February 11, 2010
"There are no warrants or indictments or grand juries impaneled in order for Barack Obama to decide to kill any individual he chooses."
No one has the right to kill, or so we are told. Regardless of motive, murder is illegal, and the legal system rightfully sets the bar at a very high level before excusing this act. Not so where the government is concerned. Our constitutional law professor president, Barack Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush, claims the right to murder American citizens.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush gave the CIA and later the military, permission to kill American citizens abroad if those persons were declared threats to the United States, its people or its interests. President Obama believes that he too can decide to assassinate Americans if he declares them to be terrorists. This is not some bizarre assertion made by tin foil hat conspiracy theorists. The president’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, stated for the record and under oath before a congressional committee, that the president can give "special permission" to target American citizens for death.
In words that would make George Orwell proud, Blair explained that the rationale for killing is the taking of actions threatening American lives. "If that direct action -- we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that." So, if an American outside of the United States is considered a threat to other American lives, the American suspect can be killed on orders of the president. If that circular logic was followed consistently, then the killers of the terror suspect would also be killed for taking an American life. Of course, that would never happen because acting on behalf of the government absolves any and all criminal behavior.
"If an American outside of the United States is considered a threat to other American lives, the American suspect can be killed on orders of the president."
Brown’s assurances are not very comforting and are worthless in any case. There are no checks and balances governing how this permission to kill may be granted. There is no need to prove to congress or to other American citizens when this act is deemed justifiable. There are no warrants or indictments or grand juries impaneled in order for Barack Obama to decide to kill any individual he chooses.
This Obama administration policy originally came to light in a Washington Post article about the targeting of Yemen as a so-called terrorist haven. According to the Post, the Obama administration has been trying to kill Yemeni-American Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki is a Muslim cleric, allegedly "radical" and a "terrorist" but he is also inconveniently an American citizen, having been born in New Mexico. He came to public notice after the Fort Hood killings committed by Major Nidal Hasan, with whom he is said to have corresponded. The would be Christmas airplane bomber, Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab allegedly met al-Awlaki in Yemen.
"Due process rights shouldn’t end at the Oval Office or at the United States’ borders."
No evidence has been presented proving any of these government claims or al-Awlaki’s involvement in any of these acts. Yet members of the Obama cabinet can tell Congress, the media and the public that we have a government run by hit men. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that our life and liberty cannot be taken away without due process. Those due process rights shouldn’t end at the Oval Office or at the United States’ borders and our government should not be allowed to get rid of us because we are unlucky enough to be in Yemen or any other part of the world.
We have a "gangsta" presidency and a Congress that isn’t any better. Only Congressman Dennis Kucinich was willing to go on the record in opposition to these crimes. "Even the most superficial reading of Article XIV makes it clear that extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government or its agents are by definition outside the law." Kucinich’s colleagues, most of whom are lawyers, apparently are unable to perform even a superficial reading of the document they are sworn to uphold.
Extra judicial killings are to be expected in banana republics and communist dictatorships and Islamic theocracies or, well, by Israel. They aren’t supposed to be committed in violation of the Bill of Rights. There is only one silver lining to this cloud. We now know what Sarah Palin meant when she spoke about "Obama death panels." Maybe she isn’t so dumb after all.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
