A Non-Combatant Terrorist? Holder Issues New Statement On Obama’s Right To Kill Citizens Without
Charge or Conviction
It is not clear how this “additional questions” differed from the first or why Holder did not answer the question previously. The use of “it has come to my attention” adds a wonderfully dishonest element to an evasive answer. It is not clear what Holder means by “engaged in combat” since the Administration memo shows that the Administration is using an absurdly broad definition of “imminent” threat under the kill list policy. Since the Administration has continued to assert that terrorists are engaged in a war against the U.S., the terse reply of Holder seems designed to preserve later flexibility.
Moreover, there is nothing in the constitutional claim of the Administration that reflects such a limitation. Deciding on where to kill a citizen would be an discretionary policy under the sweeping presidential authority described by the Administration. As noted in earlier columns (here and here and here), it is astonishing how citizens, including so many liberals and civil libertarians, Obama is saying that his appointment of a non-binding committee satisfied due process and relieves any need for judicial review. Moreover, if the President has the inherent authority to kill a citizen in Canada, it is not clear why such inherent authority would not exist a few hundred yards away in Detroit. The Administration has said that it can use the unilateral power when it considers a capture to pose undue risk to its personnel.
What is particularly striking is that we have a president who is asserting the right to kill any citizen but the Administration has classified memos on that authority and the Attorney General will only give a Senator a terse two line conclusory statement on scope. The Administration appears to believe that there is little need to explain the details on killing citizens, such as how it defines “combat.” Obviously, if there is a war occurring in the United States, a president has the right to put down insurrection or attacks on the federal government. These strikes concern targeting terrorists. One can easily foresee this or a future president insisting that an alleged terrorism conspiracy is a form of combat.
It would seem an obvious thing to explain how they define combat and whether an alleged terrorist would fall into it. Does this mean that there will be a category of non-combatant terrorists for domestic strikes? How is that defined? It seems like a hole big enough to fly a drone through.
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/08/holder-issues-new-statement-on-obamas-right-to-kill-citizens-without-charge-or-conviction/
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"I cannot figure out why Holder and Obama would pull this shit"
Spooky! Scary! Vacuous!
you continue your focused attacks only on this President, when others certainly in our Government knew the information about the person you are so angry loss his life? Those others I'm referring to are members in Congress such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham. But your attacks just seems to be narrowly directed. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Do you really believe nobody in Congress knew about this action except those in the Administration?
