Greenwald on claimed "war exception" to the Constitution

Glenn Greenwald in Salon has an update on news that "the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed (by the Executive Branch) to be Terrorists." Greenwald argues this policy "basically gives the President the power to impose death sentences on his own citizens without any charges or trial."

• [ill lich]

  Those tin foil hats will make it easy to pick off the President’s enemies in a crowd, so shiny and obvious, glinting in the sun. Or maybe the tin foil hats act to blind would-be snipers on rooftops overlooking tea-party protests, who knows?

  Of course the teabagger crowd will have field day with this, whereas they didn’t utter a peep during the Bush administration: it’s not the policy they are opposed to, it’s who gets to implement that policy, but of course we all knew that. How soon before the death of some vocal right-winger in “mysterious circumstances” (like a car crash or heart attack) gets attributed to Obama’s death squads? I predict another “What REALLY happened to Vince Foster?”-style video.

  • [Anonymous]

    Speaking as a member of the “teabagger crowd” I congratulate the President for adopting a useful weapon in the war on terror.

    Besides, when the liberals unleash their death panels they will kill us using fluoride, the metric system, and unisex toilets.

    (Sorry can’t type anymore, my eyes won’t stop rolling.)

  • [dragonfrog]

    How soon before the death of some vocal right-winger in “mysterious circumstances” (like a car crash or heart attack) gets attributed to Obama’s death squads?

    And so it should – any government that advocates clandestine killings of enemies of the state, automatically becomes a prime suspect in the death of, really, pretty much anyone. After all, if the government is that insanely paranoid, then who might it not suspect of plotting to overthrow it?

    I kind of hope that happens fairly soon. Of course I don’t wish anyone should die untimely – just that the first time that does happen, a dark cloud of suspicion should be cast over a president who endorses giving himself the power to order assassinations.

• [thefuture]

  This is horrible, scary & worrying, but how is it any different from what has been standard US policy towards foreign citizens in their own countries? In fact coming from the people who routinely bomb tribal villages based on suspicion that there might be a terrorist in that schoolyard, this makes a lot of sense in a twisted sort of way.

• [gobo]

  This seems to me to be more of the same screaming-in-the-streets fearmongering that the teabagger crowd has been using with their “death panel” craziness. It’s based on faulty leaps in logic. The logic goes something like this:
  • there’s a clause allowing known terrorists threatening the government, or specifically the president, to be targeted by the NSA for pre-emptive assassination.
  • the Obama administration has not officially rescinded this, therefore they ‘adopted’ it.
  • the orders to assassinate a known terrorist have to come from the highest levels of authority.
  • therefore, Obama is killing Americans willy-nilly! Like Hitler!

  This logic is faulty in the extreme.

  • [Anonymous]

    The Washington Post reported the President has ADOPTED this policy and begun targeting U.S. citizens for assassinations. Yesterday, Dennis Blair confirmed that the Obama administration has adopted this policy. We even know one of the persons on the list, who the administration has twice tried to kill in Yemen.

    Yet here you are, insisting it’s just a figment of paranoia and overly-active imaginations.

    I guess the power to believe only what you want is so strong that even when the undeniable evidence is right in front of one’s nose — even when the administration
    ADMITS it’s doing this — one can pretend it’s not there.

    “I don’t want it to be true. So it must not be.”

  • [joeposts]

    “the Obama administration has not officially rescinded this, therefore they ‘adopted’ it.”

    Rtfa. Its an active policy.

    • [gobo]

      Thank you, joeposts, for telling me to “rtfa” after I’ve read the article. As I said, it’s an active policy they inherited from the Bush administration which they haven’t made inactive. To say they ‘adopted’ it in the sense that they embrace assassination with open arms is, again, alarmist.

      • [Jeremy A]

        I didn’t know we judged government officials on the policies they like, not the policies they execute.

      • [joeposts]

        “To say they ‘adopted’ it in the sense that they embrace assassination with open arms is, again, alarmist.”

        Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re not alarmed. I guess it’s just silly to think that the Obama administration might try to assassinate enemies of the state. They promised ‘change,’ after all.

• [Day Vexx]

  This reminds me of when, in grade school, my classroom was shown samples of illegal drugs by a police officer. I was worried that cocaine looked an awful lot like flour, and that I might somehow get thrown in jail… for buying flour.

