EXCLUSIVE: Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans

Status
Not open for further replies.
Fortunetly that is just your opinion and you are entitled to your own opinion; you're just not entitled to your own facts.
Feel free to return with some of those facts, as soon as you educate yourself; but make sure you announce that that is what you're doing; because your abysmal track record might just hide the tiny increase in your IQ.

I have no clue as to what you are saying, dumbass. The OP produced an article. The article produced some facts and many assertions. Those are the facts in this conversation. Everything else, including my own participation here, is opinion. Some opinions, such as my own, are based on the facts. Others are based on illogical assertions, fear driven agenda and downright ignorance. As always, I try to hang in there with the facts. You? Some others? Not so much.
 
I have no clue as to what you are saying, dumbass. The OP produced an article. The article produced some facts and many assertions. Those are the facts in this conversation. Everything else, including my own participation here, is opinion. Some opinions, such as my own, are based on the facts. Others are based on illogical assertions, fear driven agenda and downright ignorance. As always, I try to hang in there with the facts. You? Some others? Not so much.

At least your willing to finally admit that your opinion was based on someone else's illogical assertions and a fear driven agenda.

Since admission of your failings are the first step to redeeming yourself, you're on the right track.
 
At least your willing to finally admit that your opinion was based on someone else's illogical assertions and a fear driven agenda.

Since admission of your failings are the first step to redeeming yourself, you're on the right track.

Comprehension skills have never been your strong point, have they? And they obviously never will.
 
I came in with an opinion based on the facts as I see them. Others, mainly you, stomp through the door whining about hypotheticals that make no sense whatsoever. The topic is the memo, dumbass. You don't like it, the memo, but you only have ridiculous assertions and wild eyed fear driven "what if's" to demonstrate your own ignorance. That, my friend, is ALL you have.

Since I spoke with you last on the gun monkey issues I have had several confrontations with a few of them. Although no blows were delivered I've found that the pissyassed cowboys are quite willing to put their penis extenders back in the truck where they belong. I've also found that the establishment management where these occurrences have happened are in total support of me and my side of that particular issue. And so are the police. Ain't living in America GRAND!!!!!!!!!

How does one discuss the potential harm of something like this without using hypothetical situations? We are talking in terms of what can happen in the future, so there is no incident to discuss. But you are all for it because hypothetically it can save your ass.

You stated "I care about our troops, I care about my country, I care about the President and his success and mainly I care about ME and how I might feel if I was back in the land of the enemies and how the decisions from the CIC and the Pentagon are going to effect ME."

The actual harm to our troops, country, and president are all hypothetical. The idea that you might be back in the land of the enemies is hypothetical.

So you have no problem using hypothetical situations (vague though they may be), but you ridicule them from me. That is laughable.



Oh, and I no more believe that you confronted any armed citizens than I believe in the tooth fairy. And I have known many, many people who have a licence to carry. I don't think a single one of them would put their firearms back in their vehicle simply because one lunatic confronted them.
 
How does one discuss the potential harm of something like this without using hypothetical situations? We are talking in terms of what can happen in the future, so there is no incident to discuss. But you are all for it because hypothetically it can save your ass.

You stated "I care about our troops, I care about my country, I care about the President and his success and mainly I care about ME and how I might feel if I was back in the land of the enemies and how the decisions from the CIC and the Pentagon are going to effect ME."

The actual harm to our troops, country, and president are all hypothetical. The idea that you might be back in the land of the enemies is hypothetical.

So you have no problem using hypothetical situations (vague though they may be), but you ridicule them from me. That is laughable.



Oh, and I no more believe that you confronted any armed citizens than I believe in the tooth fairy. And I have known many, many people who have a licence to carry. I don't think a single one of them would put their firearms back in their vehicle simply because one lunatic confronted them.

He's to big of a coward to confront anyone, let alone one that was legally armed.
He's just full of piss and vinegar, minus the vinegar.
 
The feds have been foregoing due process on thousands of things for centuries, since we became a nation. It's called responsible governance in MOST cases and it's certainly that in THIS case.
are you seriously trying to tell us that the federal government ignoring the constitution is responsible government??????
 
How does one discuss the potential harm of something like this without using hypothetical situations? We are talking in terms of what can happen in the future, so there is no incident to discuss. But you are all for it because hypothetically it can save your ass.

You stated "I care about our troops, I care about my country, I care about the President and his success and mainly I care about ME and how I might feel if I was back in the land of the enemies and how the decisions from the CIC and the Pentagon are going to effect ME."

The actual harm to our troops, country, and president are all hypothetical. The idea that you might be back in the land of the enemies is hypothetical.

So you have no problem using hypothetical situations (vague though they may be), but you ridicule them from me. That is laughable.



Oh, and I no more believe that you confronted any armed citizens than I believe in the tooth fairy. And I have known many, many people who have a licence to carry. I don't think a single one of them would put their firearms back in their vehicle simply because one lunatic confronted them.

We're talking about the "potential" harm of this memo? Wow. This could take centuries. Some claim slavery was absolutely/potentially the economic salvation of South. Well, that's sterile enough, isn't it?

