The Rude Pundit: Things in the Memo on the Killing of Americans ...
That Liberals Would Scream About If Bush Was PresidentNow that a 16-page memo was leaked to NBC News that details the "legal" justification for targeted drone strikes on American citizens abroad, Obama-supporting liberals (like yours truly) have to confront, in vivid, concrete ways, the actions of a White House that, if a Republican were in office, would cause us to spew blood vendettas against those responsible. Oh, wait. When a Republican was in office, we spewed those oaths over the detention and torture of Americans and others. Now we're up to stone cold murder. We should be even more outraged. The fact that a Democrat is president does not change that.
The memo itself contains chilling passages - denial of rights, bureaucratic redefinitions of words, and the manipulative citing of court cases. Check it out:
1. "Were the target of a lethal operation a U.S. citizen who may have rights under the Due Process Clause and the Fourth Amendment, that individual's citizenship would not immunize him from a lethal operation." Why? Because the government would be "forestalling the threat of violence" by killing the fuck out the American. You got that? Not "forestalling violence," but "forestalling the threat." The Rude Pundit's neighbor is an asshole who owns a gun. He feels the threat of violence every day. Where's his drone strike? Oh, yeah, rights do exist then.
2. "
T)he AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force) itself does not set forth an express geographic limitation on the use of force it authorizes." You got that, right? The memo says we can blow shit up wherever we want. Of course, if an al-Qaida-associated American was in, say, France, we probably wouldn't be using missiles of fiery death because we wouldn't want to upset "civilized" people.
3. "
T)he condition that an operational leader presents an 'imminent' threat of violence attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future." So here, "imminent" doesn't actually mean "imminent." It means "plausible, maybe, given the right circumstances, should the stars align and a crazy goatfucker gives the thumbs-up." But if you said, "Meh, could happen," then murdering the shit out of an American would be a paranoid overreaction at best, an out and out crime at worst. So "imminent" it is. See? The Obama administration has fun with words, too. Remember when the Bush Department of Justice redefined "torture"? We loved that.
4. "
W)here the al-Qaida member in question has recently been involved in activities posing an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States, and there's no evidence suggesting he has renounced or abandoned such activities, that member's involvement in al-Qaida's continuing terrorist campaign against the United States would support the conclusion that the member poses an imminent threat." This is the one that makes the Rude Pundit feel a hot pain in his bowels like after he ate that spicy pork at a Filipino restaurant. The absence of exculpatory evidence is proof that someone needs to be blown to bits. If that doesn't make you queasy, you just don't really care about living in a nation of laws.
5. The use of the Supreme Court decisions in Tennessee v. Garner and Haig v. Agee. The former actually limited the use of deadly force by the police against fleeing suspects, although this memo cites the decision as supporting the killing of Americans abroad. The latter case gave the government broader latitude to take away passports from citizens. Apparently, when an American is made into a meaty paste by a drone missile, the computer jockey who fired it is allowed to say, "Passport revoked" in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.
6. "A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination...a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban." But remember: "imminent" doesn't mean "imminent" in any sense that we would normally understand "imminent." So, hey, why the fuck not say that an assassination is not really an assassination?
Republicans will have hearings when someone in the Obama administration farts too loudly. Think they'll actually have the balls to have a fair hearing on this? And if they're willing to do this, let's not forget about all this shit they let the previous administration get away with. The nation is now filthy with hypocrites.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2013/02/things-in-memo-on-killing-of-americans.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thank you, Rude One, for saying what must be said. 
Extrajudical assassinations of Amercian citizens -- criminal no matter WHO is doing it. 
hatred by stochastic terrorists must not show up on the radar as worthy of national concern. Hence, those are the risks a right-wing-soused society willingly accepts for the sheer joy of living in that right-wing society. 
That's all it takes these days but no one can force us to act fooled.
...However on the whole, as someone who has read a number of legal opinions, this memo stands on pretty solid legal grounds IMHO. I really doubt there will ever be a successful legal argument made in the courts against this legal argument. I would also note, that this is not the same thing as the Bush Department of Justice's permitting of torture, which is clearly against a number of US and international legal statutes and treaties. In short, Congress has authorized military force, in this authorization the President retains the authority to carry out military action against members of Al-Qaida and its "associated organizations" (American citizenship does not preclude this determination, these individual decisions are not subject to court approval because the the Courts do not have such authorization, and Congress retains the right to further amend or repeal the AUMF. If George W. Bush and not Barack Obama had made such a determination regarding Anwar Al-Awlaki, my opinion on this matter would be no different. Our public authorities have a compelling interest to protect Americans from terrorist attack. Flame away.
There is of course a valid a discussion to be had about whether carrying out this policy is wise strategy. However, attacking a legal argument on a political basis without addressing directly what the document is arguing - the concept of "imminence" has been widely explored in legal doctrine in many facets, IMHO it can be more clearly enunciated as "demonstrable reasonable belief." Moreover, I think in Constitutional terms that the Administration is aware of the likelihood of a legal challenge and has thus to date been reluctant to stake a position prematurely that could be subject to use in Court. I also would note that none of this precludes the oversight function of Congress to both obtain information, by subpoena if necessary, to pass legislation or to impeach the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors." The President is not acting as a dictator, he is acting as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed services *and* with the legislative sanction of the Congress, wherein the sovereign will of the American people is invested.
(Many of your questions can be answered if you have time to read this....and 
and from the "hold out," where we were.) ALSO...many others who don't see the revelations in this Memo as upsetting to what we were taught about our Democracy and the "Rule of Law" might find this interview with ACLU Head...very informative. I did..
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Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit"
The Obama administration’s internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We’re joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo ... there’s no geographic line," says Jaffer. "The Obama administration is making, in some ways, a greater claim of authority [than President Bush]. They’re arguing that the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit." [includes rush transcript]
TRANSCRIPT from ACLU's Jmeel Jaffer speaking with Amy Goodman, HERE:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/5/kill_list_exposed_leaked_obama_memo
...I think there's a legal contest that can me made too. I just don't think it has a chance of winning. When I consider the political, moral, and strategic arguments I see a vastly complex world where the questions and answers are not so simple. I think the geographic limit argument is a simplification - Congress has declared hostilities against Al Qaeda and its allies - these are transnational groups that thrive on mobility and secrecy. I suppose if we want to deal in these sorts of hypothetical arguments we ought to consider all the hypothetical arguments including the one's that concern those who would be affected by another successful mass casualty terrorist attack on the United States and our interests abroad. Don't want to be on the capture/kill list - don't join our enemies.
done. Conversely, I don't like any right-wingy thingy done or planned by anyone at any time.
