, by definition a combatant, as a commissioned officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy.  Therefore a member of the Armed Forces of one of the parties of the conflict.

Castro openly carried arms and participated in an armed revolt while wearing a military type uniform.  Again, a combatant. 
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De Selby

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #23 on: February 05, 2013, 09:33:11 PM »
Yamamoto was, by definition a combatant, as a commissioned officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy.  Therefore a member of the Armed Forces of one of the parties of the conflict.

Castro openly carried arms and participated in an armed revolt while wearing a military type uniform.  Again, a combatant. 

True - which is what makes those strikes easy cases and distinguishes them from Obama's theory.

There are clearly defined limits, and obvious conditions that would change the case for both.  Not so in the war on terror - it's impossible to pin the government to limits on its power to kill.
"Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death."

Ron

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Re: When can the US Government assasinate Americans?
« Reply #24 on: February 05, 2013, 09:33:50 PM »
Quote
Quote from: Ron on Today at 05:01:11 PM


Dismantle The Empire to save the empire Republic.

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touché
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