US citizen murdered by government without trial

But he admitted he did it. That's not alleged anything, that's what they call a confession!

 

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why do you care so much about the American part and not the al Qaeda part? If he had been born in Yemen and not New Mexico would you care?

 

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He admitted what to whom? And again you are failing to answer this simple question, does admitting something or being accused of something mean that they can be executed without trial? Because that's what we are talking about, this is a question of due process. Jeffery Dahmer didn't deny his appetite for young men and still there was a trial.

 

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U.S. intelligence indicates that the top al Qaeda bomb-maker in Yemen also died in the drone strike that killed radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, two U.S. officials said Friday.
Ibrahim al-Asiri is the bomb-maker linked to the bomb hidden in the underwear of a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009...

what about him? He didn't get a trial.

 

And you want to separate yourself from terrorists how? By not obeying the rule of law? Yes I would care if he were not a US national, members here can tell you that I had my concerns when people were being denied due process under the patriot act. The fact that this is happening to US citizens does ratch it up a notch. Because evidently now you don't need to prove that someone is a terrorist, you just have to say they are one and you can then smoke them. It was bad enough when you were simply putting people in jail without charges or representation or trial but now you all think you can just smoke someone for their speech no less!!!

 

Yes again this is just hearsay, government speak. They don't have to prove it to you they just have to say it. What is linked? What does that mean? I remember when you grabbed a Canadian citizen in a US airport while he was passing through and proceeded to hold him through extraordinary rendition. You sent him to a foreign country and where he was tortured for a year and then he was released because he didn't know anything and the intel was wrong. Do you know what they had said about him that landed this man in such a mess? They said he was 'linked' to some terrorist they had on their list. This is why due process is necessary, it keeps government in check and it upholds the rule of law.

What about him? He didn't get smoked. Mr. Underwear bomber is awaiting trial. Keep up already:http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...docId=CNG.ac8b01f8532f72cab538cddd4bfda440.11

"DETROIT, Michigan — A young Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a packed airliner bound for the United States on Christmas Day 2009 returns to court Monday to stand trial for one of Al-Qaeda's biggest plots. Jurors are to be selected this week before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, popularly known as the underwear bomber, contests charges that he tried to kill nearly 300 people aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit."

Aint that something? They say he's 'accused' they didn't say he's guilty and he's allowed jurors and everything.

 

I guess I can as easily as you can :shrug:

 

Really? I looked at those pictures of Gitmo and Abu Grahib and it looked pretty torturous to me.

My point is simply that if you don't uphold the rule of law, if you engage in activities that are outside the rule of law then you get just as down and dirty as the people who want to bring you down. They have reasons for what they do, let's not give them reason to say they are right to feel the way they do.

I just worry when a government can simply accuse you of terrorism and then smoke you based on the accusation by an executive order, its all too fascist for my tastes. And don't even get me started on what I think of the argument that he should be smoked because he made videos and wrote hateful things about the US.

 

The rule of law does indicate that he should have gotten a trial if he were under US jurisdiction. He wasn't. Taking out a confessed murder and enemy of the country while he's abroad is not illegal by any means.

 

That's rubbish! He is an american citizen, Yemen didn't have a case against him. Show me the law that says the executive office can conduct an execution if one of their citizens is in another country? He could have easily been extradited. Where is your evidence that he is a confessed murderer? All they know for sure is that he's the guy who works the propaganda, he's the one who puts out the videos and the publications.

GET A GRIP ON THE FACTS PEOPLE:

White House hopeful Ron Paul and the American Civil Liberties Union each condemned the United States' killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who has never been charged with any crime.

Al Qaeda's Anwar al-Awlaki killed in Yemen

Paul, a staunch Libertarian, said in New Hampshire Friday that it's "sad" if "the American people accept this blindly and casually," adding that "nobody knows if he ever killed anybody," According to the Wall Street Journal. the Texas Republican lawmaker said United States officials "have never been specific about the crime."

The ACLU said the killing was a violation of both U.S. and international law.

"As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the ACLU. "The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the president - any president - with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country."

Added ACLU National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner: "If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20113962-503544.html



If the evidence is so strong why didn't they charge him with something, have him extradited and tried so the public can hear how evil he really was and what threat he posed?

What's really beautiful about this is you now have a libertarian, a republican conservative and the ACLU all on the same page. And you have a democratic Obama behaving like the former Bush-cheyney.

 

Get a grip now, I didn't say that it war right. I never think that killing is right except in self defense. However it is currently legal. The two terms are far from synonymous.

