Later On

Here’s the argument “It turns out it’s perfectly legal and okay for the President to order the assassination of American citizens with no due process, charges, trial, or defense—but the reasons it’s okay are secret so we can’t tell you why. Just trust us.” Do you find that convincing? If yes, then GOOD NEWS!! I have recently come into possession of five (5) magic beans, which I am going to sell for just US$100 per bean. You are limited to five (5), since those are all I have. So far. Please PayPal me and I’ll send the beans directly. They are worth many times what I am charging. What they will do is a secret, but you’re not the sort of person bothered by things like that.

The argument legalizing assassination on the say-so of the President seems to be a will-of-the-wisp. Here’s a story by Charlie Savage in the NY Times that reports what we know so far:

The Obama administration’s secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, according to people who have read the document.

The memo, written last year, followed months of extensive interagency deliberations and offers a glimpse into the legal debate that led to one of the most significant decisions made by President Obama — to move ahead with the killing of an American citizen without a trial.

The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis. The memo, however, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr. Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat.

The Obama administration has refused to acknowledge or discuss its role in the drone strike that killed Mr. Awlaki last month and that technically remains a covert operation. The government has also resisted growing calls that it provide a detailed public explanation of why officials deemed it lawful to kill an American citizen, setting a precedent that scholars, rights activists and others say has raised concerns about the rule of law and civil liberties.

But the document that laid out the administration’s justification — a roughly 50-page memorandum by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, completed around June 2010 — was described on the condition of anonymity by people who have read it.

The legal analysis, in essence, concluded that Mr. Awlaki could be legally killed, if it was not feasible to capture him, because intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between the United States and Al Qaeda and posed a significant threat to Americans, as well as because Yemeni authorities were unable or unwilling to stop him.

The memorandum, which was written more than a year before Mr. Awlaki was killed, does not independently analyze the quality of the evidence against him. . .

Continue reading. Ah! “Intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between US and Al Qaeda…” Interesting. And how did those agencies respond under cross-examination? Are these the same agencies that told us that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program? That told us we’d find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? That missed the fall of the Berlin Wall? That backed Pinochet? The Contras? Is this the same intelligence agency that deliberately destroyed evidence of war crimes they committed, even though they were ordered to keep that evidence intact? Those intelligence agencies?

Somehow, given the record of US intelligence agencies, I have increasing concerns about the procedures they simply made up to allow them to kill Americans without legal penalties.

We already have procedures in place to deal with American malefactors: it’s call the court system. But I guess it’s so cumbersome that we’re now by-passing it—imprisoning people for years without charges. We certainly by-passed the requirement for judicial review of wiretapping and other kinds of surveillance: that requirement is totally gone now, and all our telephone and Internet communications is now scanned using various NSA programs. The Constitution is being systematically ignored.

Wonder if that’s why Awlaki didn’t want to return to the US—because he’d be imprisoned with no trial or charges and held indefinitely, tortured occasionally?