Justice denied: Obama must defend killing citizens without a trial
The position of the Obama administration, as articulated by Attorney General Eric Holder, on killing Americans who may be a threat to the country without trial or any other semblance of due process is astonishing.
Mr. Holder, in a speech on Monday at Northwestern University, said government has the authority to kill a "U.S. citizen terrorist who presents an imminent threat of violent attack" and cannot be captured. The added fact that the administration has yet to make public its legal argument to justify this position adds insult to injury in terms of accountability to Americans.
The argument that the 9/11 attack justified a partial dismantling of the system of justice because the nation was plunged into an undefinable war on terrorism may have held water in the early, angry days after the 2001 deaths. But now, more than a decade later, the United States is governed by President Barack Obama, who taught courses in constitutional law and should know better.
Instead, his administration executed two U.S. citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, 16, in Yemen with drones last fall and without benefit of charges, a trial, defense counsel, a guilty verdict and appropriate sentence. There is certainly an argument that the Awlakis were evildoers and represented a threat to the safety and well-being of Americans. For that reason, the Post-Gazette was sympathetic to the administration's aggressive actions last year.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/editorials/justice-denied-obama-must-defend-killing-citizens-without-a-trial-317970/
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So we're treated to preposterous scenarios and all the "what ifs": What if those awful, awful people don't turn themselves in to the people who want to summarily execute them? They're practically fleeing felons (who've never been charged, never arrested, and have no indication they've been marked for death)! What if there were Nazis? And frogmen off the coast? And Nazi frogmen? Would you shitcan the Constitution then? Huh? Huh? Huh? What about that?
No. No, I'm not willing to sacrifice the Constitution because some people are wet-their-pants scared. Despite the rhetoric of tyrants ("My job is to protect the people!"
we keep hearing, our elected officials are supposed to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, not the American people. Without the Constitution, there is no United States. And without our constitutional system of due process and judicial review, our system isn't the United States, even if it retains some of the accoutrements of our former democracy.
damage to by-standers and due process. 
Yeah what a
, eh?
Hopefully they can avoid that
for quite some time, but should be interesting when it comes along.
