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and the Nobel Peace Prize goes to....

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Anybody think that maybe capturing these guys and housing them at Gitmo might be better? At least the captured ones allow for some intelligence gathering.


Whatever happened to the "due process of law". Wasn't it the lack of "due process of law" that was once a recruiting tool for terrorists?


Barack Obama: The Cowboy President

By Yvonne Ridley

Global Research, April 12, 2010
Cage Prisoners - 2010-04-11

The United States of America has reached a new level in its discredited War on Terror just when we thought it could not sink any lower.

And what makes this even more tragic is that the new depths being plumbed are on the express orders of Barack Obama … a US President who promised the world so much and has delivered on so little.

That he is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient makes this all the more shocking.

President Obama has authorized the assassination of a Muslim scholar by the name of Anwar al-Awlaki. But what is really breath-taking is that Al-Awlaki is an American citizen, born in Las Cruces in the state of New Mexico of Yemeni parents.

He has now become the first US citizen placed on a targetted killing list. His nationality should not really be an issue because in the eyes of most right minded people extra-judicial killing is wrong, it is an action which puts the killer above the law – and no one, not even the President of the United States should think himself above the law.

Wasn’t Obama supposed to be more principled than his predecessor?


I can almost hear the laughter ringing out loud from the Texan village of Crawford now that its idiot has been returned.

George W Bush brought us the War on Terror and during a bloody decade he brought us a new language with words like rendition and waterboarding becoming commonplace.

He quickly squandered the good will of the rest of the world after the horrific events of 9/11 by carpet bombing freedoms and liberties along with hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children who got in the way of his military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When he left the White House it marked the end of an era and those of us who believe in equality, justice and human rights for all breathed a sigh of relief.

A new man was at the helm … a man who promised transparency, the closure of Guantanamo and an end to torture among many other things.

Yes, we all placed our trust in the new man sitting in the Oval Office. He had, after all, come from an honourable background as an ambitious civil rights lawyer. Such a man would have convulsed at the thought of anyone imposing an extra-judicial death penalties on anyone, let alone a US citizen who hasn't had the chance of a trial.

What happened to that lawyer? On his journey to Washington what changed in him that he could squander the freedoms and liberties as set out in the American Constitution?

Surely the correct and honourable way of dealing with Imam Anwar al Awlaki would be to charge him in his absence and then ask the Yemeni government to arrest him and extradite him. This is the legal thing to do, this is the right thing to do and it is the civilized thing to do.

I have read rumours that al Awlaki is supposed to be an al-Qaida recruiter but like all of these rumours they are short on fact and evidence. I know that he has inspired a generation of converts around the world by his tapes. I have listened to one series and I can tell you that those tapes sound completely different to the ones released on the web today.

But I digress – we are not putting him on a trial by media for the truth is none of us has any concrete evidence although there’s lots of hearesay in the usual minor league blogs and chatrooms.

If the evidence was out there, he would have been charged – and extradited. The Yemeni authorities did have him locked away at the request of the US for a some time in 2007.

So we are now entering the world of secret evidence … a process so flawed and discredited in Britain already although there are still men in British jails who are being held without trial or charge because of it.

Could it be that Obama has simply signed off the Imam’s execution because there isn’t enough solid evidence to indict him and he doesn’t want to go down the embarrassing route of opening yet another Guantanamo?

And it seems he has signed off the order in the same casual manner that Bill Clinton signed off permission for the bombing of the aspirin factory in Khartoum, Sudan.

Who remembers that one? I’ve walked through the rubble of that factory where a night watchman, a family man, paid the ultimate price for merely doing his job.

Clinton boasted to the world that US missiles had taken out an al-Qaida chemicals factory. There’s that noun again al-Qaida … which has essentially become a rubber stamp for the US doing whatever it likes.

Call it al-Qaida and no one will ask questions.

Yes, it seems the rules of the game are changing yet again, but what makes it more sinister is that the rules are now being written by an intelligent lawyer and not some monsyllabic Republican with the IQ of a baked bean.

The President’s men will no doubt justify the assassination of al-Awlaki by claiming that international law allows the killing of individuals who pose an imminent threat to a country.

