Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure 885
wiredmikey writes with this excerpt from a Wall Street Journal report:
"The U.S. ushered in a new CIA-led counterterrorism program in Yemen on Friday, sending unmanned aircraft to kill an American-born cleric who occupied a top place on the U.S.'s anti-terrorist list. The death of Anwar al-Awlaki eliminates a leading figure in Yemen's branch of al Qaeda and one of its most charismatic recruiters. A Web-savvy Islamic preacher with sparkling English, Mr. Awlaki was known for his ability to couch extremist views in ways that appealed to Western youth. He had been linked to suspects in the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, shooting spree and the botched bombing of a Detroit-bound jet that Christmas."
Re:5th Amendment (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:3, Insightful)
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
I highlighted the relevant part.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
Came here to say this. It's amazing what our government decides it can get away with. Once we allow it to have the power to do this for someone who was most certainly guilty, we have given it the power to do this with anyone else it decides is guilty enough. It's very dangerous territory that we need to retreat from. End American imperialism. It's time we got rid of Obushma.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
"except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger"
He's in the land forces. He's just in service in the land forces of an enemy.
That sort of thing happens when you commit treason and declare war against the country you're supposedly a citizen in...
One of 'us' (Score:5, Insightful)
It's fascinating how many people are worried that the U.S. government assassinated a U.S. citizen, rather than worrying that the U.S. government is assassinating people.
And yes, I understand that there is a legally declared war and that there is a very strong case that this guy was involved with the enemy in that war.
Seven of Nine disapproves (Score:4, Insightful)
Inefficient. Drones should assimilate, not kill.
Name the only candidate that would stop this.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:3, Insightful)
1. We're not at war with Yemen
2. Who decides that someone deserves to die? Who is this 'government' you refer to?
Re:He has been linked? (Score:2, Insightful)
In War there is no requirement to try every enemy soldier before opening fire.
watch out for those links (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch out for those links to suspects, they'll get you and everyone in your immediate vicinity killed without warning by a missile fired from a robotic aircraft controlled by foreigners hundreds of miles away. There is no point in building a case against someone, capturing them, and having a public trial where the evidence is subject to intense scrutiny and the outcome is determined by disinterested peers. That kind of thing is messy and time consuming, and there is no telling what the outcome might be. After all, 20-25% of the victims in this instance were linked to someone who is suspected of carrying out some horrible crime.
Re:War /= civil process. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
During World War I and II, individuals in some cases joined the armies of those nations fighting against the US. That made them legitimate targets for military action. The most significant precedent however, is the US Civil War.
It would be hard to argue that a leader in a group that the US has effectively declared war on (including resolutions of Congress that authorize military force) is not a legitimate military target.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Constitutionally when a cop sees a person threatening the life of another the officers is not permitted too use deadly force to stop the act?
They are allowed. But what is not allowed is following the perp home and while they are sitting there watching TV, pointing your gun through the window and assassinating them.
Re:Let's get a couple things straight, here. (Score:4, Insightful)
>Killing him was self defense.
I don't expect you to show any outrage when the other side are killing Americans using the same "logic" then.
Other Countries Can Do This Too, You Know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose Iran decides that someone in this country is an "enemy of the state", and launches drones from their "warships" off the coast of the US? Or they get "government approval" from someone in Mexico, and do the same? Heck, they won't even have to launch from that close.
North Korea has already been caught using poisoned needles to take out people they consider to be "enemies".
Just to be clear, I have no objection to taking this asshole out once and for all?
But I won't be standing atop the Mountain of Purity, wearing white robes and singing hosannas, either. Dirty pool goes both ways, folks.
Re:War /= civil process. (Score:2, Insightful)
Your choice to equate asymmetric WARFARE with "organized crime" is amusing.
The US didn't attack "Yemen", it attacked enemy personnel IN Yemen.
Re:War /= civil process. (Score:5, Insightful)
No one seriously argues that Awlaki wasn't an enemy actor, therefore there is zero logical argument against killing him.
Actually, a lot of people do seriously argue that point. The one thing that is not in dispute is that al-Awlaki advocated violence against the US government, but that has been ruled protected speech [wikipedia.org] - if it hadn't been, people like William Piece (author of the Turner Diaries) would be up on charges. What has never been proven in a court of law, and is disputed by many folks who actually know what they're talking about in Yemen, is that Awlaki had anything to do with planning and executing any actual terrorist attacks.
