General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRemember how FDR executed American Nazi sympathizers?
Without habeus corpus or trial?
Me neither.
How did we ever manage to win WWII without executing American Axis sympathizers without trials?
A great mystery!
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)the Russians did. But your point is well taken.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Thanks for the heads up.
OneAngryDemocrat
(2,060 posts)This isn't about Americans in America, but Americans outside of the nation. Americans joined the ranks of Hitler's Waffen SS and when they did, they were bombed.
Remember, a modern-day drone can't ask someone if they want to surrender any more than a WW II era 500 lbs. bomb could.
This isn't about citizen approaching a US soldier and surrendering only to be shot, but about an aerial bombardment on a military target outside of the US.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Obama and Holder and Geithner et. al. make me want to cry.
Response to MannyGoldstein (Original post)
Post removed
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)LiberalFighter
(51,084 posts)leftstreet
(36,112 posts)That took me a second
You funneh!
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)SunSeeker
(51,698 posts)markpkessinger
(8,401 posts)Cary
(11,746 posts)malthaussen
(17,216 posts)... that the patriarchs of two of our most notable political dynasties were fascist rat-bastards, despite being of opposite parties? There's a moral there somewhere.
-- Mal
tblue
(16,350 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)leftstreet
(36,112 posts)I miss you already
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Serious question. And I'm also not a fan of drones. Or war.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)leftstreet
(36,112 posts)It actually had an 'end'
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Which country are we occupying?
The U.S. is still in Germany.
leftstreet
(36,112 posts)Oh wait...there aren't any
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases
happyslug
(14,779 posts)With additional elements at Ft Bless Texas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bliss
Both have to do with that fact Germany has many days where the Skies are NOT clear, unlike the American South West which being desert almost always has clear Skies.
Historic NY
(37,453 posts)they closed several in the past decade including hospital we took after WWII, my niece was working in one, they treated retired and active forces for 65000 sq miles. Ramstein has taken over for that territory now.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)conflicting factions within a state, each of whom wants to seize power.
who is 'al qaeda'? we don't even know. it can be anyone the government says it is.
which is the problem with the dictatorial power obama is wielding right now, the power you're acting as apologist for.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)I think the last time that happened was during the civil war?
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)It's awful that 1,000 Americans die each week because we refuse them access to health care. Do you think those 1,000 Americans are being executed?
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)My point is that ALL WAR is fucked up & bullshit. We're living in a fairy tale if we think we can fight a war without oppressing people or killing innocent humans. As long as war is, those will ever be. Personally, I believe as the Afghan War ends in 2014, so should that resolution. The sooner the better.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Both are reprehensible. I'm not FOR either. I'm against war.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)"morbidity and mortality rates in American internment camps were not significantly different from those in the general population"
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/I/n/Internment.htm
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)this is not apologetics; just the facts.
Wakasa was one of two shot by guards at Topaz, which held 9000 at its peak.
http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/view?docId=USWarRelocationAuthorityUtah56.xml;brand=defaul
Dave Tatsuno smuggled a video camera into the Japanese internment camp while he was staying in Topaz, Utah, from 1942 to 1945. This video contains segments of the full 48-minute film, courtesy of the special collections section of the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah.
At Topaz, Mr. Tatsuno was put in charge of the camp's co-operative store. His supervisor there, Walter Honderick, was also a home-movie buff. When he learned of Mr. Tatsuno's forsaken camera, he said, quietly, "Have your friend send it to me."
Breaking the law, Mr. Honderick slipped Mr. Tatsuno the camera, cautioning him not to use it near the fence, where guards were stationed. In the barracks, Mr. Tatsuno kept it hidden in a shoebox. In later years, he always credited Mr. Honderick, who remained a close friend after the war, with making "Topaz" possible.
Mr. Tatsuno was allowed to leave the camp on buying trips for the co-operative, traveling to Chicago and other cities. There, he discreetly bought film, which he later smuggled out for developing. Sometime later, when his wife had her sewing machine sent from California, the sender tucked an 8-millimeter projector into the package.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/national/13tatsuno.html?_r=0
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)the non-american 'innocents' killed.
i'm not apologist for the internment of american citizens during the war. however, there's plenty of documentation that it was not the auschwitz-type situation you're trying to paint it as.
you understand that more japanese americans were *not* interned than were interned, right?
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)The 1940 census found 126,947 Japanese in the United States. 79,642 (62.7%) were native-born citizens.
Daniels, R., Taylor, S. C., & Kitano, H. H. L. (Eds.). (1991). Japanese Americans from relocation to redress (p. xv). London and Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
You understand you don't know what you're talking about, right?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)was not a prescribed military zone; the entire west coast of the US was.
If the Japanese in Hawaii had been interned, their economy would have been destroyed.
In the mainland US, farm corporations used government-subsidized dummy corporations to harvest crops to sell back to the parent companies for cheap, allowing for large profits and no risk.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)destroyed. which rather shows what a farce the internment was.
yet the point stands.
in the us territory of hawaii, despite its being a military target and a stepping stone to the mainland, most people of japanese ancestry were not interned.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)However, it is the bigger picture that must be seen, in that these unconstitutional actions are to serve corporate interests, not to protect citizens.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)comparisons with fdr, like 'the internment camps had a very high death rate'
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Thanks for adding to the discussion.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 05:43 AM - Edit history (1)
Those camps were prisons, and the Japanese Americans didn't commit any crimes, didn't get trials, didn't do anything wrong. But they got thrown into prison.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation said that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership".[13] The U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
One of the good things about our country is that we grow and learn from our mistakes, or at least we used to.
Now, it appears we are headed back to another Gilded Age,
except that in Gilded Age 2.0 we will have an imperial monarch who has the authority to order the execution of anyone he/she deems as a Threat to the State without any Due Process or Judicial Review or Oversight.
Anyone who wants to assign the blame for the Japanese Interment to FDR alone,
needs to go study the social history of the West Coast pre-1941,
and the hysteria that swept the nation following Pearl Harbor.
The Spielberg film 1941 was understatement.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)In 1913 the California state legislature passed the Alien Land Act, which prohibited
ownership of land to aliens ineligible to citizenship (Daniels, Taylor, & Kitano, 1986, p. xv).
The author of the Alien Land Act, California Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb, had this to say:
The fundamental basis of all legislation upon this subject, State and Federal, has been and
is, race undesirability. It is unimportant and foreign to the question under discussion
whether a particular race is inferior. The simple and single question is, is the race
desirable... It (the law) seeks to limit their presence by curtailing their privileges which
they may enjoy here; for they will not come in large numbers and long abide with us if
they may not acquire land. And it seeks to limit the numbers who will come by limiting
the opportunities for their activity here when they arrive (War Relocation Authority,
1947, p. 37 as quoted in Okihiro & Drummond, 1986, p. 168).
bvar22
(39,909 posts)A valid case CAN be made that the Internment SAVED Japanese/American lives given the hysterical zenophobic/racist environment and FEAR of imminent Japanese Invasion on the West Coast immediately after Pearl harbor.
There is documentation of vigilante squads rounding up "suspicious" Japanese.
There is documentation of beatings, and even deaths.
Much of the racist hysteria on the West Coast is buried,
and doesn't get talked about very much.
It wasn't America's proudest moment.
The only reason I know about it is that my parents were on the coast in Southern California, and told me about the hysteria, civilian vigilante patrols guarding the beaches and rounding up anyone who even looked like they could have been Japanese.
The Internment was an AMERICAN tragedy.
There was very little opposition, and given the:
*hysteria,
*xenophobia,
*no reliable radar,
*the sinking of the American Pacific fleet,
*no rapid communication,
*no reliable "intelligence",
*rampant wide spread rumors of Japanese sympathizers and saboteurs, accepted as Common Knowledge
*rampant rumors of Japanese Hawaiians HELPING the attackers with arrows pointing to the battleships cut into sugar cane fields, rumors that are accepted as Common Knowledge TODAY.
*a brand new declared WAR on two continents
.....if I were the Commander-in-Chief,
I probably would have decided to Take them Off the Table, but don't hurt them,
because I have too much shit to deal with, and we can't take the chance right now.