  It didn’t occur to me for a while how ridiculous it was to worry about this, as people usually don’t buy a whole lot of flour on the street corner from strangers, especially not in little baggies. Seriously– who buys an ounce of flour?!

  This article raises similarly ridiculous, far-fetched fears.

  • [Avram / Moderator]

    Day Vexx, I’m guessing you haven’t heard about the Bryn Mawr student who spent three weeks in jail for carrying condoms filled with flour.

    • [joeposts]

      There was a similar case recently where two guys were busted for crack possession in New York. It was hard candy. Took them a week to figure it out and release the guy who couldn’t afford bail.

      http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/22/2010-01-22_bronx_men_to_file_2m_suit_against_city_after_cops_arrested_them_for_crack_that_w.html

  • [rick386]

    I don’t agree. The Patriot act has been in effect for some time now. It was even extended. Ever wonder why a trace amount of most controlled substances is a felony? A residue in an empty bag can lead to your rights taken away and your career future gone. This was accomplished thru the same fear mongering and the public release of their rights over time. Call it a drug WAR and all is fair. Now, if you call them a terrorist, they have no rights. step by step and chavez is now asking venezuela to censor the web and twitter.

• [joeposts]

  “I’m in fact questioning the validity of this article entirely.”

  How so? It’s established that Obama has authorized special forces to kill people the Obama administration considers enemies of the state.

  “Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said.”

  “Obama has ordered a dramatic increase in the pace of CIA drone-launched missile strikes into Pakistan in an effort to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban members in the ungoverned tribal areas along the Afghan border.”

  “Obama also has sent U.S. military forces briefly into Somalia as part of an operation to kill Saleh Ali Nabhan, a Kenyan sought in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in Kenya.”

  “The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, ‘it doesn’t really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them,’ a senior administration official said. ‘They are then part of the enemy.’”

• [joeposts]

  “Americans are used to killing foreigners”

  I can’t remember a time when America wasn’t involved in a foreign conflict.

• [The Lizardman]

  That was not a Bush policy (and believe me, I hate having to defend him in any fashion) that was and is a government policy – as in ALL governments. If anyone really thinks that the US or any other government has not or does not have a policy of killing those who cause too much trouble for those in power (with or without an excuse like terrorism) then they are too deluded to even try and have a discussion with

• [elguapostrikes]

  I’ll get on my knees and pray
  We don’t get fooled again

  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

• [thanatomaton]

  I saw this and thought, “Surely this is a reflexive overreaction.” Then I read it.

  I stand by my original opinion.

  Carry on…

• [deanaoxo]

  Thank you for this Xeni, i’ve been reading Glenn for a couple years now, and find him to be well reasoned, far from alarmist, and very factual.

  I hope his voice will cause others to look into what is going on with hardly a peep out of the majority of citizens and of course without a word from the MSM.

  Unraveling the constitution by anyone should be alarming to everyone. Without the basis for law, and by uttering the word terrorist, or war, you can now be locked up forever, without a trial, anywhere in the world.

  By the U.S.

  Naturally, we all think it happens to someone else, right up to the moment it happens to us.

  Stay informed, question authority.

• [Jeremy A]

  You guys are poorly informed. Here’s what Lincoln’s people said (in legally binding documents) about assassination:

  “The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.”

  Not all governments reserve the right to assassinate and America certainly hasn’t always. Nobody said Obama’s been doing it willy-nilly. Greenwald’s point was that precedent says the President cannot assassinate people. And he asked if it’s a good idea to change that precedent. Sure they’ve always been doing it, but that doesn’t mean it was legal.

  Is that a power you want to legally be in the hands of all future Presidents? Do you think they’ll be inclined to use it less now that it is legal? Would it really be that bad if we at least required them to ask a judge?

• [nnguyen]

  holy crap! Blackbriar is real!

• [GrumpySteen]

  I think the policy in question is being dreadfully misrepresented. It does not give the President the authority to order an assassination. What he does have the authority to do is say “yes” when an intelligence agency presents him with a request to authorize an assassination. In theory, he’ll look at the information they’ve presented and decide whether assassination is warranted.

  The alternative is to either stop assassinating people (which would be great, but will never happen) or to let the intelligence community assassinate people without oversight.

