The Obama administration has lowered another legal barrier shielding Americans from extrajudicial punitive action by their own government, in this case authorizing the CIA to kill a US citizen suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen and links to two attacks inside the United States last year.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico but now living in Yemen, may be the first US citizen targeted for assassination by the CIA under a counter-terror policy established by President George W. Bush and since embraced by President Barack Obama.
Awlaki was previously viewed simply as an Islamic preacher espousing a radical religious viewpoint, but the reassessment of his status began last year when it was disclosed that Army Maj. Nidal Hassan had been communicating with Awlaki via e-mail before the Army psychiatrist allegedly shot and killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood in Texas last November.
A month later, on Christmas Day, a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jetliner over Detroit, and US intelligence officials revealed that Abdulmutallab had been a student of Awlaki’s in Yemen. Though Awlaki denied ordering the attack, word began to spread that the CIA was adding Awlaki to a list of about two dozen people targeted for assassination.
Multiple press reports now indicate that Awlaki has been put on the death list, a move that the Obama administration justifies by claiming to have information that Awlaki has shifted from denouncing the United States to plotting violent acts against Americans.
Read all of it here:
Obama Administration Authorizes CIA to Kill US Citizen
by Jason Leopold, April 7, 2010
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He had links to the 9/11 hijackers, Nidal Malik Hassan, and the underwear bomber, and who knows who else. He has a PhD and spent a lot of time in the DC area. He is being used by the CIA to some extent. Not necessarily on the CIA payroll, but as a key target for signal intercepts, a “honey pot.” It was made pretty clear that Hassan had had contact with Awlaki, and the the CIA was listening, monitoring all his communications. I think they’ve let him sit out there to attract the flies, and now want to get rid of him. Pretty standard stuff.
http://www.salon.com/news/opin…
…. other extremists and incite more of them. Yes, the US govt really is out to get him and martyr him. Wonder if they thought of that part.
No evidence, no jury, no trial.
What Constitution?
What International Laws?
Just target him. I essayed that here
Thank you for keeping Obama’s disregard for the law in our consciousness.
…He has been infected with the virus of U.S Imperialism, a disease which is highly infectious and ultimately fatal.
Obama is ill. I shall pray for him, and for all of us who will be killed by his mistaken policies.
That quoute, of course, is attributed to Stalin.
Is a serial killer worse than a mass murderer?
Could well be. There is no answer to such a question.
I ask that we slow down a bit – just a bit – and consider some questions without answers. I disclaim any intention of being an apologist for Obama, who I think is a horrible president – worse than Bush, Jr., in at least some ways.
When President Roosevelt ordered American forces in the South Pacific to take no prisoners, was he not perforce a mass murderer?
I don’t even know for a fact that Roosevelt did that. That’s what Uncle John claimed. Uncle John was a terrible liar. One could have spent a lifetime refuting all Uncle John’s many lies. We veterans are allowed to lie outrageously but Uncle John pushed even that limit.
The facts are that Uncle John was a soldier in Guadalcanal and Christmas Island and wherever and was lost behind enemy lines for weeks and was wounded and suffered the rest of his life from malaria and jungle rot and those around him had to suffer from his lies.
So I don’t know for a fact that Uncle John was telling the truth for a change when he said that Roosevelt ordered American forces in the South Pacific to take no prisoners but I do know that President Roosevelt helped Stalin add to his statistics.
So is it worse to target identifiable individuals than anonymous masses of people?
Could well be. I am not the answer man. I just ask questions.
I do think it’s not nice to call Obama a thug.
Even more than hoping we get Obama out of the White House at the earliest, I hope he will survive. The very last thing we need is a martyr and a new crusade. We had decades of that with another – ahh, umm – charismatic thug.
Just some thoughts for you from one who has gotten dirty in the trenches unlike the big desk and sanitary conditions around all presidents who can kill casually and remorselessly.
Best, Terry
moving toward this decree for weeks…. I had hoped that perhaps the droves of lawyers in his admin might make him reconsider; for I know by now his CONSCIENCE wouldn’t.
God fucking damn him.
Edger, this fucker is just a shiny face on the beast… its time we ALL woke up to it.
The great experiment is on the ash heap of history (not that it hasn’t been critical since the JFK assassination). If you want to know where we’re headed, look to China. We’re no longer safe from our own government (not that we haven’t been for quite a while). The Teabaggers will probably turn out to be the Brown Shirts. The right won’t save us, the center has it’s head buried in the sand (much like the general population in Germany during the Third Reich) and the left (what there is of it) is being marginalized even worse than it has before.
Is there any reason that his being a US citizen is more interesting or important than the other 2 dozen on the list ???
Just asking.
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Assassination Tango – No Due Process
by Georgianna Darcy, Wed Apr 07, 2010 at 07:49:05 PM PDT