Anybody who says they would have acted differently given the same set of conditions is blowing smoke. The Internment was supported by a huge majority if Americans at the time.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)when he told me, because he easily accepted his children's japanese and mexican spouses.
i asked him why he'd done it, and he said, 'if you weren't there, you can't understand.' but basically, it boiled down to: they believed the people they rounded up were a threat. i didn't understand except intellectually.
but after 911, i understood through my personal experience as a member of an antiwar group that very publicly protested the sanctions against iraq and the run-up to the iraq war. though i live across the country from nyc, in a small town, most of the public feedback was very negative, and i had repercussions at my job. in one case while we were standing in the street with our signs a truck veered toward us as though to run us over. i'm quite sure that if there had been any official encouragement for rounding up dissidents at that point, at least some of my coworkers and neighbors would have been happy to turn me in. at that point it was easy to see how things like that happen.
my stepfather was born in 1916. a few years before he died we were talking and he told me he'd used to believe black people were mentally inferior, basically because 'experts' said they were, because media presented them that way, because social relations were such that often blacks presented themselves subserviently, etc. his thinking began to change circa ww2 -- because social conditions changed.
his evolution is one of the reasons i stopped thinking of racism as being exclusively lodged in individuals.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)is the subject of my thesis. I've enjoyed reading your posts. Have you written about this before?
Here's something from my lit review that is apropos to your post:
An abstract concept of particular significance to this analysis is national identity. National
identity as an abstract symbolic attachment has been shown to be a strong predictor of policy
preferences (Edelman 1964/1985, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002), makes the complex seem simple
and provides remedies for disorder (Elder & Cobb, 1983, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002), and
forms the needs and desires for citizens in regards to public policy (Selznick, 1951). Schildkraut
(2001, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002) has demonstrated that national identity as defined by white
Americans revolves around observing ancestral traditions and maintaining cultural
distinctiveness, eclipsing citizenship for what it means to be American.
Being American is to be a member of a status group. As there is an awareness of ones
membership in a status group, there is also an awareness of who is not a member of the group
(Schildkraut, 2002) and to discriminate against that person accordingly (Tajfel & Turner, 1986,
as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). Discrimination based on racial and ethnic physical characteristics
is done because it is easy to do so.
Schildkraut (2002) identifies two types of national identity- incorporationism and
ethnoculturalism. Incorporationism celebrates cultural diversity and establishes a middle ground
absent of extreme cultural divisions or homogeneity. Incorporation focuses on Americas
immigration heritage and stresses the experience as a shared history. Ethnoculturalism, on the
other hand, defines national identity in America as white, European, and Protestant (Smith, 1993,
1997, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). The national identity is an arbitrary concept, invoked in
response to political events by cultural elites who tailor the meaning to fit the situation (Altheide, 2006;
Anderson, 1991, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Brubaker, 1996, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Gellner, 1983, as cited
in Schildkraut, 2002; Hobsbawm, 1990, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Hutchinson & Smith,
1994, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Snyder & Ballentine, 1996, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002).
According to Parenti (1993), Much of politics is the rational manipulation of irrational
symbols.
A distinguishing feature of the mass public is the limited comprehension of democracy,
along with its attendant logical inconsistencies, and the ease to which one may be susceptible to
its manipulation by elites (Selznick, 1951). The readiness for manipulation by symbols,
especially those permitting sado-masochistic releases, is characteristic of the mass as a crowd (p.
324). In its defense of democracy, the mass public may take action against its enemies which are
a contrary to the democratic principles they are defending. The mass public will dismiss proper
social conduct and established channels of action and resort to the most immediate forms of
response (including force) to gain immediate relief from intolerable situations.
Without direct knowledge of why unfortunate events occur, the mass public may attribute
intent to actors through speculation relying on antecedent beliefs, which may be pleasurable to
hold or unpleasant to reject (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2008). When the nation faces threats to its
security, racial and ethnic stereotypes become more powerful (Volkan, 1994, as cited in
Schildkraut, 2002). Selznick (1951) suggests that fascist elites may prime the mass public to
break down feelings of deference for the law making body and prepare for extralegal means of
intimidation (p. 329). According to Mendelberg (2001, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002), when
inegalitarian norms dominate society, the political elites and mass public are free to base their
attitudes and behaviors on those norms without repercussion, resulting in a convergence of
opinion. When egalitarian norms dictate behaviors, however, political elites are constrained in
their rhetoric for fear of threatening their chances for reelection. This is echoed by Hans Gerth
(1992) who stated that (i)n order to avoid unexpected and unwanted results, social and political
administrations require a deep and extensive understanding of the total equilibrium of the given
social structure (p. 342, as quoted in Altheide, 2006, p. 989).
As Gerth (1992) pointed out, Since the territory dominated by the nation is typically
larger than that dominated by, say, the blood or religion, modern nationalism has had to rely
more on mass education and propaganda (p. 338, as quoted in Altheide, 2006, p. 989). To
effectively disseminate these idea elements to the mass public, the cooperation of the media
apparatus is required. Gans (1979, as cited in McQuail, 1985) argued that media elites tend to
reinforce the established social order, though not because of self-interest or subservience to
political or corporate elites. Rather the media elites are motivated by a sense of professionalism
to report the news as they see it, or that they have views convergent with the beneficiaries of the
system. Drier (1982, as cited in McQuail, 1985) found that the main US elite newspapers were
both the most integrated into the capitalist power structure and most inclined to adopt a
corporate-liberal perspective- an attitude of responsible capitalism (p. 98).
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)no, i never wrote about the internment, just a lot of family stories from the period and personal experience in a 'mixed marriage'.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)It's titled, "Class, Race, and Conspiracy: A Radical Analysis of the Japanese Internment During World War Two."
I use four hypotheses- racial antipathy, revenge, military necessity, and economics- to determine why the Japanese were interned. Underlying this is an examination of conspiracy theories and how government can be the purveyor of false narratives to create acceptance from the mass public for unconstitutional actions that serve corporate interests.
Basically, in a game between government, corporations, and the mass public, the government and corporations are able to collude secretly, using the ability to rationalize what the mass public believes to provide a pretext for an action that goes against agreed rules, in order for corporations (upon which the government relies) to achieve an objective monetary incentive.
When examining the military necessity hypothesis, the government's story is riddled with omissions and deceptions. It's not unlike the run-up to the Iraq war after 9/11.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"How did we ever manage to win WWII without executing American Axis sympathizers without trials? "
Japanese American internment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
Not really, but why? Do you know if any Americans were fighting with the Nazis?
Does anyone have a list of the Americans assassinated by President Obama?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002747641
rug
(82,333 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)The point stands.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"interning people is worse than executing them without trial? what?"
...talking past each other: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022318948
Brutal!
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)without declaration of war -- while pointing at the japanese internment -- is quite disgusting.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)The interment camps were a pretty fucked-up thing to do to Japanese Americans - just ask George Takei.
No, they weren't executed. They were thrown in what were for all intents and purposes prisons, for nothing more than their ethnicity and ancestry.
And it didn't help us win the war either.
Yes, Obama is wrong for using drone strikes the way he's been using them, and FDR was wrong to order Japanese Americans into internment camps.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)We won WWII as a Republic. Now that we are an Empire and we make our own rules of reality, we need different tools and methods.
How do you expect to maintain an Empire without robotic killing machines? Or at least battle Replicants?
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)great white snark
(2,646 posts)You have now idea what you don't know.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Last edited Tue Feb 5, 2013, 09:11 PM - Edit history (1)
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)We also still have the corporations that did business with the Nazis.
XRubicon
(2,212 posts)We fire bombed civilian population centers in Japan and nuked two of their cities. In Germany we leveled their major cities.
BTW I agree with the point you are trying to make.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Burger and the rest of the Long Island team were picked up by June 22, and by June 27 the whole of the Florida team was arrested. To preserve wartime secrecy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a special military tribunal consisting of seven generals to try the saboteurs. At the end of July, Dasch was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Burger was sentenced to hard labor for life, and the other six Germans were sentenced to die. The six condemned saboteurs were executed by electric chair in Washington, D.C., on August 8. In 1944, two other German spies were caught after a landing in Maine. No other instances of German sabotage within wartime America has come to light.