Attacking him was a "necessity" because there was no other way to interdict his activities.
Sure there was:
1. Present evidence to a judge sufficient to demonstrate probable cause for arresting him.
2. Work with the Yemeni authorities, who are allies of the US, to attempt to capture him and bring him to the US for trial. If he attempts to resist arrest, by all means shoot back.
3. Indict and try him, and if he is guilty, lock him up forever or execute him.
Force used was "proportional" because it was sufficient to decisively counter a hostile act or hostile intent, but reasonable in intensity, duration and magnitude.
Awlaki posted hostile videos on Youtube. The US and Yemeni governments fired cruise missiles that killed not only Awlaki but several others nearby. Tell me exactly what 'proportional' means to you.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
"except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger"
He's in the land forces. He's just in service in the land forces of an enemy.
That sort of thing happens when you commit treason and declare war against the country you're supposedly a citizen in...
They say he did that BUT if you read his speeches it doesn't quite jibe with the claims so this is fierce propaganda. Also, the declaration of war must be against a soverign nation and not an idealistic and nebulous term such as terrorism. By definition that can mean anyone who doesn't like the US. Al Queda isn't a soverign nation and there is no evidence he was actually a member. Rooting for those who fight arguably illegal US operations abroad isn't treason. If it is then we are in deep caca. If, in fact, he is guilty of the alleged crimes why was there no grand jury indictment or warrant out for his arrest? Now it is moot because he is dead. The "secret" list has 12 names on it of US citizens targeted for assassination and none have been vetted through any legal process
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
the guy was calling for the destruction of the US Constitution and the implementation of Sharia law
He was practicing his 1st amendment rights.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:1, Insightful)
Not to mention that the "War Against Terrorism" is not a real war in the first place. A war is between two governments and involves armies.
Fighting against guerillas or terrorist groups may bereferred to as 'war' in the media and popular culture, but that's just for simplicity. In reality it's nothing more than crime.
Next people caught smoking weed will be sent to Gitmo. ''War on drugs'' and all that.
And now people are just going to keep calling the USA a free country. How many more laws and constitutional rights will the US government have to violate before people realize what it really is?
Re:5th Amendment (Score:3, Insightful)
By this reasoning, a US citizen who simply went overseas and, oh, joined the German army during World War II couldn't be shot either. You say "far from any battlefield", but you are not claiming that the fifth amendment doesn't apply to battlefields, you are claiming that it doesn't apply to people who are not members of the US military, which a German soldier wouldn't be.
Of course, someone who is fighting the US "far from any battlefield" is, since he is fighting, actually on the battlefield.
during vietnam (Score:3, Insightful)
we went around to villages executing civilians because they were "aiding the enemy". how did we know? we just knew. stop asking questions hippie.
of course, when a radical leftist president starts executing right wing militia people without due process, rush limbaugh will shit a brick. .
Re:One of 'us' (Score:5, Insightful)
He was an american citizen, and therefore due all the rights a citizen deserves, which include being arrested, tried, and convicted for treason.
He was not a "troop" - he was a civilian.
You are wrong, and a typical example of how the terrorists WON on 9/11.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
that highlighted section is meant to refer to the UCMJ for active duty military personnel during a time of war or public danger.
It does not, in any way, say that when a war is going on, you can suspend the 5th amendment. It only means that in a time of war, active duty military personnel are not granted due process by the constitution.
Regular citizens are granted full protection of due process in all times.
don't even attempt to think that this wasn't a violation of the constitution.
I'll abridge to the pertinent bits for you: {No person, except in cases in the forces or militia in actual service in time of war, shall be deprived of life without due process of law}
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how long before they start doing this on American soil? How long before they dispense with use of drones and authorize police in the streets to execute "terrorists" at will?
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop crying (Score:4, Insightful)
We're supposed to be better than them. Otherwise you might as well just have a military dictatorship where the General can kill whoever he wants at any time.
Re:He has been linked? (Score:3, Insightful)
This involves no war, and he was not a soldier. If you can define a war as "action against any organization ideologically opposed to the administration" and a soldier as "accused member of said organization" then you can kill pretty much anyone you like.
