There are a couple of problems here: one is you say the government “pretty much” gave Obama the authority, makes it sound like even you think he doesn’t actually have that authority. The next problem is that your summary is wrong. The link doesn’t say the government gave the president the authority to have al-Awlaki killed. It says Obama gave the CIA and the military the approval to kill him. That’s different. Obama himself has approved this singly.
And the real problem is that the link doesn’t address the issue. We know the administration is trying to kill al-Awlaki. They signed off on that a year ago, as your link says. The issue is that he’s a U.S. citizen, so it is not a sure thing that they’re allowed to have him killed like that.
Isn’t this a huge oversimplification? He hasn’t “said bad stuff,” he appears to be a significant player in Al Qaeda with links to multiple terrorist attacks. Even if killing him is OK - and I am not sure I have a problem with the move, but I question the legality - we know Yemen has become a major AQ haven. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is maybe the most active group at this point.
I’m not sure what “assassination” means to you. Admiral Yamamoto was a Japanese military officer, in uniform, in a Japanese military plane, on a Japanese military mission, when he was shot down by US military planes piloted by US military pilots, in uniform, during a declared war between the US and Japan.
In contrast, Reinhard Heydrich was ambushed by people wearing civilian clothes and pretending, until their attack, to be civilians, which is not exactly consistent with the rules of war. I have no problem calling that an assassination. Similarly, Orlando Letelier was not even a soldier, nor engaged in armed combat, nor was there a declared state of war. Absolutely an assassination.
Che Guevera was killed by Bolivian forces, after being captured while leading an attempt at armed overthrow of the Bolivian government. This is in a perhaps slightly gray area, since the execution seems to have been on the direct order of then- Bolivian President René Barrientos and did not include any kind of a trial, but on the other hand, I have no idea what Bolivian law permitted in this regard.
Its not really clear if the links between him and terrorists are because he himself is a terrorist organizer, or simply because he’s an anti-American preacher thats popular with the kinds of people who become terrorists.
But my point isn’t really that he’s innocent, I doubt that he is. My point is that its dangerous to try and shoehorn these situations into a strained military analogy where more or less “anything goes”, where anyone anywhere can be executed by the US gov’t without any outside check, and where the putative terrorist doesn’t even have the option of turning himself in for a trial.
Terrorism presents a challenge that’s different then either traditional warfare or traditional law-enforcement. I certainly don’t have problems expanding the Executive Branch’s powers in order to cope with those challenges. But those expansions should be done in some sort of consistent legal framework, with laws passed by Congress to create them, and should make some effort to follow the general principles that the accused should have at least the option of facing his accusers and decisions should be subject to some sort of judicial review.
It’s pretty obvious that anyone in the uniform of a foreign enemy army is not our friend. Still, in that case, the laws of war apply, because it’s a war. I don’t think it would have been any different if Admiral Yamamoto was a US citizen when he was killed.
This guy is not wearing a foreign uniform.
The issue here is basically the central debate of the War on Terror - are terrorists enemy soldiers or are they criminals? If the former, they are subject to the Geneva Conventions. If the latter, they are subject to the protections of the Constitution and so on (at least with regard to actions taken by us).
Instead, for the most part, we’ve selected Door Number 3, and classified them as something else entirely so we can do whatever we want with them.
Certainly this is an excellent practical approach from the standpoint of catching and/or incarcerating terrorists; but it’s an awful approach from the standpoint of setting future precedent.
It’s a pretty short step from where we are to a point where the government can squish anyone it likes by labeling them a terrorist.
It may well be that this is really the only way the War on Terror can be fought, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
The Yemeni government is actually quite friendly to the US. The Yemeni people, not so much, but it’s not like he’s hanging out in North Korea.
Even if that was true, the issue here is whether the gubmint actually has the power to grant that authority. Do you think Congress should have the power to authorize the President to seek and destroy all the gingers?
I would say that any scheme which is explicitly aimed to kill an identified individual is an assassination plot, even if the assassin and the target is in the military at a time of war, and even if all parties are in proper military uniform. I do not claim this is illegal or immoral in all cases. If somebody had put a bullet into Hitler years earlier, we would all know his name and a bunch of countries would probably have national holidays to celebrate him.
Oops, forgot, I should exclude execution of convicted criminals from the term.
Noo…my “pretty much” implied that it was a non-issue. I thought at first that some breaking news happened and the OP was omfging or had just read an op-ed or some such. But the news about Awlaki is old. The link I gave was just another ‘oh by the way’ in a series of ‘we almost got hims’.
He defected. We’ve already established that this ‘war on terrorism’ doesn’t fit the traditional mold, and I don’t see how this act precludes citizens. President Obama is the Commander-in-Chief. The guy is trying to kill American citizens using what we know now as ‘terrorism’. Yemen doesn’t seem to mind our airstrikes. Errm?
sigh On a slight off note, I don’t understand some people. Do you want various intelligence agencies to coordinate or not? Do you expect the CIA to be independent of all military operations? Of course not. Do you expect the inverse? Apparently.
Wearing a uniform grants you more rights under the law not less. If he was wearing a uniform and captured he would be able to be considered a prisoner of war. Combatants who do not wear uniforms can be considered spies and summarily executed as spies upon capture.
