May 14 2010
Assassination Of An American Citizen Is Illegal & Unconstitutional
The Bush administration was raked over the coals, unfairly in my opinion, for recognizing how our national security guidelines allowed terrorists free reign once inside our borders prior to 9-11, and for taking steps to correct this deadly problem. The left-wing nuts went ape over the changes President Bush instituted, changes which required the Attorney General to request special, short term surveillance powers to ensure people here in the US or US citizens abroad, who are in contact with previously identified terrorists, were not planning or executing deadly attacks inside our borders. The changes to the NSA-FISA relationship, which I have discussed ad nauseam since the NY Times’ traitorous act of disclosing these changes (with complete falsehoods and hype), also require judicial branch review every 90 days. Each 90 day period the Attorney General had to demonstrate why there was sufficient probable-cause evidence to warrant the special scrutiny our national security agencies can bring to bear.
Also note that this completely legal act (now law per Congress) was set up with numerous checks and balances, judicial review and congressional oversight and reporting. The left were all up in arms because they feared somehow their nattering ramblings would be used for political benefit – a completely unfounded and paranoid view.
But here we are today with the Obama administration thwarting the constitution and this nation’s laws in a manner that makes the act of surveillance pale in comparison. The Obama administration has issued an assassination order on a US citizen, one Anwar al Aulaqi. Al Aulaqi is a radicalized cleric living in Yemen and tied to three recent terrorist attacks here in the US (Ft Hood, the Christmas Day Bombing attempt, the Times Square Bombing attempt). While I see al Aulaqi as a treasonous enemy combatant through his actions and words, the fact is he is still innocent until proven guilty in an open court of law by a jury of his peers.
And this is where the Obama administration is simply trampling our constitution and laws. If the administration wants to put a hit order out on al Aulaqi, they need to try and convict him in a court of law for crimes worthy of the death penalty. Only through the determination by a jury of al Aulaqi’s peers – we average Americans, as much as that relationship disgusts us – can a death warrant against a US citizen be deemed appropriate.
Folks, we are now on the slippery slope to oblivion. We need to stand up and stop this order and give this man due process. He was not captured on the battlefield, so he is not going to fall into the detention/interrogation bucket of cases being debated. If the Obama administration has proof of his treason and the threat  he poses as the basis of the assassination order, then bring it to court and convict the man.
What I don’t want to see is precedence established here, where any old political leader can determine in secrecy that a US Citizen is a threat and then have them eliminated without due process or cause. Hitler and all other murderous leaders throughout history were given this kind of supreme power, and the results have always been a horrific disaster of epic human carnage. Once we remove our protections for one individual, or allow them to be circumvented in the heat of a moment of panic, then we lose them for all time.
I implore the leaders in Congress to stop this madness and call on the administration to try al Aulaqi in absentia and obtain a conviction and death sentence for his crimes. Then, once he is no longer innocent but proven guilty, the means of his execution can be considered in light of the circumstances of the man’s crimes and his threat to our nation. But not before hand, not in the America my father fought to protect during World War II, or the one my son signed up to protect as a United States Marine. We have not fought our way as a nation for 200+ years as we reached the pinnacle of human achievement and freedom to just throw it away on the hasty whim of a power-mad individual.
We are more than that. We used to be better than this.
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I part with you on this one, AJ.
If an American citizen went off to Berlin in 1941 to recruit terrorists to bomb Times Square for Hitler, I don’t think too many would have an issue with taking him out with extreme prejudice.
How is this case any different?
The law already says that if an American fights for the enemy, he forfeits his citizenship. In this particular case, we don’t have the luxury of waiting to capture and try him first… hundreds or thousands of lives are at stake. This goon has shown great talent and effectiveness in recruiting terrorists against us, and must be stopped immediately.