Re:5th Amendment - indite him? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know of no proof that the played a role in AlQueda. I'm talking proof, not propaganda. If there was proof, he could have been charged, but he was never charged...
It's the politically motivated assassination of a USA citizen by the USA government with no justifiable legal reason or attempt at process.
What the hell else could it be? And it troubles me on so many levels. And the basic fact is that the few speeches I've heard on youtube were normal and righteous positions I generally agreed with.
Ops.. did I just make myself a target .. get it.. GET IT! .. Stupid cock-suckers.
Yuh Huh (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy and Bin Laden have been waging their private little war on the USA, putting civilian lives at risk at home and abroad. We may not have declared war on them, but they certainly have done so on us. I have no problem whatsoever with the government picking them off, and this administration is proving to be surprisingly good at doing so.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:3, Insightful)
"A war is between two governments and involves armies."
Do words mean anything to you or do you just "make shit up" ?
Asymmetric unconventional warfare by non-state actors is old news (for example the old worldwide Communist revolutionary movement) and is much more than "crime".
Attacking external combatants who happen to hold an own-side passport is well within the accepted law of war.
No one seriously argues that Awlaki wasn't an enemy actor, therefore there is zero logical argument against killing him. His citizenship couldn't be less relevant because the rules of war apply in war.
He was an active member of a hostile force.
He demonstrated hostile intent.
Attacking him was a "necessity" because there was no other way to interdict his activities.
Force used was "proportional" because it was sufficient to decisively counter a hostile act or hostile intent, but reasonable in intensity, duration and magnitude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare#Definition_and_differences [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-state_actor [wikipedia.org]
Re:War /= civil process. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, let's all re-think our notion of murder, such that any killing by the state is justified because they say it is. Can't wait for this shit to be applied on US soil, then to every beat cop in the name of "safety".
Note that in 2006, approximately 200 people in the US were killed by police. In the same year, zero people were killed by terrorists.
Re:War /= civil process. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's get a couple things straight, here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sweet, he made unending proclamations about his involvement? I might get all my concerns laid to rest. Surely this is all online; can you link me the definitive proof that he was in Al Queda? I will accept a video of him making the assertion himself, or even a statement by a credible news agency that isn't simply quoting the government.
Oh wait. You can't. Because it doesn't exist.
What you're asking me to do is take the killer's word for the fact that the victim needed killing. You seriously don't see the conflict there? I also question when exercising free speech (even if criminally excessive) became a crime worthy of the death penalty.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:War /= civil process. (Score:3, Insightful)
Undoing my mods to say this- the very first thing Wikipedia says about Brandenburg vs. Ohio is that "government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is directed to inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action." Advocating violence in the abstract is a long long way from being involved in the day-to-day planning of suicide attacks as Awlaki was. Why are you ignoring this? If you were trying to make some kind of objective argument about justice, rather than being a partisan who's simply seizing the opportunity to push your view, you'd certainly have given this thought.
The government has the right to take action against those who are personally involved in perpetrating ongoing violence.
Nobody likes trials in absentia, but efforts to apprehend Awlaki had gone on for years without success, and finally a trial was scheduled in a Yemeni court. Awlaki could not have failed to have received information about the time and place of his trial, which was nationally and internationally in the news. His defense counsel was not just a sham but put up a vigorous defense. He was convicted and the judge called for his capture dead or alive. I think that in this case people went to extreme lengths to provide as much due process as could be given under the circumstances.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
Let us use our imaginations, just a little bit, so that I can draw a parallel.
It's just prior to WW2, and tensions are increasing between the US and Germany. One or more US citizens are quite vocal in their support of Germany. They seek to gain public support for Germany and the Nazi party at every opportunity. Sometime within a couple months of the US actually declaring war on Germany, the person(s) under discussion take a ship to Germany, denounce their American citizenship, and join the Nazi party. From that time on, they work hard in the service of the Nazi party, taking intelligence missions, recruiting missions, public addresses in various countries meant to sway public opinion away from the US, and toward Nazi Germany's goals.
Would you still demand some kind of "due process" for the individual(s) involved, or would you agree that the United States should send a bombing mission to silence these high profile Nazi sympathizers?
