Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Bush arrested a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and held him without a trial
Human Rights Watch, 2003:
<...>
The line between war and law enforcement gained importance as the U.S. government extended its military efforts against terrorism outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In November, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used a missile to kill Qaid Salim Sinan al-Harethi, an alleged senior al-Qaeda official, and five companions as they were driving in a remote and lawless area of Yemen controlled by tribal chiefs. Washington accused al-Harethi of masterminding the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole which had killed seventeen sailors. Based on the limited information available, Human Rights Watch did not criticize the attack on al-Harethi as an extra-judicial execution because his alleged al-Qaeda role arguably made him a combatant, the government apparently lacked control over the area in question, and there evidently was no reasonable law enforcement alternative. Indeed, eighteen Yemeni soldiers had reportedly been killed in a prior attempt to arrest al-Harethi. However, the U.S. government made no public effort to justify this use of its war powers or to articulate the legal limits to such powers. It is Human Rights Watch's position that even someone who might be classified as an enemy combatant should not be subject to military attack when reasonable law enforcement means are available. The failure to respect this principle would risk creating a huge loophole in due process protections worldwide. It would leave everyone open to being summarily killed anyplace in the world upon the unilateral determination by the United States (or, as the approach is inevitably emulated, by any other government) that he or she is an enemy combatant.
<...>
The appropriate line between war and law enforcement was crossed in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who the Bush administration claimed had flown from Pakistan to the United States to investigate creating a radiological bomb. The Bush administration arrested him as he arrived in the United States, but instead of charging him with this serious criminal offense and bringing him to trial, it unilaterally declared him an "enemy combatant." That designation, it claimed, permitted it to hold him without access to counsel and without charge or trial until the end of the war against terrorism, which may never come. With no link to a discernible battlefield, that assertion of power, again, threatens to create a giant exception to the most basic criminal justice guarantees. Anyone could be picked up and detained forever as an "enemy combatant" upon the unverified claim of the Bush administration or any other government. As the year ended, the U.S. courts were considering this radical claim.
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k3/introduction.html
The line between war and law enforcement gained importance as the U.S. government extended its military efforts against terrorism outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In November, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used a missile to kill Qaid Salim Sinan al-Harethi, an alleged senior al-Qaeda official, and five companions as they were driving in a remote and lawless area of Yemen controlled by tribal chiefs. Washington accused al-Harethi of masterminding the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole which had killed seventeen sailors. Based on the limited information available, Human Rights Watch did not criticize the attack on al-Harethi as an extra-judicial execution because his alleged al-Qaeda role arguably made him a combatant, the government apparently lacked control over the area in question, and there evidently was no reasonable law enforcement alternative. Indeed, eighteen Yemeni soldiers had reportedly been killed in a prior attempt to arrest al-Harethi. However, the U.S. government made no public effort to justify this use of its war powers or to articulate the legal limits to such powers. It is Human Rights Watch's position that even someone who might be classified as an enemy combatant should not be subject to military attack when reasonable law enforcement means are available. The failure to respect this principle would risk creating a huge loophole in due process protections worldwide. It would leave everyone open to being summarily killed anyplace in the world upon the unilateral determination by the United States (or, as the approach is inevitably emulated, by any other government) that he or she is an enemy combatant.
<...>
The appropriate line between war and law enforcement was crossed in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who the Bush administration claimed had flown from Pakistan to the United States to investigate creating a radiological bomb. The Bush administration arrested him as he arrived in the United States, but instead of charging him with this serious criminal offense and bringing him to trial, it unilaterally declared him an "enemy combatant." That designation, it claimed, permitted it to hold him without access to counsel and without charge or trial until the end of the war against terrorism, which may never come. With no link to a discernible battlefield, that assertion of power, again, threatens to create a giant exception to the most basic criminal justice guarantees. Anyone could be picked up and detained forever as an "enemy combatant" upon the unverified claim of the Bush administration or any other government. As the year ended, the U.S. courts were considering this radical claim.
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k3/introduction.html
José Padilla (born October 18, 1970), also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir or Muhajir Abdullah, is a United States citizen convicted of aiding terrorists.