----SNIP----
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-saboteurs-executed-in-washington
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)You're only for trials and habeas corpus for sympathizers, and not Japanese Americans. (And, really, when we think of FDR's outright cowardice on lynching legislation, not really for African Americans either, so long as they reside in a state that had some Dem senators!)
I really must learn to read your posts better!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)trying to make a saint out of another President to portray President Obama as the evil one.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Now, Evil is just more of the same.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)FDR's tenure wasn't perfect.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)I'm happy to hear how you differentiate the two.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Unless they are provably actively engaged in planning or executing an attack on the US, and can't be reasonably apprehended by law enforcement officials.
You?
cali
(114,904 posts)Many internees lost irreplaceable personal property due to the restrictions on what could be taken into the camps. These losses were compounded by theft and destruction of items placed in governmental storage. A number of persons died or suffered for lack of medical care, and several were killed by sentries; James Wakasa, for instance, was killed at Topaz War Relocation Center, near the perimeter wire. Nikkei were prohibited from leaving the Military Zones during the last few weeks before internment, and only able to leave the camps by permission of the camp administrators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
Look, what FDR did was even more brutal than what is currently going on under Obama. Please either learn some actual history or stop rewriting it to bolster YOUR agenda. 'k?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)He fought, truly fought, to help the 99% while being relentlessly attacked by the 1%. Hell, the 1% even attempted a coup! His cabinet included the far left, increasingly so as time went on.
So he earned my trust.
My personal belief is that in the areas where he was wrong, or may have fallen short, he was working to the best that could be done during a war. A real war. That covered virtually the entire planet. Serious, crazy stuff. Some dumb decisions and fuck ups occurred.
But, to my knowledge, no executions of Axis sympathizers merely because they were sympathizers.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)He fought, truly fought, to help the 99% while being relentlessly attacked by the 1%. Hell, the 1% even attempted a coup! His cabinet included the far left, increasingly so as time went on.
So he earned my trust.
My personal belief is that in the areas where he was wrong, or may have fallen short, he was working to the best that could be done during a war. A real war. That covered virtually the entire planet. Serious, crazy stuff. Some dumb decisions and fuck ups occurred.
But, to my knowledge, no executions of Axis sympathizers merely because they were sympathizers.
...that is your response to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
Look, what FDR did was even more brutal than what is currently going on under Obama. Please either learn some actual history or stop rewriting it to bolster YOUR agenda. 'k?
You're basically saying that while the Internment led to the detention and death of many Japanese-Americans, FDR earned your trust and his goals were right.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)And he made mistakes, like everyone does.
During a world war, mistakes can easily lead to enormous tragedy.
1,000 Americans die each week because of lack of access to medical care. Because Obama refused to try to get universal health care, or truly affordable health care, do you feel that he murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans? Or do you think he wanted to do the right thing, and was doing the best that he could?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)...imagine how many Americans have died because FDR refused to tackle health care more than seven decades ago.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Accounting for inflation. Perhaps one-fifth.
FDR tackled poverty among older Americans, and was tremendously successful. His reality-based economic policies powerfully reversed the Depression. He passed effective legislation that kept the bankers from blowing up the economy for decades. And so on.
Many millions of people lived longer, healthier, and happier lives because of FDR's efforts.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)assassination.
quit telling people what to do, cali. 'k?
there were a total of 5 people killed by guards during the internment, so far as i can tell. none of the killers seem to have gotten any serious punishment.
http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/history/timeline.html
cali
(114,904 posts)just as you do, so keep telling me what to do. I'll keep doing what I want.
And let's be real, the internment destroyed many, many lives. You don't like reality that interferes with your ideological agenda.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)metaphorically speaking.
i said the death rate in the camps was comparable to the death rate in the general population.
lapfog_1
(29,223 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)lapfog_1
(29,223 posts)and there was an unwritten rule of warfare right up until WWII that no one was to be personally targeted for assassination.
However, both sides started efforts to assassinate leaders from the other side.
And let's not even talk about the collateral damage from that war...
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)You are determined to think otherwise.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)In an active plot.
And why skirt judicial review?
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Al Qaeda and its affiliates tend to operate from the places they operate because law enforcement is slim to non-existent and the ability to bring them to justice is scant. That's the whole point.
I'd be happy to call for indictment if the people in question were in the US or Western Europe or Russia or China, or even in the capital city of Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Jordan.
Reality is, we have two Americans who decided to be Al Qaeda. How many Americans have traveled abroad? Are you trying to claim the danger of a slippery slope from two Americans who decided to become Al Qaeda? You're suggesting the government is going to track down and drone strike the Griswolds on their vacation in Antalya?
I'm still waiting for a realistic alternative for any President from any party who wants to interdict terrorist operations in the planning state in areas where law enforcement cannot reach. You better do something, because your are politically toast if it comes out you knew and did nothing. We know we dont want a war of occupation, we cannot reach them with law enforcement, so what does that leave.
The bottom line is, we have no good answers for this. It's a problem we are going to be pondering for decades precisely because we don't have a good solution for it.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)A broad based commission should be able to come up with something that could be considered in a matter of a couple of months to develop an appropriate framework.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)terrorist issue. I would love it if you were right.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)I aplogize for my cluelessness.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)druidity33
(6,446 posts)is he one of the 2 Americans you were talking about?
and also keep in mind:
"In January 2001 after returning to the US, al-Aulaqi settled on the East Coast in the Washington Metropolitan Area. There, he served as imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque near Falls Church, Virginia, serving Muslims in Northern Virginia. He also led academic discussions frequented by FBI Director of Counter-Intelligence for the Middle East Gordon M. Snow. Al-Aulaki also served as the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University,[10][52][54][73] where he was hired by Esam Omeish.[74][75]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki#Abdulrahman_al-Aulaqi
ummm, CIA anyone?
just sayin'...
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Chilling.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)But also people who the think might support terrorists or associated forces.
That's what I heard on TV.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)or non-uniformed spy who had been landed by submarine on a Long Island beach to blow up military-related targets in the NY area.
The US did not execute the enemy propagandists during or after WW2, with or without due process. Much less did we intentionally target their children for airstrikes, as we did al-Awlaki's 16 year old US citizen, US-born son. The young Awlaki was the third American killed in Yemen in as many weeks. Samir Khan, an al-Qaeda propagandist from North Carolina, died alongside Anwar al-Awlaki.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)I dont think we are going to convince each other on this.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Funny, these guys never do get a trial where evidence is produced on the public record. See my comment below, at the bottom of this thread about what his role in AQ really was.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)other place in the world where we could count on law enforcement to pick them up and turn them over to us, that would be great.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)could not capture, if we really wanted to. You do realize that he had become a liability, one of those who are far better off dead.
Unfortunately, those who are are actually running things from the Capital of Saudi Arabia are untouchable, but are the ones who should be droned if we were really intent upon killing major AQ. Drones as useful, if properly targeted.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)Lets not pretend that due process broke down and more importantly why are you trying to hide behind this example for a defense of the policy in general that is clearly not limited to those beyond justice (should it be sought) nor to any actual act or even a plan or conspiracy to act nor does one have to be a member of Al Queda or a known affiliate. One need only be deemed "aligned" with such groups. "Aligned" without due process or reasonable hope of review.
This everywhere on the planet, this is anyone, this is self justifying. There are no checks on abuse ot error, not even hindsight as the whole deal is veiled in secrecy.
The double talk, deflection, wiping, and dangling is absurd. This is not what I signed up for, this shit isn't even American, much less withing tolerance of a 21st century Democratic party dealing with what would be fucking absurd to even pretend is an existential threat which makes WWII and Civil War comparisons beyond lame, weak, and silly. Get the fuck out of here. These are bands of criminals that we substantially cultivate in the first place. Our silly bullshit has magnified our number of enemies and renews their ranks.
