Glenn Greenwald asks the question: Why did the US kill al-Awlaki's son?

[sad sally]

Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen — far from any battlefield and with no due process — it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager’s life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki’s son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter (needless to say, as Terrorist often means: “anyone killed by the U.S.”), but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver. As The New Yorker‘s Amy Davidson wrote: “Looking at his birth certificate, one wonders what those assertions say either about the the quality of the government’s evidence — or the honesty of its claims — and about our own capacity for self-deception.” The boy’s grandfather said that he and his cousin were at a barbecue and preparing to eat when the U.S. attacked them by air and ended their lives. There are two points worth making about this:

(1) It is unknown whether the U.S. targeted the teenager or whether he was merely “collateral damage.” The reason that’s unknown is because the Obama administration refuses to tell us. Said the Post: “The officials would not discuss the attack in any detail, including who the target was.” So here we have yet again one of the most consequential acts a government can take — killing one of its own citizens, in this case a teenage boy — and the government refuses even to talk about what it did, why it did it, what its justification is, what evidence it possesses, or what principles it has embraced in general for such actions. Indeed, it refuses even to admit it did this, since it refuses even to admit that it has a drone program at all and that it is engaged in military action in Yemen. It’s just all shrouded in total secrecy.
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(2) Every now and then it’s worth pausing to reflect on how often we talk about the killing of people by the U.S. Literally, the U.S. government is just continuously killing people in multiple countries around the world. Who else does that? Nobody — certainly nowhere near on this scale. The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, for death, including his own citizens; he does it in total secrecy and with no oversight; and this power is not just asserted but routinely exercised. The U.S., over and over, eradicates people’s lives by the dozens from the sky, with bombs, with checkpoint shootings, with night raids — in far more places and far more frequently than any other nation or group on the planet. Those are just facts.
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UPDATE: Those who believe evidence and transparency in such matters are unnecessary because the government under Obama — unlike under Bush — would never issue false claims about such things and can be trusted without accountability should review this and this.

http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/?du

[Bonobo]

1. Everyone should ask how they would feel if Bush had done it.

And then, they MUST confront the hypocrisy and examine it and DEAL with it in an honest way.

[saras]

5. No, everyone must ask how they will feel when China does it. Or some other country.

Because they are going to. Probably sooner than later.

[Bonobo]

6. Yes, actually ANY questioning is good. Sadly, that is sorely lacking even on DU. nt

[EFerrari]

9. Hard to keep raising questions that piss off friends

and have depressing answers.

[sabrina 1]

2. Glenn Greenwald has never wavered from his principled positions

during the Bush administration. Although even Bush never killed a US Teenager. I can only imagine the outrage on this board if he had.

[Capitalocracy]

19. "Bush never killed a US Teenager"...

... except for a bunch of them he sent to Iraq.

[sabrina 1]

22. Yes, I worded that incorrectly. He is a war criminal who will never

be brought to justice. Iraqi babies whose dead bodies were photographed by brave journalists like Dahr Jamail are something he should be forced to look at and asked if this is what he calls 'liberation'. Infants, innocents murdered. I thought when we finally got rid of him, it would stop.

But he never had the nerve to order the assassination of an American Teenager, because back then, the 'Left' would have gone wild. Now, sadly, it appears the 'Left' or what calls itself the Left, is on board with all this killing of innocents without trial and without even charges.

Shame on us.

[Capitalocracy]

29. We've got probably a couple to a few decades

Bush may get his trial eventually, if we can significantly change things in time.

I don't hold much hope for getting Cheney, though.

[MADem]

3. Collateral damage? Looks like Yemen was interested in someone else

Yemeni officials said the dead from the strike included Ibrahim al-Banna, the Egyptian media chief for al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, and also a brother of Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaeda operative who was indicted in New York in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden.

The strike occurred near the town of Azzan, an Islamist stronghold. The Defense Ministry in Yemen described Banna as one of the “most dangerous operatives” in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, often referred to by the acronym AQAP.

[gratuitous]

4. I'm sure there was a very good reason

And we can be assured, that having found his way to being under a missile strike, that young Abdulrahman was a very, very bad person. We don't kill any other kind of person, even though nobody here could have named Abdulrahman al-Awlaki a week ago, he was obviously an existential threat to the United States and had to pay the ultimate price for his opposition to our sacred way of life. Or he should have made better choices in his parentage. Whichever.

[whatchamacallit]

7. +1 n/t

[hulka38]

28. I trust my president.

He has a nice smile.

[Bonobo]

32. And a beautiful family and cool dog!

AND he looks awesome in sunglasses AND has a good jump shot. I could go on and on and on...

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[snot]

8. Very impt. -- K&R'd!

[AngkorWot]

10. Because he was standing next to a senior Al Qaeda leader.

They should at least put up some little yellow warning signs or something. That's just not a safe place to satnd.

[Honeycombe8]

11. I didn't read the article, just your snippet. But he doesn't discuss the circumstances....

of the killing. Where the kid was, who he was with, what they were doing in general (not just that they were eating at that particular moment...OBL may have been in the middle of eating, when he was killed).

Maybe the article discusses all that. If not, then I tend to think it's a hit piece. There have gotten to be more and more of those lately.

[Bonobo]

13. Because the only ones who know the answers aren't talking.

Greenwald is asking questions.

That is what you should be doing -and you are- but you are asking the wrong people.

[sad sally]

14. We'll never know the circumstances, that's the point. Our government

conducts killing in our name and it's none of our concern to know why.