You see, when it suits, international law is cited even though the US has run rough shod over it with alarming regularity since 9/11. However, I believe it is debatable if such an assassination would be legitimate under international law and it is certainly not permissible under the US Constitution.

Both the Sixth and 14th Amendments clearly require due process of law. The Fifth Amendment includes this: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger . .”

Apart from those ordinary decent Americans who will be appalled at what is being done in their name, what sort of message will Obama’s actions send to the rest of the world?

Islam Karimov, a leader who routinely boils alive pious Muslims in vats of scalding water, has already justified the work of those who torture for the Uzbekistan state by citing the actions of the Bush torturers and interrogators from Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

The US President has, like Islam Karimov and other vile little tinpot dictators, set himself above the law and the American courts can not do a thing because judges will never be called upon to decide if such an extra-judicial killing is legal or not. Why? Because as I write this, al-Awlaki has not been indicted and charged and most certainly never will be.

And just in case you’re in any doubt that the US President has signed off his death warrant without realizing the full consequences, a few weeks ago Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence told a congressional panel that there were certain counterterrorism cases that could involve killing an American citizen.

Then he emphasized that it would require a special process through the National Security Council — for safeguards after saying: "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

For decades, the CIA was suspected of covertly plotting political assassinations, but the practice was stopped by President Gerald Ford.

No one would have been really surprised had George W Bush resurrected such a policy but the fact that the Obama Administration has just sanctioned state sponsored assassinations has left some human rights groups reeling.

This is not about the rights and wrongs of the alleged actions of some Muslim cleric in Yemen this has far wider repercussions like the moral issue of political assassination as official US policy for dealing with those perceived to be enemies.

Now that Obama has decided to dispense with judge and jury he is returning the US to the days of the Wild West … which could make him more of a cowboy president than Bush ever was.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18621
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
The 'Obama doctrine': kill, don't detain

George Bush left a big problem in the shape of Guantánamo. The solution? Don't capture bad guys, assassinate by drone


In 2001, Charles Krauthammer first coined the phrase "Bush Doctrine", which would later become associated most significantly with the legal anomaly known as pre-emptive strike. Understanding the doctrine with hindsight could lead to a further understanding of the legacy that the former administration left – the choice to place concerns of national security over even the most entrenched norms of due process and the rule of law. It is, indeed, this doctrine that united people across the world in their condemnation of Guantánamo Bay.

The ambitious desire to close Guantánamo hailed the coming of a new era, a feeling implicitly recognised by the Nobel peace prize that President Obama received. Unfortunately, what we witnessed was a false dawn. The lawyers for the Guantánamo detainees with whom I am in touch in the US speak of their dismay as they prepare for Obama to do the one thing they never expected – to send the detainees back to the military commissions – a decision that will lose Obama all support he once had within the human rights community.

Worse still, a completely new trend has emerged that, in many ways, is more dangerous than the trends under Bush. Extrajudicial killings and targeted assassinations will soon become the main point of contention that Obama's administration will need to justify. Although Bush was known for his support for such policies, the extensive use of drones under Obama have taken the death count well beyond anything that has been seen before.

Harold Koh, the legal adviser to the US state department, explained the justifications behind unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) when addressing the American Society of International Law's annual meeting on 25 March 2010:

"t is the considered view of this administration … that targeting practices, including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war … As recent events have shown, al-Qaida has not abandoned its intent to attack the United States, and indeed continues to attack us. Thus, in this ongoing armed conflict, the United States has the authority under international law, and the responsibility to its citizens, to use force, including lethal force, to defend itself, including by targeting persons such as high-level al Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks … [T]his administration has carefully reviewed the rules governing targeting operations to ensure that these operations are conducted consistently with law of war principles …
"ome have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in armed conflict or in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force. Our procedures and practices for identifying lawful targets are extremely robust, and advanced technologies have helped to make our targeting even more precise. In my experience, the principles of distinction and proportionality that the United States applies are not just recited at meeting. They are implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law."