My opinion is this concept is literally beyond the bounds of our form of government, the war powers stuff is crap too. We've escalated from war on a tactic to war on "aligned" with a tactic on a global battlefield with no nation, territory, or coherent organization with no known plausible endgame or articulated point of victory or end and that allows for the rule of law how? This is insanity!
malthaussen
(17,216 posts)I was just reading a letter written in 1944 by a Guadalcanal vet who was protesting the internments, and you sound like you could be his twin. I didn't sign up for this shit. That is it, in a fucking nutshell.
-- Mal
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)They're not going to shoot us with mind-bullets, you know.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)
as you say "propagandists." And, the danger is if you target "propagandists" or people preaching their beliefs you are denying them freedom of speech...which is dangerous if it moves over here to the US where we can be called "enemies of the state or banks" because we protest as OWS or against Pipelines or Fracking.
We have to tolerate the Rush Limbaugh types who are dangerous to American Society because they preach hate because we support "Free Speech for all. If Rush (a hater of Liberals and Democrats) or a Right Wing American Preacher who preached hate against Muslims because he/she is a Christian was visiting in a country and taken out in an assassination because some government declared him a terrorist against their faith....how would we view that happening as "justified" given that America is supposedly based on a "Bill of Rights" for their citizens.
This is the problem for many of us with the targeting of US citizens by Drone abroad. Especially "taking out" the child of US target who had no involvement with any of it.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)immediate threats.
This is the worst part of the legacy of the first Obama Administration, so far, and like some other policies, such as regime change operations against Syria and Iran, need to be reconsidered if the U.S. is going to regain the moral imperative and high-ground, which in the end will determine how history views Obama and the outcome of wars conducted during this period.
I have no inherent problem with killing armed combatants engaged in hostilities against the U.S., whether by drones or other airstrikes, there is little difference, really. Same goes for criminals. Those who are engaged in violence against lawful authority put themselves at risk of being killed, whether they are in California or Karachi.
While I doubt that Mr. al-Alwaki's speech is constitutionally protected, so long as he is not armed or does not present an imminent danger to another person, the law says he should be captured. Like every other American, his person is protected, and he has a right to trial before punishment, regardless of whether he's inside the U.S. or abroad. It was not lawful to intentionally target him for execution by remote robot assassination without trial. Even less so his 16 year old son. The execution of the boy was appalling and the sort of lawless violence that we have in the past accused our enemies of doing. We rightly call them terrorists, who have committed crimes against humanity, when our enemies do it.
We cannot allow ourselves to behave as enemies of humanity, no matter how expedient it might seem. This sort of injustice is how nations fall into ruin.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Captured on June 27, executed on August 8, on the say-so of seven generals.
But yes, they got "some kind of due process."
And let's all remember to thank FDR for the military tribunals precedent, while we're at it.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Um, Ex Parte Quirin actually remains quite a contentious Constitutional issue even today; it was far from usual protocol. It is the only legal precedent for military tribunal executions in American law. FDR essentially made it up.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_tribunals_in_the_United_States
seems like fdr's panel fulfilled the basics.
i understood the germans to be operating under instructions from german high command, which makes them combatants.
i confess i haven't looked into it deeply, but that's my understanding.
of course, it could be a kangaroo court -- but then so could every single thing obama is doing.
here's the difference: one was a declared war against an identifiable enemy: the other is not.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)He imposed it by Executive Order. It is the very definition of non-protocol, as I said. You can twist that howsoever you choose: Ex Parte Quirin was and is a big Constitutional deal, and has enabled the very policies you're attacking here.
In any case, I'm surprised you can so blithely embrace Ex Parte Quirin just to "win" an internet argument, since it stands as the ruling precedent for the Hamdi decision, and is cited along with Hamdi in the very memo you (and I, it should be noted) disagree with. Like I said, thanks to FDR for that precedent!
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)it has nothing to do with fdr, you're just trying to justify it by throwing shit up that fdr did and seeing if anything sticks.
sorry, nothing fdr did is comparable, for a number of reasons.
no one will 'win'. we have different opinions, and they won't be reconciled.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)But that is an outright lie.
"cited along with Hamdi in the very memo you (and I, it should be noted) disagree with"
That's what I said before you posted. Learn to read.
What I object to here is the OP's usual ahistorical nonsense about his imagined golden age FDR. As is fairly clear, you know very little about this case, its effects on US law, including on the very policies you're objecting to, or probably FDR in general, so now you take to attacking me, and with a claim that isn't even borne out in the very post you're attacking.
Have a good evening.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)i don't know from a memo.
i just disagree with obama (& bush's) contention that they can assassinate anyone at will.
your claims about fdr seem ridiculous to me. using a military court to kill a handful of germans who confessed to working for the german high command as spies & saboteurs (= combatants) in a declared war seems to me quite a different thing than killing thousands of people in undeclared wars in multiple countires, supposedly because they're tools of some shadowy organization.
and no fucking end in sight.
you're getting disagreeable and i'm out of here.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)tblue
(16,350 posts)"That's a whole nother thing."
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)William Joyce. American born and executed by the Brits after WWII. If we had drones in WWII, I guarantee you we would have hit him with a Hellfire missile.
Shooting down of Yamamoto's plane is probably the closest equivalent to today.
What is a sympathizer, collaborator, or a soldier who has taken up arms against his country?
mucifer
(23,565 posts)It's interesting. I love listening to old time radio and the weird things that were broadcasted.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)So please ignore it, n'kay?
Rex
(65,616 posts)But back in those days, terrorism was an evolving concept and not a physical manifestation of the boogieman we see today. See - Communist under every bed.
Look, we need an enemy. If it has to be a few civilians to make the corporate CEOs happy with another few billion in government contracts...who are we to complain? Okay, technically WE are the civilians that could face possible indiscriminate harm and should complain...but HEY look! *Jingle jingle*...shinny keys! Look at the shinny keys!
catbyte
(34,451 posts)((Insert eye roll here))
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)catbyte
(34,451 posts)children & the elderly.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Thanks in advance.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)population.
e.g.:
http://books.google.com/books?id=e8mB7Op0DMgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=manzanar+death+rate&source=bl&ots=Nh2d35xHxo&sig=sWQvUya3FcpdF8yhow5YZJ2w9Ts&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oLsRUfGqGo-MigKAjYHYCA&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=manzanar%20death%20rate&f=false
"morbidity and mortality rates in American internment camps were not significantly different from those in the general population, suggesting that living conditions were acceptable, if somewhat Spartan."
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/I/n/Internment.htm
METHODS:
Twenty women who were ages 18 to 31 years at the time of internment at Heart Mountain, Wyoming Japanese American Relocation Camp, and one caucasian nurse who worked in the obstetric unit of the camp's hospital were interviewed. Archival, demographic, and historical data, including some prenatal records, provided information about maternity and public health care for pregnant women and new mothers.
RESULTS:
Obstetric hospital practices were typical of the 1940s in the United States. Community public health services for new mothers included formula kitchens and well-baby clinics. Infant mortality statistics from 1942 to 1945 at Heart Mountain were comparatively better for the same time period than for the state of Wyoming or the United States. These outcomes may have reflected the camp's extensive social and family support, adequate housing and food, and universal access to maternity services.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9355278
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)I suspected that would be the case, thanks for shedding some light.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Fifty-plus years after the fact, they still hated Democrats with a passion. This was made worse by the fact that the government did not get around to talking about official reparations until the mid-80s, during a Republican administration.
Regardless of whether there was a higher death rate in the camps, the fact remains that the internees were rounded up, and their possessions confiscated, with no compensation for 40 years.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 02:51 AM - Edit history (1)
remain.
not sure what your point is. i'm not supporting the internment.
simply the facts, as you say: morbidity and mortality rates *weren't* high. *few* (five, actually) people were shot by guards.
tule lake wasn't auschwitz & topaz wasn't dachau.
and the majority of japanese/americans living in US territory *weren't* interned.