Of course, the same thing happened with the killing of Awlaki himself. The Executive Branch decided it has the authority to target U.S. citizens for death without due process, but told nobody (until it was leaked) and refuses to identify the principles that guide these decisions. It then concluded in a secret legal memo that Awlaki specifically could be killed, but refuses to disclose what it ruled or in which principles this ruling was grounded. And although the Obama administration repeatedly accused Awlaki of having an “operational role” in Terrorist plots, it has — as Davidson put it — “so far kept the evidence for that to itself.”

This is all part and parcel of the Obama administration’s extreme — at times unprecedented — fixation on secrecy. Even with Senators in the President’s own party warning that the administration’s secret interpretation of its domestic surveillance powers under the Patriot Act is so warped and radical that it would shock the public if they knew, Obama officials simply refuse even to release its legal memos setting forth how it is interpreting those powers. As EFF’s Trevor Timm told The Daily Beast today: “The government classified a staggering 77 million documents last year, a 40 percent increase on the year before.” And as I wrote about many times, the Obama administration even tried — and failed — to force The New York Times‘ James Risen to reveal his source for his story about an inept, disastrous CIA effort to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program, but as Politico‘s Josh Gerstein reports today, the Obama DOJ is now appealing the decision in Risen’s favor. Gerstein writes:

The executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Lucy Dalglish, said the appeal was troubling for First Amendment advocates, but not unexpected.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Dalglish said “The Obama administration has made it absolutely clear they detest leakers and they are going to be very aggressive against leakers.”

http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/?du

[Marr]

25. You won't even read the article, but feel comfortable dismissing it as a 'likely hit piece'.

Doesn't that bother you even a little bit-- particularly considering the situation under discussion? Didn't this exact same response from Bushies a few years ago leave you feeling disgusted?

[Honeycombe8]

40. I said that "if" the article doesn't give more information...

that is a valid response. It's not the same as the response you re-worked my response to be....dismissing it as a hit piece.

Your response tells me that the article does not give the specifics.

Reason I didn't read the article, besides time, is that I've read so many of the intros of these sorts of articles that I've gotten to where I can sort of spot them.

I Googled the incident on my own, and there is the information out there, released by Yemeni officials. Yes, just as I thought, what was hit was a gaggle of Al Qaeda, including the son. The reports are for the most part that he was 21 years old, but whether he was 16 or 21 doesn't matter, IMO. The terrorists/suicide bombers are usually young males, so either age fits in to that.

I have no problem with killing a group of people whose goal and purpose in life is to kill innocent Americans and others, and who actively and aggressively work toward that goal on a daily basis. And who cheer when innocent people are killed. I have no problem with that at all. That's what we should be doing. Innocent lives were saved the day that gaggle was killed.

[Angry Dragon]

12. I have said this before

We have become the enemy
This country has become terrorists

[sad sally]

17. How true...welcome to Homeland Security and the Justice Department

[Bonobo]

15. When you find yourself defending a wrong strike on a teenage US citizen...

is it time to admit that you have switched sides.

[gulliver]

16. Greewald is like a working clock set to the wrong time.

His arms move, but he's always wrong.

[Fumesucker]

18. Just like Greenwald was always wrong when he criticized Bushie..

Oh, wait...

:eyes:

[Bonobo]

20. So it should be easy for you to tell us what he said that was wrong in this article, right?

Otherwise you are just saying blathering.

[EFerrari]

24. Nothing to say about the OP?

[Marr]

26. You've thoroughly deconstructed his argument.

:eyes:

[johnaries]

21. I ask Glenn Greenwald - when will you write an honest article? Oh, yeah,

I know the answer to that one. Greenwald has a personal agenda, and he'll make-up any kind of bullsh!t article until he get's his way.

Glenn, immigration for gay partners is a difficult issue - although I agree with you that it is discriminatory. However, that DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT to make up bullsh1t. It actually makes it harder. Try being a REAL news reporter for a change.

[Bonobo]

23. Where is the dishonest part?

Put up or shut up.

[Marr]

27. More mindless insults and assurances that we should all ignore the messenger.

No actual response to any information cited.

These sorts of posts really remind me of the Bushies' programmed responses to any news that made Junior look bad. Attack the messenger, dismiss the whole thing as a big lie, and change the subject.

[Bonobo]

30. I honestly think this site has been lobotomized.

Or has it always been this way?

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bonobo]

34. But its not just forum methods, it is a complete overturning of principles!

If Bush had killed US citizens based on his say-so alone, there would be NO END to the outrage.

The fact that it is different because a "Democrat" does it makes my blood run cold. I cannot state that strongly enough.

It is frightening.

[chill_wind]

31. They fucked up.

And now they don't want to talk about it.

They don't want to admit to targeting a 16 year old kid, much less one far from any battlefield.
Another U.S. citizen.

or

It was an accident and they don't want to deal with the fall-out of having to talk about the reality of just how much there is of that either.


As for this:

"..and the government refuses even to talk about what it did, why it did it, what its justification is, what evidence it possesses, or what principles it has embraced in general for such actions."

We've long had names for those kinds of governments in other parts of the world.

[ClarkUSA]

35. Shit happens. And Glenn Greenwald and his fan club are always there to stir it up.

Like clockwork.

[Bonobo]

37. You really do have your head in the sand. Can you even ATTEMPT to deal with the article?

You shoot blanks and tell yourself you are firing artillery.

[Politicalboi]

36. Maybe his dad should have been more concerned

About having his kid with him. Or maybe Anwar used these young men as shields. Osama was killed not too long before this happened, so he should have kept the kids away from himself. I'm sure he heard about the drones too.

[Lucinda]

38. They were killed two weeks after the father was.

He was already dead.

[whatchamacallit]

39. Almost nobody on this site gave a rat's ass about Libya or it's people

until this administration went to war. After that it's nothing but modo concern for the plight of the Libyan people. For some on this board, every issue is viewed through the lense of Obama support.