Wearing a uniform does not make one an enemy, fighting against us does. If this person is actively fighting against america, he should be treated like an enemy soldier and killed wherever he is. If he is captured and not wearing a uniform he should not be treated as a POW but treated however we think fit as he has removed himself from the protection of the rules of war.
I would like to hear more about the ginger menace and your plans for dealing with it.
How do you propose we not ignore the Constitution and still deal with him? We just give him a military tribunal? Uh, since when does military law and civilian law mesh?
Do you seriously think that guy is going to last fifteen seconds before being raped by a sharp stick by whomever catches him? :dubious:
And since when does the Constitution ensure that all citizens are granted the same rights, regardless of their actions? Citizen lose some rights when they break the law. That much is obvious. So if you don’t want him tried in civilian court, how in the heck are you going to wave the Constitution around? The Constitution gives the directive to Congress, and so far, they’re in approval.
Oh yeah, so is Yemen, since they already consider the jerk to be a criminal and he’s been sentenced to death.
Interesting point. It doesn’t address the issue, but al-Awlaki is said to have been at least aware of the planning for September 11th and knew some of the hijackers.
Again, that’s not relevant to the citizenship issue. The deal in Yemen is that Saleh (the dictator who is on the verge of being forced out) is opposed to al Qaeda and has been trying to pass of the strikes as his own doing so he doesn’t have to admit he’s letting the U.S. run military operations in his country. I don’t think anybody’s falling for it.
Either you believe in the law or you don’t. I do. We have no right to assassinate another person. They have to be taken to court and found guilty. We can not cross borders and kill someone and somehow claim it is legal because we think he is a “bad guy”. Our beliefs and suspicious are not proof.
If he is found guilty in court and escapes, then we have to capture him and bring him to justice.
Once you cross the line into lawlessness, it is hard to redraw one.
Well, it is different precisely because he’s been positively identified as a belligerent making war against us. Sans such an identification I would agree with you.
Well, John Walker Lindh was tried here and given 20 years.
You don’t put a belligerent on trial. That would be like saying we should have given Yamamoto a trial prior to assassinating him in WWII. We didn’t because we weren’t trying to charge him with a crime, we were attempting to neutralize him as a military target, which he was.
This goes back to the tremendous disconnect. Do you think soldiers in combat should have to say, before each pull of their trigger “Surrender or I’ll shoot!!” If so I would like you to explain how we effective we would have been on D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, Iwo Jima and et cetera if we had followed that doctrine.
After Benedict Arnold turned coat, he accepted a command position with the British Army. If one of our men had a clear line of sight on him and shot and killed him, that would have been a 100% acceptable action under the laws of war–Arnold was a belligerent against us. There was no necessity that we first give him a trial. If Arnold had surrendered the only thing that would then be different is that instead of affording him the comforts and protections of a POW, he would have been subjected to trial for treason against his State (I say State because under the Articles of Confederation I’m not sure we could have tried him for treason against the United States, and the individual colonies all had treason statutes of their own.)
Well, “he needed killin’” rather suggest someone has postively identified the person as someone who needed killin’. In this case, the determination of the need for killin’ was made by a closed, ad-hoc “legal review” with no advocate for the accused, no legal authority and so far as I can tell, we don’t even know who did the reviewing.
“positively identified as a belligerent making war against us” makes it sound like there’s some sort of set legalistic process involved. But so far as I can tell, its just a bunch of people in a room deciding who need killin’ and who doesn’t.
Sure, give him a military trial. Get him an attorney to represent his interests, try him, if the evidence supports a conviction, convict him. If the evidence supports the death penalty, get that sentence. THEN execute him. After he has due process. I have no problem with a trial in absentia for him, and, if this administration has enough evidence to support a conviction and death sentence, have at it.
I do have a higher opinion of the military, yes.
The Constitution cannot give Congress the power to violate the Constitution. Congress can’t decide that it’s suddenly OK for the President to detain and kill US citizens in the US without a trial.
You can kill the enemy wherever they are, they do not have to be engaged in active battle at the time. That is why it would be perfectly acceptable to bomb Japanese training camps on the Japanese mainland, even though those men were removed from active battle, they were the enemy and a valid military target.
Under your logic about battlefields and your theory of war it would be illegal to attack any enemy not at the front lines, which is ludicrous. When the President declares the U.S. a battlefield and starts murdering people without trial on a regular basis here in America, get back to me on that hypothetical by the way.
They were military targets, and hence part of the battlefield.
Good thing that is YOUR interpretation of my logic, and not actually my logic.
God knows our government would never ever arrest, detain for years without charges or trials, argue continuously that they are allowed to do just that, and possibly torture a US citizen on US soil.
Nope.
Never.
They’d never ever do that. Why it’s too preposterous. Couldn’t happen. You’re absolutely right.
The next problem is that your summary is wrong. The link doesn’t say the government gave the president the authority to have al-Awlaki killed. It says Obama gave the CIA and the military the approval to kill him. That’s different. Obama himself has approved this singly.
We just give him a military tribunal? Uh, since when does military law and civilian law mesh?