(which actually demonstrates that there was no real justification for the internment policy. 1/3 of the population of hawaii was at least part japanese, and few of were interned. hawaii was a us territory; the japanese had attacked it; it was a way-station to the mainland -- yet the majority of persons of japanese ancestry there went about their business. i suspect because interning them would have disrupted hawaii's plantation labor supply.)
but after 911, it was easy to understand the hysteria after pearl harbor, as well as the overreach of executive power.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)to what was in the outside world (and I am not so sure, given that few people really gave a crap about what happened to the internees in those days), the camps had a terrible emotional and financial impact on the people who were forced to live in them.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)farms; my stepfather participated in helping round up japanese during the internment.
it's fairly well-accepted that there was anti-japanese agitation in these parts partly because certain people had designs on their land. that and the obvious hysteria after pearl harbor.
to say that morbidity/mortality was more or less 'normal' and that camp conditions were generally decent is not to say the internment was justified or that people didn't suffer.
the internment was *not* justified and the government knew it. i believe that's a documented fact. and as i said in an addendum to my previous post (not sure you saw it) -- it should have been clear even at the time that something was screwy, because hawaii had the biggest japanese population in US territory -- about 1/3 of the population being japanese or part japanese -- yet most of them were not interned. even though hawaii had high strategic military value, even though it had been attacked, etc.
i believe they weren't interned because they were needed as plantation labor and also because they were much more closely integrated (through intermarriage, etc) with the rest of the hawaiian population rather than being a somewhat isolated minority as on the west coast.
but if they were a security risk anywhere, it was in hawaii, for various reasons.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)That could be one reason why there was a camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, in rice-growing country.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Last edited Thu Feb 7, 2013, 06:05 AM - Edit history (3)
The original plan for the Farm Security Administration land in the southeast part of the state had called for the clearing and draining of the swamps to be used as homesteads for low-income farm families.
The internees themselves provided much of the general labor, clearing land, digging ditches and building bridges. Because of drainage problems, an eight-mile canal was constructed that enabled them to run a successful farm operation. By 1943, 630 acres were under cultivation, which expanded to 718 acres by the following year. Jerome was able to grow 85 percent of its own vegetables. In addition, the internees raised over 1,200 hogs for consumption at the camp. The camp also had a sawmill that produced more than 280,000 board feet of lumber and 6,000 cords of firewood from the cleared trees.
Because the WRA leave process had enabled many internees to resettle outside the camps before the end of the war, the population among all the relocation centers declined dramatically in 1944. Since Jerome was the least developed of all the camps, it closed on June 30, 1944. It was also one of the smallest, and nearby Rohwer Relocation Center was able to take in most of the remaining Jerome residents.
After the camp was closed, it was converted into a German Prisoner of War camp.
http://www.javadc.org/jerome_relocation_center.htm
apparently george takei was at rohwehr:
The Rohwer that I came back to, however, was not that of my memory. It was utterly changed. The swamp that I remembered had been drained completely. The trees of the dense forest that surrounded us had all been chopped down. Rohwer today was mile after mile of open farmland.
http://www.georgetakei.com/news-2003-december.asp
but this says different:
Rohwer War Relocation Center was located five miles west of the Mississippi River in a swampy area intertwined with canals, creeks, and bayous. Forests had once covered the area, but by 1940 had been replaced by agricultural fields. Rohwer was at an elevation of 140 feet.
Acreage: 10,161
Opened: September 18, 1942
Closed: November 30, 1944
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/rohwer.html
There's a camp-made newsletter in the link above: it talks about distribution of paychecks; need for 500 lumberjacks; work opportunities outside the camp for those interested. The ones I read didn't mention any specific kind of work except the lumberjacking. Residents are cautioned not to cut down trees near powerlines. There's some more pictures too.
I didn't see anything about rice, but cotton farmers are mentioned and there's a picture of a camp resident spinning cotton on a spinning wheel.
oops, here's something about farmwork (summary of one newsletter's contents):
Page 2: Residents catch queer 'things'; Spears' job to Bricker; guests; new outside employment; dance with the 'Densoneers'; relocation calendar; dietitian's class; ordered world almanacs here; deadline for exhibit from page 1; intelligence school from page 1.
Page 3: Now showing; Michigan growers association seeks 120 farm workers; center library has additions; drivers must report back; vital statistics; Scouts now have reference books; night school notes; outside cost of living.
Page 4: Packed court of honor advances 13; Club Notes; library takes rapid shape; block 16 donates dictionary; honesty is the best policy; Chandler states.
Page 5: Stored items moved; Engei Kai premiere night; Hawaii bids aloha to 2600 Japanese-American soldiers; center waiting WPB approval for entry porch extensions; marble contest slated by CA; old new songs at singspiration; current movie synopses.
Page 6: Editorial; cartoon; Smoke Signals.
Pages 7, 8: Sports.
Pages 9-12: In Japanese.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Nothing at all remained of the camp-- there was just a marker to note that that had been the site of an internment camp. But this Wiki article says that the site has been or will be restored:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_War_Relocation_Center
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Uh, no. Oddly, he did not become reflexively cynical about the prospect of the ongoing process of aligning our principles with our circumstances.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)Then we would not have had to worry about Prescott Bush and his spawn.
Marr
(20,317 posts)How is that a defense of the Obama Administration? Last I checked, just about everyone agreed that the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII was a horrific injustice. Are you saying it was reasonable?
Or are you saying that, since the US has done horrible things in the past, this new horrible thing needn't be discussed?
quinnox
(20,600 posts)So, since the United States made a big mistake in WW 2, and that which has been acknowledged as wrong, that means it is ok for us to continue making mistakes? I don't get the logic. You would think we would strive to make less mistakes, not make lame and dumb excuses for new ones.
cali
(114,904 posts)revisionist. Of course to the Revisionist Crew that's just fine.
I'm saying don't fucking rewrite history to further your agenda.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Or at least, that's how it's read to me, and I think any objective observer would agree.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)There are plenty of ways to attack the asinine drone memo and policy. Holding up FDR as some kind of perfect exemplar of executive restraint, however, is not a very good one. The OP has a rather odd fetish for FDR that is easily debunked. That's not a defense of the asinine drone policy, but an eye-rolling response to the OP's ridiculous implicit assertion that FDR is a model of civil liberties in wartime. indeed, as FDR's absolutely outrageous refusal to deal with lynching legislation for fear of offending his southern Dem flank makes clear, he wasn't even really that great on civil liberties in peacetime. None of this is particularly complicated: the OP made a stupid, ahistorical, and easily countered argument, and it was easily countered.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)simply on his belief that they were Axis sympathizers.
Got it.
But at least we seem to agree that the present policy is wrong.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)simply on his belief that they were Axis sympathizers.
Got it.
But at least we seem to agree that the present policy is wrong.
...he did: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2318670
Gee, it's mighty big of you to agree that the "present policy is wrong."
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)I think you're smarter than that argument. Really.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Specifics, please.
Thanks.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Once an injustice has been committed it is no longer unjust, unless it was committed by someone we don't like and then it is still unjust until someone we like does it, then it is just. See?
We have become what we claimed to be against when the other guys were doing it.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)MineralMan
(146,329 posts)He locked up Japanese Americans in camps. A lousy example.
JEB
(4,748 posts)without habeus corpus or trial is wrong no matter who does it. We in the USA have a pretty long list of shameful behavior, broken treaties, wrongful incarceration, even executions. I doubt I'll live long enough to see an end to our crimes.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I haven't seen a single person saying that. In fact I would venture to guess that people who think internment camps were a black mark in US history would also be the ones to say that drones are a black mark in our current time.
I think that executing people remotely is a horrible idea myself. But, I am not going to polish up history and ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned without charges and without trial and draconian laws were passed against US citizens.
Had a friend whose family lost everything and was taken to those camps = let us never return to imprisoning our citizens by color, creed origin, etc.
i remember hearing some idiot after 9/11 saying we should round up all Muslims in camps right away here like they did after Pearl Harbor.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)RZM
(8,556 posts)Are you saying that Obama has executed terrorist 'sympathizers' who are American citizens? The examples I've seen seem to be mostly people who were actively involved in terrorist organizations, which is not the same as being a sympathizer.
