Drone Strikes On Americans 'legal'

[1lluminated1]

EXCLUSIVE: Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans

 

 

 

By Michael Isikoff

National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

 

Startling Excerpts

 

“This is a chilling document,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which is suing to obtain administration memos about the targeted killing of Americans. “Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. … It recognizes some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are elastic and vaguely defined, and it’s easy to see how they could be manipulated.”

In particular, Jaffer said, the memo “redefines the word imminence in a way that deprives the word of its ordinary meaning.”

 

The white paper also includes a more extensive discussion of why targeted strikes against Americans does not violate constitutional protections afforded American citizens as well as a U.S. law that criminalizes the killing of U.S. nationals overseas.

It also discusses why such targeted killings would not be a war crime or violate a U.S. executive order banning assassinations.

 

“A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination,” the white paper reads. “In the Department’s view, a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban. Similarly, the use of lethal force, consistent with the laws of war, against an individual who is a legitimate military target would be lawful and would not violate the assassination ban.”

 

 

 

Read full article at NBC news:

http://openchannel.n...-americans?lite

[cristinew]

Here is another news clip,, on Obama's war on Americans,

 

http://news.yahoo.com/rare-look-obama-decides-send-drones-kill-americans-031832960.html

[cristinew]

Take a Rare Look at How Obama Decides to Send Drones to Kill Americans

 

Human rights advocates were floored on Monday night when NBC News published the details of an alarming Justice Department memo detailing the protocol for sending drones after United States citizens. It's not as if they hadn't suspected that the Obama administration's top secret drone attack protocol contained some unsavory details. They just didn't expect them to be so frightfully broad. The scoop by Michael Isikoff is actually startling not for the details but rather for the lack of details. It's very vague about a decision-making process that puts American lives on the line. Put simply, the government believes that a lethal drone attack against an American citizen is justified if the targets are a) "senior operational leaders" of al-Qaeda or b) "an associated force."

RELATED: Pakistani Complaints Led to New Rules for U.S. Drone Strikes

One of those two qualifiers is infinitely more worrisome than the other. Going after leaders of al Qaeda makes sense. That's what the War on Terror is all about, right? Breaking down networks of violent terrorists and keeping Americans safe. If an American happens to be caught up with al Qaeda, someone like Anwar al-Awlaki, then well… they shouldn't be surprised if they're getting chased by drones. At leastthat's what we've been told so far. How and why these attacks are carried out by drones is also detailed in the memo, but we'll get back to that in a second.

RELATED: How Many Times Does Al Qaeda's Number Two Need to Die?

But what does "an associated force" mean? It seems like the guy who sells the terrorists bomb supplies would probably qualify, but what about the unknowing neighbor or the hired hand? Can we just kill them too in good conscience? Quite unfortunately, the government isn't exactly sure. The memo suggests that anyone who "present an 'imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States" qualifies for assassination "a lawful killing in self defense," but that "does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future." In other words, an "informed, high-level" official can order the killing of any American citizen that was "recently" involved in threatening "activities." As Isikoff points out, the memo fails to define both of those terms.

RELATED: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Drones

"This is a chilling document," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. … It recognizes some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are elastic and vaguely defined, and it's easy to see how they could be manipulated." We've already seen some of this vague authority in action. A couple of years ago, The New York Times provided some insight into how subjective the process of deciding when to kill and when not to kill American citizens based on a top secret memo that justified the killing of al-Awlaki. That document as well as this latest leak from the Justice Department essentially says that a lethal attack, likely by a drone, is the method of choice whenever a capture mission would put other American lives on the line. Again, the documents are very vague about where to draw the line.

RELATED: Obama to Nominate John Brennan to Run the CIA

Inevitably, this latest revelation into how the Obama administration runs the War on Terror behind closed doors leads to more questions than answers. How, for instance, do they decided when to kill non-U.S. citizens? Previous reporting on the issue says that the government considers any military-aged male to be an insurgent, so it seems like pretty much anybody in the general region of Afghanistan or Pakistan could expect to find themselves in America's crosshairs. But again, we don't know because the Obama administration is keeping it completely secret, despite years worth of calls to disclose its decision-making process.

RELATED: The C.I.A.'s Silence on Drone Strikes Is Getting Awkward

This could be the beginning of an enlightening time for those who demand answers about the government's shady drone program. On Thursday, John Brannan has his confirmation hearing where the Senate will decide whether or not he's fit to run the Central Intelligence Agency. Since he's more or less the architect of America's drone war, we're sure the Senators will have a question or two about this memo and, we hope, some memos that we haven't seen before.

[1lluminated1]

Thank you cristinew for sharing the information above! That yahoo article sheds light onto the man everyone loves. Obama was supposed to be anti-war, but instead he loves death and destruction more than bush!

 

You are a true patriot and I appreciate you enlightening us on such important topics as this.

 

If we do not use our voice to speak out against the atrocities our gov. has and continues to commit, our children will be left without any freedoms at all.

[Beans]

4 more years

 

That feels so nice to say

 

Enjoy