I’ll go along with you on this up to a point. By all means try him publicly in court in absentia. Give him due process in open court and not behind closed doors. There are enough e-mails and videos to convict him of sedition and treason if nothing else. I understand and share your concern, especially with this administration that has no respect for the rule of law or the Constitution. Revoke his citizenship upon conviction and then have him assassinated or at least issue a ” wanted dead or alive” with reward. There is no other way to bring him to justice without further loss of lives and we cannot have this traitor running around loose in the world recruiting more terrorists for jihad here in the US. He has already recrutied three that we know of. There are probably a great deal more. He is probably the pivot of the whole jihad movement in Yemen and needs to be taken out.
“We used to be better than this.”
I, for one, never for one second ever thought that Obama was better than this, and he has lived down to my lowest expectations. A desperate liberal will *always* resort to murder when he gets backed into a corner by his idiotic choices.
As to the order, I’ve got mixed feelings towards the precedent; while I cannot find fault with your logic, I cannot help but be pleased to see the “He jes’ needed killin” defense supported at a Federal Level.
I have mixed emotions about this. There are several perspectives. First I have no problem what ever with putting out kill orders against non American terrorists.
But, the other thing, kill orders against American citizens. Suppose the police respond to a bank robbery and the bank robbers decide to shoot their way out… do the policemen “put out an order to kill Americans”? or do they decide they need to be convicted in court first? Well, it could be argued that terrorists that are in the motion of “planning, and carrying out” the killing of Americans should be ‘shot back at’ in hopes of killing them before they land a lucky shot and kill an American.
I’m not sure if killing someone that is actively planning and attempting to kill you, lowers the standards of justice in America.
you said: “What I don’t want to see is precedence established here, where any old political leader can determine in secrecy that a US Citizen is a threat and then have them eliminated without due process or cause.”
I agree with that 100% (I think) but I’m not sure if putting out a kill order against Anwar al Aulaqi would be setting that precedence. While I have no doubt that Aulagi is guilty, I’m not a judge and it’s not up to me. But, let’s say the proper way to do it is to have a trial in absentia and then do it. Would a 10 minute trial and guilty verdict change the situation very much?
Think of it this way… He’s aiming his gun at you and is about to pull the trigger…. do you give the order to the drone? or do you order a trial?
“What I don’t want to see is precedence established here, where any old political leader can determine in secrecy that a US Citizen is a threat and then have them eliminated without due process or cause. ”
Exactly, AJ. This group in the WH now, in my humble opinion, cannot be trusted whatsoever. If George W. Bush were there, I would have no problem. But as you so aptly point out, we don’t always have that fortune. And you know, I can’t think of too many other presidents that I would trust…
Calling this guy an American is an insult—-its a lot more than a piece of paper that one can then hide behind. No formal court proceedings are necessary as this guy is guilty in the minds of every reasonable person with knowledge of only half the facts. The extermination of this cockroach causes me no concern whatsoever.
This is a small matter. We are in reality in war against islam and according to the rules, the law says that if an American fights for the enemy, he forfeits his citizenship. If it in reality this i s war, the courts should not need be involved. It it just an illusion that this is not a war just because weak politicians have not dared to get a declaration of war from Congress. So he can be killed like a vermin.
What we are heading for is a civil war in many Western nations because of mass-immigration, and it is ridicolous to think that protecting the rights of mortal enemies is an important matter. We are better than that. Our attention shall be directed to the rights of our own citizens who are loyal to the country.
So waterboarding is torture, but it is OK to put out a kill order on an American citizen. It is against the law for the United States of America to put out a kill order on anybody. We use to assassinate bad foreign leaders, the democrats were up in arms and made it against the law. How times have changed!
kathie, do you have any doubt that the guy is a mass murderer? Since he is fighting in a war against the US, he forfeits his citizenship? If I were a judge, I could find him guilty, in absentia, in less than 5 minutes and sentence him to death, by drone attack. That should solve all the legalities.
btw, everybody happy and enthused that we’re going to watch a brand new Mosque built at Ground Zero?
talk about marking your territory! Of course that’s what the victors usually do to the home of those they’ve beaten.
Redteam, I agree he is guilty. But I agree with Barbara, try the bastard in absentia, and then hunt him down like the animal he is. If he is killed in the hunt, so be it, but you don’t assassinate bad people, we are a nation of laws, even hard, ones. You would have thought a lawyer would understand that. But then Holder and Obama are prone to comment on things before they have read the law, or with little thought and implication.