I doubt FDR or anybody else would have hesitated for a second to execute Americans who were German spies, in the German military, or whatever.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Or proven to be plotting to attack the auas?
Last I checked, he was only known to be an nitwit spewing anti-American claptrap. Which sucks, but is protected by our Constitution.
And what about his 16 year old son executed in a followup attack?
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Is it proven that the guy charging up the hill on Iwo trying to attack the Marine was in fact a Japanese soldier, or was the Marine generalizing and being ethnocentric.
What proof do you want? What would satisfy you?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)To ensure that good determinations are made.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Marine shot him? Perhaps it did happen. Should the Marines on Iwo have checked each opposing soldiers identification before shooting them to make sure they didnt have American passports?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Do you want to know what he really was: a live moth fluttering around on a spider's web attracting other bugs. He had communicated with Al-Qaeda attackers in at least four different operations, including the Flt. 77 hijackers, the Shoe Bomber, the Ft. Hood shooter, and the Underwear Bomber.
He was Manny Goldstein, but you probably don't get that allusion.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Particularly when those activities are probably classified?
The reality is, this is 2-3 people who decided to betray their country, join Al Qaeda and plot against us. Some folks are up in arms as if this means a slippery slope of some sort. I was not against drones when Bush was in office, and I am not against them now. I am not against the government trying to interdict terrorist operations in the planning stages, and that is regardless of who is doing the planning.
I am going to travel overseas this summer, and I can assure you all I have 0.000000000% worry I will be targeted in a drone strike. Know Why? Because I am not affiliated with a terrorist organization that has attacked American warships, American embassies, and New York and Washington DC.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)witting or not. He was at various times an agent provocateur, and a catch and release, who the US had in custody after 9/11 but let go, like a number of other key AQ figures who operated inside the US.
You probably don't know that, even though it was reported in the NY Times, WaPo, etc., because apparently you choose not to read closely enough to have formed an informed, independent opinion. Instead, you attack others on this board for their independence of thought using conventional homilies and nostrums about people who betray their country. Yet, you apparently don't even know how US intelligence operations work and the indispensable role of agents provocateur and catch and releases, until someone decides they've become dispensable.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)On August 31, 2006, al-Aulaqi was arrested with four others on charges of kidnapping a Shiite teenager for ransom, and
participating in an al-Qaeda plot to kidnap a U.S. military attaché.[14][77] He was imprisoned in 2006 and 2007, reportedly under American pressure on the Yemeni authorities.[58] He was interviewed around September 2007 by two FBI agents with regard to the 9/11 attacks and other subjects, and John Negroponte, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, told Yemeni officials he did not object to al-Aulaqi's detention.[50]
His name was on a list of 100 prisoners whose release was sought by al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen
In July 2010, a Seattle cartoonist was warned by the FBI of a death threat against him issued by al-Aulaqi in the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire. Eight other cartoonists, journalists, and writers from Britain, Sweden and Denmark were also threatened with death. "The prophet is the pinnacle of Jihad", al-Aulaqi wrote. "It is better to support the prophet by attacking those who slander him than it is to travel to land of Jihad like Iraq or Afghanistan."[118]
Al-Aulaqi influenced several other extremists to join terrorist organizations overseas and to carry out terrorist attacks in their home countries. Mohamed Alessa and Carlos Almonte, two American citizens from New Jersey who attempted to travel to Somalia in June 2010 to join Al Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group based thereallegedly watched several al-Aulaqi videos and sermons in which al-Aulaqi warned of future attacks against Americans in the U.S. and abroad.[134] Zachary Chesser (nicknamed Abu Talha al-Amrikee), another American citizen who was arrested for attempting to provide material support to Al Shabaab, also told federal authorities that he watched online videos featuring al-Aulaqi and that he exchanged several e-mails with al-Aulaqi.[135][136] In July 2010, Paul Rockwood pleaded guilty to, and received an eight-year prison sentence for, assembling a hit list of 15 targets for assassination or bomb attacks within the U.S. of people who he felt had desecrated Islam.[136] Rockwood admitted to having become a "strict adherent to the violent jihad-promoting ideology of cleric [Awlaki]", which "included a personal conviction that it was [Rockwood's] religious responsibility to exact revenge by death on anyone who desecrated Islam", and following al-Aulaqi's ideology, "including devotion to [Awlaki's] violence-promoting works, Constants on the Path to Jihad and 44 Ways to Jihad".[136]
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Just serve me a Jeezbus on a Ritz. You have to go back to 2002.
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 04:52 EST, 2 August 2012 | UPDATED: 04:52 EST, 2 August 2012
The FBI has publicly admitted that they had radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in custody when he returned to America in 2002 but let him go.
An American-born al Qaeda cleric, second only to Osama bin Laden on the world's most-wanted list, al-Awlaki was eventually killed in Yemen last September during a US drone strike.
Despite being named a major threat by the head of Britains Secret Intelligence Service and the first American to become one of the CIAs top targets, the FBI released him from custody after detaining him at JFK Airport in October 2002.
CIA top target: Radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was in US custody in 2002 but was allowed to walk free but the FBI have offered no explanation why al-Awlaki, who had lived in London and thought to be behind several al Qaeda terrorist plots, had become the public face of the Islamic terrorist organisation in the wake of bin Laden's death.
Former FBI agents said there are two possible explanations for al-Awlakis abrupt release in 2002. That the FBI wanted to track him for intelligence or that the bureau wanted to work with him as a contact.
Mark Giuliano, the FBIs assistant director for national security told an enquiry yesterday that there had been conversations between an FBI agent and the US attorney in Colorado about al-Awlakis re-entry into the country and the warrant.
He said: Yes, sir, there was a dialogue, as there always will be.
If a case agent has a case on somebody that is coming into the country, the system is triggered and set up so that there will be a call to that case agent.
But Mr Giulano could not explain how the FBI knew of the terrorists return to America nor the reasons why he was allowed to walk free from custody.
At a hearing yesterday into the Webster report into the bureaus intelligence failures leading up to the Fort Hood massacre, in which Major Nidal Hasan was accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 in Texas, links were made between Hasan and Al-Awlaki.
In an exchange of 19 emails Hasan told al-Awlaki that he advocated using suicide bombers and that he believed it was OK to kill civilians to which al-Awlaki replied that Hasan should keep his contact details handy.
Republican Rep Frank Wolf, chairman of the committee that oversees the FBI said at a hearing: I really want to get to the bottom (of this) according to Fox News.
Were going to send a letter on this. If we can, were going to get a hearing, and if we have to, we may even subpoena the thing.
al-Awlaki was being held when FBI agent Wade Ammerman told customs agents that the warrant had been pulled back but documents show that the warrant was still active at that time and was only relinquished later that day.
The bureau has always maintained that the case against al-Awlaki was weak and the pulling back of his arrest warrant was coincidental with the day he returned to America.
Why he was able to walk free when scores of Muslim men were held in detention centres on material witness warrants in the wake of September 11 attacks has never been explained by the FBI.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182508/FBI-admits-terrorist-Anwar-al-Awlaki-custody-let-go.html#ixzz2K5LeqRGq
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
leveymg
(36,418 posts)relationship. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/world/09awlaki.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Still more disturbing was Mr. Awlakis links to two future Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. They prayed at his San Diego mosque and were seen in long conferences with the cleric. Mr. Alhazmi would follow the imam to his new mosque in Virginia, and 9/11 investigators would call Mr. Awlaki Mr. Alhazmis spiritual adviser.
The F.B.I., whose agents interviewed Mr. Awlaki four times in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, concluded that his contacts with the hijackers and other radicals were random, the inevitable consequence of living in the small world of Islam in America. But records of the 9/11 commission at the National Archives make clear that not all investigators agreed.
One detective, whose name has been redacted, told the commission he believed Mr. Awlaki was at the center of the 9/11 story. An F.B.I. agent, also unidentified, said that if anyone had knowledge of the plot, it would have been the cleric, since someone had to be in the U.S. and keep the hijackers spiritually focused.