 

Fuck if its right, I'm asking if its even legal! What makes it legal? You keep saying it is but what statute makes this legal? Its certainly not constitutionally granted so what grants these powers? And more importantly do you believe the government should have executive execution powers without due process? In other words are you going to take their word for it. Remember that these precedents don't go away, these powers remain way after these so called 'threats' have passed.

 

Good thread Lucy. I don't bother with this stuff anymore because it seems to me that most Americans are too brainwashed to realise they are exchanging their government for Mubarak's where political dissent is simply snuffed out by the militia and anyone who speaks out against the policies of the government gets murdered as a "traitor"

The irony of course is that nobody in the Middle East probably knows who Awlaki is, since he only came into the limelight after the Americans decided they needed some bogeyman to fulfil their fear factor. The man was born in America and spoke in English. The only people who paid attention to him were Americans - the same people who made a celebrity and then a martyr out of him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/w...ebrates-awlakis-death-the-mideast-shrugs.html

Since you're involved in the occupy wall street movement you must have seen how vast the disconnect is between the people the media and the government. In fact you have to dig deep into the media to find anyone addressing the constitutional problems inherent with this extrajudicial killing of an American born, American citizen, who was really the equivalent of Robert Spencer or Daniel Pipes inasmuch as inspiration for terrorist attacks are concerned. I don't know if any major reporter or newspaper has addressed the decline of democracy, I've only come across two:

Glen Greenwald: The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

Richard Silverstein: Al-Awlaki: Obama’s Murder

This may be a good time to recall the prayer of that good pastor Martin Niemöller "First they came for the...."

 

@SAM

Exactly! This is what I was so curious about, how could this guy be a real mac-daddy like Bin Laden when he wasn't even on the ME secret service list of threats? He was low-level in terms of actual threat and could have easily been extradited and tried if need be for his use of propaganda to incite terrorism or what have you.

What's really dangerous I think are reactions like Read-Only who decided that Awlaki was deserving of death simply because of what he may have said or written. That is really dangerous, not to mention that people are willing to take the governments word for it. I mean look at it, you kill of an american citizen without even placing any charges against him and it doesn't even raise any red flags among the american people!!!

That's what frightens me.

The disconnect between the media the people and government is huge right now. What I find interesting is that even those whom I consider to be of the left persuasion were dismissive of even the idea of such a group. No one dismissed the Tea Party folk and indeed they have proven to be a force to be reckoned with but the Tea Party are manipulated by corporate interests, namely the Koch brothers. Occupy Wall St. is made up of students, working folk, unions who are suffering and concerned about the dwindling democracy and the take over of this system by a financial elite who are imposing their own form of neo-fuedalism around the world and for some reason that scares people, or makes them angry or makes them suspicious.

SAM: This may be a good time to recall the prayer of that good pastor Martin Niemöller "First they came for the...."

Well thats what I am trying to get across but it isn't working. They keep asking why I should care, he was just a terrorist or what have you, just a bad guy, the evil one and all that but really they don't understand how else a law such as this can be used against people. Its already being used against an american, but it seems because he was one of those muslim americans or what have you that he isn't the same as well, you know, the other 'real' americans. Look back on history and ask yourself how many times has a government used privileges like this against anyone who moved against them politically or anyone who moves against the system. I'm wondering how long it will take before other people are also targeted as 'terrorists'. Its like the buzz word to use if you want to completely rob someone of their human rights or civil rights, call them a terrorist and all of a sudden they have no legal rights and the government isn't even required to pose charges or show evidence. Unfuckingbelivable and how scary is that! I mean under Bush is was one thing, now we're into Obama and these policies are already engrained into society. People think its okay and even 'right', they're getting used to this new state of affairs, they've adjusted and become passive and unquestioning. Its the zombification of america.

And then people ask why occupy wall st. organization has no leaders, Ha! Its leaderless precisely so no one can cut off its head!

 

@Lucy --

There's no statute that makes it illegal so therefore it's legal by default. If something isn't illegal then it is automatically legal as the terms legal and illegal are a mutually defining dichotomy. No, the question of whether it's right or not is far more interesting.

It is if they interpret it as treason during wartime, then they have the power to execute on the spot. This is my entire problem with law is that it's almost entirely subjective as one word can have a thousand different definitions and a million different interpretations.

I don't think that the government should have the power to execute even with due process, but this is irrelevant to the topic of legality. Now we've wandered into the territory of the ethics of corporal punishment. Let's not confuse the two topics.