The legal justifications put forward by Koh are reminiscent of the arguments that were used by John Yoo and others in their bid to lend legitimacy to unlawful practices such as rendition, arbitrary detention and torture. The main cause for concern from Koh's statements is the implication that protective jurisdiction to which the US feels it is entitled in order to carry out operations anywhere in the world still continues under Obama. The laws of war do not allow for the targeting of individuals outside of the conflict zone, and yet we now find that extrajudicial killings are taking place in countries as far apart as Yemen, the Horn of Africa and Pakistan. From a legal and moral perspective, the rationale provided by the State Department is bankrupt and only reinforces the stereotype that the US has very little concern for its own principles.

Despite the legalities of what is being conducted, the actuality of extrajudicial killings, especially through UAVs is frightening. The recent revelations by WikiLeaks on the killing of civilians by US Apache helicopters in Iraq has strongly highlighted the opportunities for misuse surrounding targeting from the air. In the Iraq case, there were soldiers who were supposed to be using the equipment to identify so-called combatants, and yet they still managed to catastrophically target the wrong people. This situation is made even worse in the case of UAVs, where the operators are far removed from the reality of the conflict and rely on digital images to see what is taking place on the ground.

Conservative estimates from thinktanks such as the New American Foundation claim that civilian causalities from drone attacks are around one in three, although this figure is disputed by the Pakistani authorities. According to Pakistani official statistics, every month an average of 58 civilians were killed during 2009. Of the 44 Predator drone attacks that year, only five targets were correctly identified; the result was over 700 civilian casualties.

Regardless of the figures used, the case that extrajudicial killings are justified is extremely weak, and the number of civilian casualties is far too high to justify their continued use.

A further twist to the Obama Doctrine is the breaking of a taboo that the Bush administration balked at – the concept of treating US citizens outside of the US constitutional process. During the Bush era, the treatment of detainees such as John Walker Lindh, Yasser Hamdi and Jose Padilla showed reluctance by officials to treat their own nationals in the way it had all those of other nationalities (by, for instance, sending them to Guantánamo Bay and other secret prisons). The policy of discrimination reserved for US citizens showed that there was a line the US was not willing to cross.

At least, today, we can strike discrimination off the list of grievances against the current president. The National Security Council of the US has now given specific permission to the CIA to target certain US citizens as part of counter-terrorism operations. Specifically, Anwar al-Awlaki has been singled out for such treatment, as it has been claimed that he was directly involved in the planning of the Major Hasan Nidal killings and the Christmas Day bomber attacks. Indeed, it is claims such as this that bring the entire concept of targeted assassinations into question. The US would like us to believe that we should simply trust that they have the relevant evidence and information to justify such a killing, without bringing the individual to account before a court.

The assumption that trust should be extended to a government that has involved itself in innumerable unlawful and unconscionable practices since the start of the war on terror is too much to ask. Whatever goodwill the US government had after 9/11 was destroyed by the way in which it prosecuted its wars. Further, the hope that came with the election of Barack Obama has faded as his policies have indicated nothing more than a reconfiguration of the basic tenet of the Bush Doctrine – that the US's national security interests supersede any consideration of due process or the rule of law. The only difference – witness the rising civilian body count from drone attacks – being that Obama's doctrine is even more deadly.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/11/obama-national-security-drone-guantanamo
 

Steve

Well-known member
this shows a clear case of damn if you do, damned if you don't..

for some nothing will please them... I am glad that Obama is at least talking about killing terrorists. .. (even if he once condemned Bush and the US military for taking the same action)

I guess once in office "reality" set in... or he was never really a civil rights lawyer.. (or both)
 

Whitewing

Well-known member
I find the silence on the left re this topic to be amazing. I guess I shouldn't, but still do.

Imagine if George W. Bush had issued a hit on an American-born citiizen who had never had a day in court? I'll bet the left in the US, no the left worldwide, would be screaming from the rooftops for Bush's head.

In this case, NADA. And not just here, other forums as well. Silence.

Simply amazing.
 

hopalong

Well-known member
Yea the liberals on this forum would be screaming murder. Where is oldtimer and his blame BUSH agenda?
OR kolo/jingo saying things like SOOOO?
OR angusgord cutting and pasting something to change the subject?
:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
 
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