The 9/11 commission staff members themselves had sharp arguments about him. Do I think he played a role in helping the hijackers here, knowing they were up to something? said one staff member, who would speak only on condition of anonymity. Yes. Do I think he was sent here for that purpose? I have no evidence for it.
The separate Congressional Joint Inquiry into the attacks suspected that Mr. Awlaki might have been part of a support network for the hijackers, said Eleanor Hill, its director. Theres no smoking gun. But we thought somebody ought to investigate him, Ms. Hill said.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Is that what you think he was? Or are you shoehorning him into that description because you need a name to fill it?
You could probably also get an argument from the lawyers as to whether or not everything he said was protected speech. I'll bet a lot of it wasn't. Of course, that's not all that important to the point you're trying to make either.
I'm not saying this shit is pretty. Nor am I entirely comfortable with all of it. But I do think that 'sympathizer' is quite a stretch for al-Awlaki. I guess it would have been better to seize him and bring him back, but as I commented on DU at the time, how good of an idea would such an operation really have been? Lots can go wrong. I can see the logic, especially from a political standpoint, of serving up a missile instead of a complicated extraction mission that could result in dead US personnel and no al-Awlaki.
Court trials for anybody and everybody accused of conducting terrorist activity outside of the US may sound nice, but it's simply not feasible in the real world. The question is where you draw the line
It's a tough one.
There is no reasoning with these people. They are conveniently not mentioning the people who are the targets, to make them look like persecuted innocent Americans with only a political protest.
KakistocracyHater
(1,843 posts)spiced in. Why is it the "party of Lincoln" is actively trying to undo his legacy, & the "party of FDR" is trying to undo his legacy? the leaders, at least? 'always on the table' crap, etc
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)It's pretty awful.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
KakistocracyHater
(1,843 posts)SpartanDem
(4,533 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)in the world, with bystanders anywhere in the world becoming collateral damage.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)So, you'll be okay with this if Obama goes and declares war?
Cool!
FWIW, your trying to explain away the firebombing that most believe was absolutely unnecessary and a potential war crime, is absolutely hilarious and pathetic.
I love FDR - but he was no saint. Stop trying to build him up to tear down Obama. If you want to go there, you'll find just as many skeletons - if not more - than what we've seen from Obama.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)I guess it's nothing compared to the evil of killing one terrorist.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)But most settle on 35,000-100,000.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/death-toll-debate-how-many-died-in-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-581992.html
So, maybe I was being conservative?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)& obama's assassinations.
i made no judgements about the firebombing, fdr, or anything in particular.
simply put, this administration's position is that they have the right to kill anyone, anywhere.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Obama hasn't killed nearly as many people.
Simply put, FDR decided to wipe out an entire city. No one said being president was filled with easy decisions.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)the upcoming hearing for the CIA director leads to an end to the drone strikes, and the determination is made that traditional warfare is better.
They could send this thread to show support for killing tens of thousands of people to stop terrorists. After all, it's the more ethical way to do it. The goal is right, massive deaths, but no drones.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)That's what it sounds like they're advocating here. Go declare more war, send boots on the ground and watch the U.S. casualties rise.
Are drones the answer? Maybe ... maybe not. I'll defer to Obama. Just as I would have deferred to FDR in the 40s to know to do what is right in a world that is far more complex than we give it credit and certainly not nearly as black and white.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)shredding the entire Constitution.
Your stretches are not helpful.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"We're no more in favor of more war than you're in favor of shredding the entire Constitution."
...Internment entail "shredding the entire Constitution"?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022318948
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)You've heard of courts, no doubt?
Can't you at least try to divert the conversation more effectively?
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Extrajudicial executions are the problem.
If this SCOTUS rules they're OK? That makes my brain hurt.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)But unconstitutional always equals wrong.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Are you referring to something in particular?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)But apparently it wasn't unconstitutional.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)White picket fences!
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Just let these terrorists plot to kill Americans and ignore 'em?
Aren't you the same fools who get on Bush's nuts for ignoring 9/11?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)There should be judicial review, unless something's about to happen in minutes. The FISA court, for example, can make decisions in hours 24/7/365.
The Judiciary exists for very good reasons, it should not be avoided.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)We don't know what the intelligence says. We don't know what these men are plotting. It's a very tricky situation that can't be explained very easily. I might be too naive ... but I trust Obama's judgment.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)If not then you do not get to make any one human an exception to our form of law and government, Obama is a human, we are not supposed to hang by "trust" in a personality and then extends that "trust" effectively without end or enforceable or even verifiable boundary or limits as an inherent outcome of said "trust".
I think this is crazytown territory.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)I really wouldn't have a problem if Bush was doing the same thing.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)You wouldn't trust fucking Bush to set up a secret and unchecked kill list, asserting power to kill anyone in the world at his discretion and whim.
You wouldn't trust him to do any such thing because in reality you probably wouldn't trust him to watch your dog or water the plant BUT you of course would trust him to emulate Obama because you trust what Obama is doing but don't pretend you would trust Bush with any secret, unverifiable, unchecked, and by definition unlimited power of any sort. There would be no possible way to know if he was conducting himself in a way that Obama has and your phony "trust" would break down.
Of course you don't know what Obama is doing either but you "trust" him for whatever reason. I wouldn't trust my dear departed mother with such power, I don't know Obama or Bush so I'm not interested in "trust" of either. Our form of government doesn't work on trust but rather checks and oversight.
Trust is foolish, lazy, and gives away self governance.
Your job as a citizen is not about blank checks.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 12:06 AM - Edit history (2)
irrelevant to my point: that Obama presumes he has the right to secretly kill *anyone* *anywhere* on the globe.
according to this, 176 children have been killed by drone strikes since 2004, and 1255-1405 people altogether.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/12/03/november-2012-update-us-covert-actions-in-pakistan-yemen-and-somalia/
also three american citizens.
The White House on Tuesday defended targeted assassinations of Americans thought to consort overseas with terrorists as necessary, ethical and wise, as the Obama administration faced fresh questions about its sharply expanded drone war.
"We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threatsto stop plots, prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise."
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-memo-justifies-drone-war-killing-americans-164123578--politics.html
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)"Hey, we're coming to get you! Stay right there!"
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)kill anyone, anywhere, for reasons he won't tell us.
you think it's ok; i don't.
nothing more to say.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Well, I'd rather go this route than declare war and get us involved in a massive fight.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Duh.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)just a ragtag band of muslim extremists? but someone is funding them, quite clearly (otherwise they'd be sol). who is that someone or something?
it's either a state, a faction within a state, or some kind of monied interest or a combination of the above.
who is it?
furthermore, what are we fighting *for,* exactly?
do you know?
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)I think that's the point of the drones. Pick 'em off without the fight!
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)It think you'd better follow the question of who exactly we're picking off over there and how those picked off on feel about it.
This administration, exactly like the last one, counts on the ignorance of the American people. The only difference is that there is no excuse anymore to being totally uninformed as to our assassination campaigns in FATA, Jemen, Somalia (and god knows where else).
I do not believe that any of these strikes would stand judicial review. I don't even believe that they have a firm grasp on who they're killing - as far as the picture presents itself, it's just a free for all in which CIA and private contractor paint targets which someone in Washington randomly approves. "Signature Strikes", as Obama has come to call them, are evidence of that.
If this were any other country, at any other time in history, we'd be unilaterally condemning this star-chamberism.
http://livingunderdrones.org/
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)I'd much rather kill 'em over there without risking American lives than sending in troops to do the job - or worse, letting 'em live as they plot to attack America. Unless someone can show me evidence of Obama purposely striking innocents, then I see no reason to carry on any debate about this matter.
I guess I just don't have sympathy for people who hate America. Let 'em die and kill 'em without risking our people here.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)in Waziristan began when the Drones came.
To state that all of the people killed in Waziristan are terrorists or "people who hate America" is, to put it bluntly, quite fascistic.
And there is evidence of Obama purposely killing innocents: It's called double-diping. He seems to be ok with it. At least, he's begun the tactic and he hasn't stopped it yet. Obama is also the first president to use "signature strikes" - Both methods are guaranteed to strike innocents.