Padilla was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002 on suspicion of plotting a radiological bomb ("dirty bomb"
attack. He was detained as a material witness until June 9, 2002, when President George W. Bush designated him an enemy combatant and, arguing that he was thereby not entitled to trial in civilian courts, had him transferred to a military prison. Padilla was held for three and a half years as an "enemy combatant" until, after pressure from civil liberties groups, the charge was dropped and his case was moved to a civilian court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(prisoner)
Padilla was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002 on suspicion of plotting a radiological bomb ("dirty bomb"
attack. He was detained as a material witness until June 9, 2002, when President George W. Bush designated him an enemy combatant and, arguing that he was thereby not entitled to trial in civilian courts, had him transferred to a military prison. Padilla was held for three and a half years as an "enemy combatant" until, after pressure from civil liberties groups, the charge was dropped and his case was moved to a civilian court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(prisoner)
Obama signed NDAA and issued a signing statement, pledging:
"My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in the signing statement. "Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100295851
35 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Is that what you intend to say?
The 2012 NDAA is the first time such existing authorities have been codified in law. Is that right?
RL
Thanks for summing up his first term
Say his to Sid 
RL
must be a riot a parties. Or are you the person people hide from to be spared jokes with bad punchlines?
What's the diffference between Obama and Bush?
"Thanks for summing up his first term"
are entertaining, in a trainwreck sort of way
Tool
RL
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-assassinates-us-citizen
"...Is this the first targeted assassination of a U.S. citizen as part of the war on terror? Probably. The Bush administration killed Buffalo-born Kamal Derwish in 2002, but at least for public consumption, quickly claimed that they had been targeting someone else and Derwish was simply collateral damage. You can take that for what it's worth, but in any case, even that fig leaf is gone now: no one's even bothering to pretend that al-Awlaki's killing was anything other than deliberately planned and executed.
No one is likely to mourn al-Awlaki himself -- which is what made his assassination so safe in the first place -- but we sure ought be mourning the fact that it happened, and that it's likely to happen routinely from now on. The Obama administration has demonstrated once again, as it did in Libya and as it's done in a variety of surveillance cases, that its view of executive power in the arena of national security is hardly any less expansive than Dick Cheney's was. The fact that this was predictable makes it no less alarming. Regardless of how any of us feels about warmaking in general, there are very good reasons that national governments are more constrained in their ability to kill their own citizens than in their ability to kill foreigners, constraints enshrined in both the explicit rules and longstanding traditions of due process. That bright line has grown a lot dimmer today.
The hardcore national security hawks in both parties will likely cheer Obama's "toughness" today, but they shouldn't. Bright lines, once crossed, seldom survive. Adam Serwer has more here. Glenn Greenwald has more here."
"Obama signed NDAA and issued a signing statement, pledging:
"My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in the signing statement. "Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."
"...Is this the first targeted assassination of a U.S. citizen as part of the war on terror? Probably. The Bush administration killed Buffalo-born Kamal Derwish in 2002, but at least for public consumption, quickly claimed that they had been targeting someone else and Derwish was simply collateral damage. You can take that for what it's worth, but in any case, even that fig leaf is gone now: no one's even bothering to pretend that al-Awlaki's killing was anything other than deliberately planned and executed.
No one is likely to mourn al-Awlaki himself -- which is what made his assassination so safe in the first place -- but we sure ought be mourning the fact that it happened, and that it's likely to happen routinely from now on. The Obama administration has demonstrated once again, as it did in Libya and as it's done in a variety of surveillance cases, that its view of executive power in the arena of national security is hardly any less expansive than Dick Cheney's was. The fact that this was predictable makes it no less alarming. Regardless of how any of us feels about warmaking in general, there are very good reasons that national governments are more constrained in their ability to kill their own citizens than in their ability to kill foreigners, constraints enshrined in both the explicit rules and longstanding traditions of due process. That bright line has grown a lot dimmer today.
The hardcore national security hawks in both parties will likely cheer Obama's "toughness" today, but they shouldn't. Bright lines, once crossed, seldom survive. Adam Serwer has more here. Glenn Greenwald has more here."
"Obama signed NDAA and issued a signing statement, pledging:
"My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in the signing statement. "Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."