I don't take their word for it, but according to the data we have(which we don't have reason to suspect is fraudulent) he admitted his guilt. I will take his word for it when there's absolutely no evidence of coercion.

Ah, the slippery slope argument, albeit this time with some merit. Of course I know that these powers don't just go away, but that's absolutely irrelevant to whether or not such actions are legal. If it's legal then it's legal regardless of what the consequences may be.

 

"There's no statute that makes it illegal so therefore it's legal by default." LOL! That's precious, but it doesn't really work for me. You do have this thing you people call the 5th amendment do you not?

Well the 5th amendment guarantees due process:

The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution,which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215. For instance, grand juries and the phrase "due process" both trace their origin to the Magna Carta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution



Are you implying that there is no longer a 5th amendment protecting american citizens against government abuse?

EVen the charge of treason requires due process:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#United_States


Have these provisions gone out the window too? Because Congress and the bit about 'confession in open court' didn't take place. But hey Obama joined NATO into Libya without permission of congress so maybe the president can now just do whatever he likes.

They keep saying he admitted his guilt but they show no evidence and have placed no charges against the man. So...

The legal right seems to be OBVIOUSLY missing here.

 

And don't forget Samir Khan

I think you're pushing it a little with the freedom of speech argument; to the other, I will also concede that the public record will never witness the actual evidence.

Beyond that, there are a number of unsettling aspects:

• The hit was legal, apparently, according to some law passed by Congress and signed by Bush in the fairly immediate wake of 9/11.

• Yemen was not any officially recognized battlefield; they could just as legally poisoned some American citizen's tea in London and called him an enemy engaged in a combat action on the battlefield.​

If he was in Afghanistan, I would can all of my concerns for now.

Were I president, I would have very publicly asked Yemen to surrender the two American citizens I was after, instead of killing them.

Yes, we got two American citizens in that hit.

If Yemen said no? I don't know, maybe another Abbottabad, and then I could just say they resisted arrest. But, no, I'm not certain.

These were American citizens. They were not on a reasonably defined battlefield. Indictment, extradition, and trial. That is the proper way.

I'm unsettled, but unless that much of Congress wishes to change its attitude, I don't think we're going to see any change in things. So part of the operating theory going forward is that it was an act of war, but no, I don't like the lack of delineation.

Or, perhaps, one might work for a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. Give them that, and they will suddenly forget Obama's favor to them in not prosecuting the Bush administration.

At some point, people will decide they've had enough. And if we're lucky, the American way in these issues is that we won't prosecute anyone, because it would be unfair to prosecute, say, the next president for what was reasonably legal and looked past in two prior administrations. But the American people will put their foot down insofar as they ever do, and the government will publicly separate itself from the practices through legislation and executive orders, but continue to assassinate suspects abroad through covert operations.

It is a slow and harrowing transformation. I'm not sure what will change the course. I wouldn't even trust revolutionary bloodshed. It's the twenty-first century, and perhaps the world will figuratively come to an end next year.

 

@Tiassa

I'm not arguing freedom of speech, I'm arguing that the guy should have been brought back to the US to stand trial, he wasn't a major player in Al Qaeda, in fact he was nothing more than a propagandist from all accounts. They didn't charge him with anything, they also seem to think that its okay to execute their own citizens without due process.

I'm arguing for due process in this situation not freedom of speech, but it should be known that I don't consider being a propagandist worthy of the death penalty.

I just find it unsettling that not very many people are concerned about how this executive privilege is being carried out. I don't believe that this law can be legal its not even constitutional, what I am saying is that there is this trend now that anything immoral once sanctioned as legal it goes unquestioned. Either your constitution is the bases of law or it isn't. If it isn't then scrap the thing and stop pretending that being an american actually stands for some higher standard of moral enlightenment. Yemen wouldn't have said no, Yemen never says no. Yemen is one of the most cooperative countries in the war on terror or whatever you want to call it. Yemen has said yes yes yes to the chagrin of its own people. Yemen wouldn't have said no because this guy wasn't important, not to anyone in the middle east anyway, they considered him some low level cleric and an american to boot.

I do like the way you say 'if congress doesn't want to change things' as if this is a government body somehow divorced from you the citizen. I thought those boys were supposed to work for you? I thought they were supposed to represent you? You know, that dying carcass in the corner they call 'the democracy'. Anyway, isn't it up to you to demand these changes?


Resisted arrest? It was a drone attack!!!!