Of course, Obama has a solution to that: Change definitions so that "militant" means "someone killed by a drone strike".
If you're, at this point, unaware of "double diping" and "signature strikes", than I can't consider you informed. This is not meant as a personal attack. But I did link you to the most up-to-date study on our assassination program, in which the things I talk about are documented - you answer, by denying it - and saying you trust him.
I do not trust anyone - Democrat, Republican or Satanist - that wants to implement "double dips" and "signature strikes". And I can't respect anyone - member of DU or not - that defends them.
And I think it borders on being criminally inhumane to simply claim that a couple of hundred thousand people "had it coming " simply because they happen to be born in the FATA.
Edit: I do believe that drones can be helpful. I think our military more or less figured out how to responsibally use them. At least they came up with a system of checks and balances.
As to the "black" drone program, run by CIA and contractors - we have absolutely no reason to believe any of that pertains.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)I don't care. I have little sympathy for these people.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)I think you have no idea who "these people" are. And you think you don't give a fuck. You will when they will (again) carry their shit to our front porches.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)The problem I have is that there doesn't seem to be a good solution. We can't just turn our backs and ignore these terrorists and we can't invade these countries to take 'em out.
I believe in blowback, but it's also more complicated than that. We're lucky, tho, because we are an isolated country. It's not you and me who really has to worry - it's all of Europe. Unfortunately, this issue is very complex and unlike anything we've ever experienced in our history. It'd be easy to just say they hate us because we attack 'em ... when they were hating us long before drones were invented. Yeah, a lot of that has to do with past foreign policy, but just uprooting ourselves from the Middle East and going home ain't going to solve this problem.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)you should have a little for us. Thousands of drones are slated for American airspace.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)So the war would come to an end.
Just like Sherman's march to the sea during the Civil War.
Awful stuff, awful. But perhaps less awful than the alternatives.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)More awful than killing one terrorist or a dozen?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)That would have saved a lot of "Awful stuff."
Should we have attacked Afghanistan?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Since we were at war, he was a reasonable and legal target.
We should have attacked al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Your turn to answer my question.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)The Allied leaders and intel agencies considered Hitler to be a net liability to the German war effort, and on those occasions when Germans reached out for assistance in assassination, none was actually provided.
If only the plucky Brits could have used a "time and relative dimension in space" type device to go back and kill Hitler?
a2liberal
(1,524 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)We are an empire, one in decline I might add. I will not be pretty.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Response to SidDithers (Reply #175)
SidDithers This message was self-deleted by its author.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)RZM
(8,556 posts)Oh wait . . .
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)IMFHO life was simpler then. Nations had fairly distinct boundaries. Now with globalization and the major corporations all being "international" how do we know who the enemy is? The oligarchic elites are playing some of us against others.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)K&R!
robinlynne
(15,481 posts)Duppers
(28,127 posts)in the demise of other U.S. citizens. That's called treason.
What if during WWII, some American citizen colluded and fought with Nazis during the war and it was an ongoing process? If we knew their location, would we have hesitated to take them out? Especially if trying to capture them endangered other American lives?
Yes, I know it's a very slippery slope.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)You might want to fix it.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)And those means were used just months after his death.
Truman didn't even know about the Manhattan project until after FDR's death. The wheels were already in motion.
Thus the baton was passed.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/mp/p5s1.shtml
Others have responded to you referencing Dresden. Of course in that case, the Nationality of those killed was impossible to determine.
The defense of the Dresden attack by FDR, and of Hiroshima for Truman, was that these acts were necessary because ultimately they would SAVE LIVES.
In other words, in each case the defense, including the use of drone strikes, is actually the same: Kill "some" now, to prevent "more" dying later.
FDR did it. Truman did it. One could argue that Lincoln did the same thing during the civil war.
Trying to cherry picking narrow comparisons is a fools errand.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Kill "some" now, to prevent "more" dying later.
Obama claims that he can execute citizens who are not actively plotting, or engaged in, attacks against the US.
Very different than people killed in a hot war, or as collateral victims.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Obama does not claim what you claim he claims.
Those targeted must be engaged in planning attacks, or at a minimum supporting such attacks, even if those attacks are not imminent. They are not drawing names out of a hat.
And you ignore Lincoln and the civil war. That was not a war against another country. In the civil war, there were Americans who wanted to attack the legitimate US government.
Imagine that, American citizens who took up arms against America. And the President used the US military to kill lots of them.
obamanut2012
(26,137 posts)Including children. As well as confiscating all of their goods.
And, did this for years and years and years.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Cary
(11,746 posts)It's wrong. It's evil. There are no ifs, ands, or buts.
The president should not have the power to summarily execute anyone and the drone issue is very troubling.
Of course all of this pertains to Anwar al-Awlaki and it is a retroactive effort to justify that execution. I haven't seen anyone who doesn't believe that this guy got exactly what he deserved. Dont cry for Awlaki. He left here with the specific purpose of waging war against us. He didn't use technology to kill us, but what's the difference between sending a drone or coopting others to do your murdering? Weren't the Fort Hood shooter, the underwear bomber, and the Times Square bomber effectively human drones?
If you're faced with the choice of being able to take someone like this out with a drone, effectively saving American lives, or not taking him out knowing that he will be behind future murders, what do you do?
It's kind of like Truman's decision to drop the bomb. This is a problem we have debated for decades. Do we really have an answer? I don't think so. The moral problem of killing hundreds of thousands of civilians is very, very disturbing. Yet it is a fact that invasion by conventional methods would have been much, much worse.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)different perspective, maybe.
Cary
(11,746 posts)I am your average consumer of news with absolutely no independent knowledge. My experience with espionage and intrigue includes tv, books and movies. And given this guy's association with al Qaeda he isn't going to be the beneficiary of any benefit of my doubt.
I am not inclined toward conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists. I have crossed paths with way too many "Zionist" conspiracy theorists who are anti-Semites at their core, or LaRouchies who just out of their minds, or Ron Paul cultists. And then there's the Orly Taitz of the world.
Of course anything is possible but is a video couple of benign minutes of a speech enough to even raise my eyebrow? I don't think so.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)services frequently do one thing under the table while telling the public another thing?
that's no larouchite fantasy, but acknowledged truth.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)bet they lied on that paperwork.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Whoops. No we didn't.
We sent millions of young million to fight a war on two fronts.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Remember how we stood toe-to-toe against the Soviets, a country with actual nuclear weapons, and we won the cold war without a Patriot Act?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)WHEN CRABS ROAR
(3,813 posts)When you continually show me by your actions that violence
is the answer to our problems, what are you teaching me?
Would you want me to use those teachings against you?
Is that the lesson?
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)were built during WWII to house German or Italian Americans. Furthermore, The 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army was composed almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese descent who volunteered to fight in World War II even though their families were subject to internment. The 442nd, beginning in 1944, fought primarily in Europe during World War II. It fought with uncommon distinction in Europe. The 442nd is the most decorated infantry regiment in the history of the United States Army but was referred to as thee Purple Heart battalion. Of the approximately 3,000 men who served in 442nd, 950 were killed or wounded. The 442nd was awarded eight Presidential Unit Citations and twenty-one of its members were awarded the Medal of Honor.
tama
(9,137 posts)and see what is going on now in US and elsewhere?
What is the difference between us and Nazis?
We don't see them as the other, but remember that all of us can act like that. But we don't want to.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)graham4anything
(11,464 posts)I think the title is just a wee bit disingenious, but that's just me.
And I love the Kennedys, but hey, it would be disingenious to omit the fact that Bobby and Jack wiretapped Dr. King. (something Teddy never did.)
And well, Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln...The #1 president of all time.
He had haters too.
I love President Obama, FDR, the Kennedy's and Lincoln.
and don't forget that jefferson (whom I do NOT love), kept slaves even though he wrote all Men are equal (let alone that he forgot women in his statement.)
As Ben Franklin said, an Ounce of Prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Drones are an ounce of prevention.