Redteam, I agree he is guilty. But I agree with Barbara, try the bastard in absentia, and then hunt him down like the animal he is. If he is killed in the hunt, so be it, but you don’t assassinate bad people, we are a nation of laws, even hard, ones. You would have thought a lawyer would understand that. But then Holder and Obama are prone to comment on things before they have read the law, or with little thought and implication.
If the U.S. President is legally and morally justified in killing a terrorist outside the borders of the U.S. (via a drone strike)when that terrorist is NOT a U.S. citizen, why is a U.S. President precluded from killing a terrorist outside the borders of the U.S. (via a drone strike)when that terrorist IS a U.S. citizen?
Would somebody please make a compelling legal argument why the U.S. citizen should be allowed a “pass”.
“Would somebody please make a compelling legal argument why the U.S. citizen should be allowed a “passâ€.”
No.
Even if you try him in absentia, it will not matter. Why do that? If you are going to try him, have him extradited and do it here. If you try him in absentia and he is found guilty..then what? If you can not extradite him, do you send a hit team out to carry out the sentence?
I am sorry, but if you carry out attacks on your country, you sacrifice your citizenship. That is not a new policy.
Barbara:
You can not just hunt him down. The US military is not an arm of the courts. When was the last time you ever heard of the military tracking down someone who was found guilty of a crime?
No, I think you could put out an order like this.. There was only one terrorist who was involved in the first World Trade Center attack who was not tried. His name was Yasin. He escaped to Iraq and he vanished the month of the US invasion. Nothing was done to him by American courts. He was born here in the US to parents who were Iraqi students. In fact he was born less than 30 miles from where I live, in Bloomington at IU. He was a citizen because of that and that made it possible for him to get away with all sorts of mischief. No, these guys should lose that citizenship.
AJ wins today’s unclear on the concept award. War is not peace.
His reasoning here means it was wrong for the North to use military force to subdue the South during the Civil War. Given that the North contended Southerners were really American citizens and not rebels in arms, his reasoning necessarily implies that only the federal police power should have been used, i.e., a million United States Marshals serving arrest warrants on Confederate soliders, rather than a million American soldiers subduing a rebellion.
Or perhaps AJ feels it is okay to simply nuke Yemen from orbit and hope that one of the collateral casualties is the American citizen we want.
I’m a lawyer. When an American citizen is an enemy combatant, he may be killed on sight. His citizenship only makes a difference if he is captured and is then punished for acts committed while an enemy. The In Re Quirin case holds that, if the actions being punished were done as an unlawful combatant, he may be tried as an unlawful combatant and not as a citizen.
I.e., Confederate soldiers captured under arms and in uniform could be punished for being rebels only via the normal criminal process. They could be, and were, punished by mlitary courts under the old Articles of War, rather than in normal criminal court as civilians, for crimes committed as soldiers (rape, murder, etc.). They were punished using the same procedures as those applied to Union soldiers for the same offense. My recollection is that both sides also sometimes allowed large groups of officer prisoners of war to form their own courts martial under the Articles of War to punish fellow prisoners for things like theft from other prisoners.
Confederate soldiers captured under arms and out of uniform could be, and many were, punished as unlawful combatants by military courts under the old Articles of War. This meant a much abbrievated form of due process, even by the military standards of the day, using expedient field courts followed by swift execution. This very procedure was in fact actually used by American forces in December 1944 to try and execute German commandoes captured in American uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge. That procedure is no longer used, as the Articles of War have been replaced by the quite different Uniform Code of Military Justice.
AJ should avoid hasty comments about legal subjects. There is too great a risk of sounding silly.
Anwar al Aulaqi is either directing or providing spiritual guidance those who are engaged in war against humanity; hence, his actions are an act of war and a civil trial is not the proper jurisdiction. Aulaqi should and must be treated as an unlawful enemy combatant and, lacking his surrender, eliminated by whatever means available.
Tyrannical leadership causes problems…