Now, before you try to tell me that it's not the same scenario - I'll remind you that Al Unlucky has indeed publicly renounced his US citizenship. THAT is where all the media has it WRONG. Al Unlucky hasn't been a US citizen for a long, long time. And, Unlucky did indeed join a "party", or organization, whose stated goals include the overthrow of the United States.
Mr. Unlucky may not have been "Public Enemy Number One" - but he certainly ranked up there. Due Process does NOT apply in military situations such as this, or the analogy that I drew above. Al Unlucky made himself subject to military action, if not to military justice. In short, he got what he deserved.
Now, I hope that everyone can stop whining about civil rights, yada yada yada. An enemy combatant can be shot down anytime, as can an enemy spy.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
Did he legally renounce his US citizenship? It's not enough to simply say, "I renounce my citizenship" to make it effective.
Are you seriously suggesting that treason, conspiracy to commit mass murder, and aiding and abetting the enemy in times of war are NOT sufficient to be declared an enemy of the state? Are you seriously suggesting that we can't treat any person as an enemy of the United States of America unless they fill out the proper paperwork?!?
Seriously? No, no, seriously?
Re:5th Amendment (Score:4, Insightful)
The part that weirds me out is how some well-known terrorist leader gets taken down and we're all of a sudden concerned about who we're killing over there? What about all the innocent people we're killing all the time? Nobody seems to care much about that.
Re:One of 'us' (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are making an awful big assumption when you say that nobody will want to organize resistance against a nation that claims to have power over the life and death of any person they deem to be a sufficient threat.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
So we now have a perpetual "war on terror" and "war on drugs" and war on American citizens of all kinds, so we have an unending loophole to ignore human rights all over the world.
Keep on saying "it can't happen here." Tyranny can gain control anywhere.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
Protection from the arbitrary decisions of the leadership is exactly what the 5th is supposed to protect citizens from. You're right -- there is no "slippery slope." Obama's administration leaped over the cliff and willingly ignored the constitution. Again.
Re:One of 'us' (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
You should have known when the Democrats at their convention in Boston herded demonstrators off the street, and restricted them to a "free speech zone" surrounded by barbed wire, that the free speech wouldn't be the Obama Administration's greatest accomplishment.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're so confident the courts etc will "sign off" on this then why doesn't the Gov just make a good show of the "due process"?
If you're a US citizen this should trouble you. As for the rest of the world, I daresay most of us already distrust the US Gov. US citizens may also distrust the US Gov, but if the Gov at least pretended to regard that "piece of paper" and etc highly, they'd at least have to work harder to screw you all.
You keep letting them get away with ignoring the "piece of paper" and "due process", you'd be in trouble.
Having your day in kangaroo court is still better than being assassinated/executed at any convenient time.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that there is no evidence he was a combatant or a spy! What combat was he involved in? What spying did he do? There is no evidence that he was a member of Al-Qaeda except innuendo. There is no evidence that he was involved in training missions. There is innuendo, the worst possible evidence, that he recruited people and that is all. Or there is this claim from US officials that they have evidence that he had an "operational role" in terrorist activities, but they leave this completely undefined.
He stopped being a citizen because he merely said he renounced his citizenship? That is not how you lose US citizenship.
In my opinion, the US executive branch, be it Obama or his underlings, murdered a US citizen.
But if you want to contradict me, you can send me some citations and I'll reconsider. Don't just send me to the Wikipedia page though where too often their citations do not match up with the claims made.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither was the war on poverty.
Nor the war on drugs.
Nor the war on terrorism.
Metaphors, all - unless you insist on changing the definition of war.
Re:5th Amendment (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:5th Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
Two points:
Bullshit and Bullshit.
As to the first piece of bullshit, show me where in the Constitution it says, "When accused by police, you are presumed guilty and will be executed."
As to the second, Al-awlaki was a moderate cleric invited to speak all over WA DC after the 9-11 attack. What turned him from moderate to radical, is the unrelenting slaughter of innocent people. Even _I_ think the US is evil for doing that and I'm just an average white guy atheist whose very immune to any arguments relating to crusades or jihad.
Your comment demonstrates exactly why this is so dangerous. Unsupported allegations now are considered proof in your mind. The constitution requires more than that and for good reason, but if this is what is to pass as evidence in America, it's fricken over. We've passed into the dictatorship stage.