Obama authorizes assasination of U.S. citizen

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Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield. I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they're sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind.
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http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

I'm all for assassinating muslim terrorist scum, but..... kind of a bad precedent to set O_O
 
I despise assasinations, as all true Americans do.

But, anyway, he apparently doesn't want to be an American citizen, and he's part of a foreign army, so they can strip him of citizenship. They just should have gone through the correct pathways to do this. Issuing the order while he's still a citizen (and without, apparently, even going through the motions to remove him from the roles) is completely without precedent and uncalled for.
 
interesting....so apparently obama is god and determines who gets to live and die regardless of due process....wasn't he making hte argument for trials just a few months ago and the rabid left was saying that those on the right who didn't believe in criminal trials vs. tribunals were cowards....

i'm curious what they think of this...at least watermark is consistent and honest
 
The left hates this. It's on the top of reddit and no left-winger is defending him. Even a lot of people on the right don't like it. You have to go to the far, far neoconservative right to find someone bloodthirsty enough to support it.
 
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so typical of any administration, as soon as a growing portion of the populace gets really angry and some violence starts to happen, the feds stamp their foot and threaten to unleash their own on its people. It's almost time to figure out who the servant is and who's the master.
 
It isn't that hard to strip his citizenship and list his as a member of a foreign army. The evidence for this is absolute. Why not just do what is necessary rather than just open up a death warrant without due process?
 
Now that the shock value has mostly worn off, I'm not sure I oppose it. Like WM, I'm concerned about assassinating a US citizen, which is why this whole episode is shocking. But consider how many unpopular wars we could avoid if the CIA was allowed to conduct more assassinations around the world?
 
T&A said:
Now that the shock value has mostly worn off, I'm not sure I oppose it. Like WM, I'm concerned about assassinating a US citizen, which is why this whole episode is shocking. But consider how many unpopular wars we could avoid if the CIA was allowed to conduct more assassinations around the world?
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We might prevent some wars. But we would also cause the kind of hatred that lasts lifetimes and creates more wars later.

I don't oppose assasinating this guy, per se. But strip him of his citizenship first. Otherwise this is a horrible precedent to set.
 
Damocles said:
It isn't that hard to strip his citizenship and list his as a member of a foreign army. The evidence for this is absolute. Why not just do what is necessary rather than just open up a death warrant without due process?
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What's the process for stripping someone of their citizenship? Is it similar to a criminal proceeding? I ask because it seems to me that stripping him of his citizenship to then issue a death warrant against him just puts some legalistic window-dressing on the fact that the president authorized the assassination of an American citizen.

Due process isn't something that should be disposed of out of inconvenience.
 
NigelTufnel said:
What's the process for stripping someone of their citizenship? Is it similar to a criminal proceeding? I ask because it seems to me that stripping him of his citizenship to then issue a death warrant against him just puts some legalistic window-dressing on the fact that the president authorized the assassination of an American citizen.

Due process isn't something that should be disposed of out of inconvenience.
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I think its more than window-dressing. The process would include showing him to be part of a war against this nation, and that is no small thing.
 
This is fucked up.

This sets a horrible precsedent.


Hes an American citizen and needs to be brought to trial.

They better have some undeniable evidence he renounced his citizenship or this is VERY bad stuff.
 
WinterBorn said:
I think its more than window-dressing. The process would include showing him to be part of a war against this nation, and that is no small thing.
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Well, I understand that the result is no small thing, but my question is what is the process involved in stripping an American citizen of his citizenship?
 
NigelTufnel said:
Well, I understand that the result is no small thing, but my question is what is the process involved in stripping an American citizen of his citizenship?
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There should be only one way to do it.

The citizen themself should have to renounce their own citizenship.
 
Apparently there is a statute that allows citizenship to be stripped. This is what I found so far:

"A federal statute says that a citizen loses his citizenship by "serving in the armed forces of a foreign state if such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States" but only if he does so "with the intention of relinquishing United States [citizenship].""

So apparently serving against us must be accompanied by the intent to relinguish citizenship.
 
Southern Man said:
Yes. It would prevent a lot of wars. Just think if we had removed Saddam, or Hitler. Or if we could remove Ahmajinedad.
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Assasinating the leader of another nation is not a solution to our problems. Perhaps if we had not put Saddam in power, or not put the Shah in power, we wouldn't have had the wars either.
 
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