Panetta: Decision to Kill Americans Suspected of Terrorism Is Obama's

[Octafish]

MotherJones wonders: Whatever happened to that Bill of Rights thing, anyway?



Panetta: Decision to Kill Americans Suspected of Terrorism Is Obama's

—By Adam Serwer
MotherJones
Mon Jan. 30, 2012 12:13 PM PS

In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta revealed more about the secret process the Obama administration uses to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without trial. According to Panetta, the president himself approves the decision based on recommendations from top national security officials.

"[The] President of the United States, obviously reviews these cases, reviews the legal justification and in the end says, go or no go," Panetta said.

SNIP...

Panetta's explanation isn't much more complex than "when we say someone is a terrorist, then we can kill them, because they're a terrorist." The entire point of due process, however, is to determine whether or not someone is actually guilty. The defense secretary's metaphor—that you can fire back when someone "holds a gun to your head"—might justify killing an American citizen who is fighting on an actual battlefield, like Afghanistan. But it suggests violence as an appropriate response to an imminent threat, rather than the actual circumstances under which say, radical cleric and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki appears to have been killed.

President Obama just signed a bill that, if not for its many administrative loopholes, would "mandate" military detention for non-citizen terror suspects apprehended on American soil, so it's not accurate for Panetta to state that "any" suspected terrorist apprehended by the US receives due process. The vast majority of the nearly two hundred detainees at Gitmo have never been charged with anything, let alone tried and convicted. Osama bin Laden was the admitted leader of a group engaged in an armed conflict against US troops in Afghanistan; concrete evidence that al-Awlaki was more than a font for extremist propaganda has never been aired.

CONTINUED...

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/panetta-obama-signs-killings-americans-suspected-terrorism

Am I terrorist for pointing this out? Should I wear a super-size flag pin to avoid suspicion?

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[Octafish]

3. Secret panel can put Americans on 'kill list'

Secret orders given to robots programmed to kill sounds like Science Fiction.

Yet, it's real.

Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list"

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 5, 2011 7:59pm EDT


By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 5, 2011 7:59pm EDT

(Reuters) - American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

SNIP...

But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the U.S. target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.

SNIP...

While Gadahn appeared in angry videos calling for attacks on the United States, officials said he had not been specifically targeted for capture or killing by U.S. forces because he was regarded as a loudmouth not directly involved in plotting attacks.

SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/us-cia-killlist-idUSTRE79475C20111005

Is there a nominating process?

[RC]

11. Star Chamber?

The Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters. The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes. Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts.

In modern usage, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings are sometimes called, metaphorically or poetically, star chambers. This is a pejorative term and intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings. The inherent lack of objectivity of any politically motivated charges has led to substantial reforms in English law in most jurisdictions since that time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

How is this any different that what Obama is doing?

[rgbecker]

2. Am I terrorist for pointing this out? Should I wear a super-size flag pin to avoid suspicion?

Just stay in the basement. Won't be long for the skies to be filled with drones. Makes for good business....like they say: "We've got to grow the economy."

[Octafish]

5. Absolutely. What do they think government is, a jobs agency?

A nice read, even if in PDF form: Air Force UAVs: A Secret History

What? It's still legal for people to read, isn't it?

[MrScorpio]

10. I was assigned to an Intelligence squadron that was responsible for Predator UAVs from '98-03

That was a very interesting read.

[Bonobo]

4. Let's just PRETEND for a moment that it is okay because we trust Obama.

How the fuck on God's green earth can anyone defend this considering that one day this power will be claimed by a republican and Obama's action will be cited as a precedent enabling such authority.

Can anyone answer this?

[surfdog]

6. The police kill suspects all the time without a trial

Should a local police officer have more power than the president of United States?

[frylock]

18. using flying robots in foreign countries?

try again.

[surfdog]

21. Oh I see

You don't care that American citizens are being killed you just care how they are being killed

Take a bow

[frylock]

26. you don't see shit..

that's the problem.

[XemaSab]

19. Are you being facetious?

[Octafish]

7. That is the central question, since Pruneface was a pup...

Because I know a couple of people who know him personally, I think Obama is a good guy.

That has nothing to do with growing, governmental powers mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, at the same time the very rights mentioned in the Constitution are being forfeited in a most un-democratic manner: In secrecy and without a vote.

From Christopher Simpson, info on how Poppy started the big ball of wax when he pried control out of the bed-ridden Pruneface:

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

http://books.google.com/books?id=YZqRyj_QXf8C&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=christopher+simpson+The+Uses+of+%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&source=bl&ots=8klB0PzATX&sig=hi9DpE3qF43Oefh7iGn79W4jXQs&hl=en&ei=zAFQTeriBsr2gAfu1Mgc&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=christopher%20simpson%20The%20Uses%20of%20%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&f=false

I hear ya, Bonobo. Gangster times would be a picnic compared to what these are become.

[msanthrope]

8. Um, President Bush had this power, and used it. It's been there since 9/18/01.

Congress passed a WP resolution, known as the AUMF. It allowed Bush to target Al Qaeda, just at it allows Mr. Obama.

Mr. Bush used this power to drone strike in Yemen in 2004. Of course, Mr. Bush preferred a land war to targeted strikes.

I would have been rather happy with a drone strike to Tora Bora in November of 2001.

[Bonobo]

12. Which American citizens did Bush kill again? I forgot. nt

[surfdog]

13. Start with Kamal Derwish

[msanthrope]

15. I didn't see your post when I replied. I don't think Kamal was the first, and won't be the last. n

[Bluerthanblue]

16. THANK YOU!

so few people seem to remember or to have known about him.

This happened in 2002. He was from Lackawanna NY.

[msanthrope]

14. Start with Kamal Derwish (sp?), and add on every soldier sent to Iraq.

We've been drone-striking Yemen since 2002, fyi.

[Robb]

17. Yes, you did.

[Bonobo]

25. Congrats on proving Obama is no worse than Bush!

But Obama still has made a more outright and open claim to that particular power.

Proud?

[mmonk]

9. Recommended for reminding us that the rule of law is no more.

[MadHound]

20. So much for democracy and the rule of law in this country

Goodbye to the protection of the law and the Constitution. If you are suspected of being a terrorist, if you are declared an enemy combatant, you can be indefinitely detained, killed, or both.

Hmm, a lot of people are already stating that members of Occupy are terrorists. How long before that becomes the official government position? And when it does, well, you can go from there.

[Rex]

22. As I said way back when...

The powers one POTUS gets (BFEE), the next one gets and to just assume the next one is going to shed those powers (because you want to believe) is both naive and foolish and not very aware of how the system really works. And guess what folks...if Mitt or (gag) NEWT gets into office, they will have ALL THOSE powers too!

Imagine Newt with the power to order and execution without a trial!!! The thought sends chills up my spine.

We've been Occupied with a police state for awhile now Octafish, so nothing surprised me anymore - not some lacky declaring the leader gets to decide who lives and dies without a trial. Hell, I doubted we would actually SEE another election after 2000.

Sometimes I am not sure what country this is anymore, guesss I am finally getting old.

[MadHound]

23. Worse yet, all those abuses by the BFEE have now been codified into law

With the NDAA.

[Rex]

28. I try not to think about that too much.

Or if one of these GOP cretins beats Obama. They will have all that power...that is something to be scared of.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

24. When will Occupy and the like become "terrorists"?

Future GOP administrations are just salivating over this -- now they can assassinate out in the clear, no need to hide it away.

[EFerrari]

27. Some official in Oakland already called them domestic terrorists.

Not Quan, somebody else.