  • [Jeremy A]

    Or call a judge and get an “okay.” But phones are awfully heavy, I’ll give you that.

• [Jeremy A]

  Seriously though, people are defending this? I love a lot of what Obama has done (he’s made my regulatory agency dreams come true) but it’s amazing to see the pass he’s given on all 4th amendment issues. He has literally changed nothing since Bush left office. Why was everyone complaining back then if it’s all okay now?

  • [Winston-Smith]

    “Why was everyone complaining back then if it’s all okay now?”

    Because it must be okay if a Leftie does it.

• [SamSam]

  I don’t understand what the difference is between this and the long-standing policy that the government can kill foreign people deemed to be terrorists. Just because these people happen to be American citizens they should get a special pass?

  Note: I am NOT supporting the policy of the government to be able to kill ANYONE who appears to be a terrorist without a proper trial, unless it’s someone who is activity trying to blow up a plane and deadly force is the only option. But I don’t understand why there should be a double-standard and boo-hooing just because the person was born in America. Why don’t we see all this gnashing of teeth every time the US claims to have killed another top al Qaeda leader? It’s ok just because their Arabs?

  • [Jeremy A]

    There are different legal hurdles to overcome. Killing American citizens involves violating a greater volume of precedent, that’s all. It’s “more” illegal, if you will. The argument is about legality, not morality.

    • [joeposts]

      Plus – we’re “at War” with the two countries where we’ve done most of our Arab-killing, Afghanistan and Iraq. But Obama is signing death warrants for clerics in Yemen.

  • [Winston-Smith]

    “Just because these people happen to be American citizens they should get a special pass?”

    A: Citizenship has its privileges.

    • [SamSam]

      I was referring to the moral argument. I am assuming you are not saying that it is morally worse to kill Americans, right?

  • [Jeremy A]

    Also, if you think Glenn Greenwald doesn’t boo-hoo about Arabs, I assume you haven’t read much of him. They get a lot more columns than this does. You should take a look, he’s a smart guy.

• [anansi133]

  “Well, sure, the administration has given itself this power, but that doesn’t mean that they’d actually *use* it on anyone. And if they did, that doesn’t mean they would have *abused* this power, you and I and the rest of the mob might find we agree with their version of the story.”

  Fascism: the new, improved, re-branded democracy.

• [joeposts]

  “Why don’t we see all this gnashing of teeth every time the US claims to have killed another top al Qaeda leader? It’s ok just because their Arabs?”

  Good question. It’s worth noting that Greenwald and a lot of others have been critics of pretty much all aspects of these bullshit wars.

  To be blunt about it though, Americans are used to killing foreigners. It’s part of being American. But to be able to kill Americans simply because you don’t like what they’re saying is another step towards whatever nightmare America is descending into.

• [gobo]

  Some folks seem to assume that those questioning this article are somehow in support of random assassinations or “death warrants for clerics”. Not true. I’m in fact questioning the validity of this article entirely. I think it’s overblown alarmist nonsense that takes leaps of logic to paint the president as a paranoid fascist. As, in my opinion, are posts claiming that “Americans are used to killing foreigners”.

  • [Jeremy A]

    “Some folks seem to assume that those questioning this article are somehow in support of random assassinations or ‘death warrants for clerics’. Not true. I’m in fact questioning the validity of this article entirely. I think it’s overblown alarmist nonsense that takes leaps of logic to paint the president as a paranoid fascist.”

    I realize people do that, but I don’t mean to. I believe that he will use this power sparingly, if at all, and with ample justification. I might be wrong, but that’s what I expect from what I know of him. However, I also believe that this power has been repeatedly declared unconstitutional. From a legal standpoint, his stance is extremely questionable and deserves attention.

    From a moral standpoint, I think it’s wrong and unnecessary to give administrations this power. I do not trust that all future presidents will use it wisely, just as others don’t trust that Obama will. It should never be on the table in the first place. I can’t speak for him, but I get the impression that Greenwald is coming from a similar place.

    “As, in my opinion, are posts claiming that ‘Americans are used to killing foreigners’.”

    What? We’ve killed 100 times more foreigners in the name of 9/11 than the number of Americans that died that day. To us, foreign lives are worth less than American lives. What’s your reasoning for disagreeing?