You may have worn a uniform at some time in your life but you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground about war. When I might be trudging along through the jungle and my CIC is planning to take out a leader of any organization sworn to kill me I am happy for that. Citizen? Not of my country no matter what his damned papers might say. Would I kill him myself? In a heartbeat. Hypotheticals ass.

You can believe anything you want including the tooth fairy. My style of dealing with the gun monkeys is catching on. One man that owns a small chain of convenience stores nearby has placed signs on every door. NO FIREARMS. My ambition is to get all of them to do the same. As it was in my own business, if you felt so uncomfortable about being there that you felt a need to carry then just take your business somewhere else. No ifs, ands or buts.
 
We're talking about the "potential" harm of this memo? Wow. This could take centuries. Some claim slavery was absolutely/potentially the economic salvation of South. Well, that's sterile enough, isn't it?

You may have worn a uniform at some time in your life but you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground about war. When I might be trudging along through the jungle and my CIC is planning to take out a leader of any organization sworn to kill me I am happy for that. Citizen? Not of my country no matter what his damned papers might say. Would I kill him myself? In a heartbeat. Hypotheticals ass.

You can believe anything you want including the tooth fairy. My style of dealing with the gun monkeys is catching on. One man that owns a small chain of convenience stores nearby has placed signs on every door. NO FIREARMS. My ambition is to get all of them to do the same. As it was in my own business, if you felt so uncomfortable about being there that you felt a need to carry then just take your business somewhere else. No ifs, ands or buts.

At least you're amusing.
You're not "DEALING" with anything or anyone.
You're just talking out your ass.
 
Then wouldn't one need a trial to prove "specifically" why they were in a war zone? How do we know they are not there as private citizen peace negotiators?

Prove that every Nazi soldier present at D-Day was in a war zone to fight Allied troops.
 
A Network divided against itself
MSNBC Hosts Argue With Each Other About Drones, DOJ Memo (VIDEO)

MSNBC hosts split sharply from each other on Tuesday over the question of the Obama administration's drone policy.

The majority of the channel's programs devoted some attention to the Justice Department white paper obtained by NBC News, which says the government can order the killing of Americans if they are believed to be senior Al Qaeda members, even if they are not actively plotting attacks.

The network's more conservative hosts had the most vociferous arguments against the program. Joe Scarborough, long a critic of drone strikes, professed himself outraged.

"This is so frightening," he said. "If George Bush had done this, it would have been stopped."

On "The Cycle," conservative S.E. Cupp had a heated argument with Obama supporter Touré about the strikes.

"We're at war with Al Qaeda right now," Touré said. "If you join Al Qaeda, you lose the right to be an American." After going back and forth with him, Cupp shouted, "700 innocent children were not in Al Qaeda, Touré! That's what's happening."

Touré also talked about the killing of the 16-year-old son of alleged Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Co-host Steve Kornacki said that he was troubled that "someone decided he should die."

"If we have people who are working against America, then they need to die," Touré said.

In the evening, Ed Schultz spoke against the program.

"I'm troubled by it," Schultz said. "It doesn't meet the moral or constitutional standard that we expect of any administration ... we're losing the moral high ground by doing this." He added that liberals who backed the program had "come a long way" from opposing warrantless wiretapping under the Bush administration.

But Chris Matthews spoke in favor of it on "Hardball."

"If someone joins an army that's determined to destroy the United States ... is that person still an American?' he asked, adding, "That's a great question." He concluded, "I still think sometimes you have to do things that are not nice. We're fighting a war."

On her show, Rachel Maddow -- who was the first anchor to talk about the paper on Monday -- said that she was not troubled by the idea of the US killing "bad guys."

"The issue here is, who's a bad guy, and how do you figure it out?" she said.

There was no way to know what Al Sharpton or Lawrence O'Donnell thought of the paper, because they did not address it on their shows.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/msnbc-drones-doj-memo_n_2630070.html?utm_hp_ref=media

One word .. UNPRINCIPLED.

These are the same people who screamed at every excess of George Bush. They screamed at his color-coded terror alerts, sreamed when innocent peopl;e were being killed, screamed at his lack of transparency, screamed when he attacked small nations, and screamed at his lack of congressional oversight.

Now, none of that is a problem when Obama does the same things and worse.

White House Drone Response To Media Harks Back To Bush Years
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/white-house-drone-media-_n_2632538.html?utm_hp_ref=media
 
Obama Drone Program Secrecy Reaches 'Alice-in-Wonderland' Extremes

WASHINGTON -- In October 2011, Scott Shane, a national security reporter for The New York Times, sent an email to a branch of the Department of Justice that deals with Freedom of Information Act requests, to check on one of his FOIA filings.

Sixteen months earlier, Shane had asked that DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel -- which advises the White House on the legality of government actions -- release any memoranda it had relating to the president's top-secret program of targeted killing of suspected terrorists, much of which was understood to be conducted by drones.

President Barack Obama's drone and targeted killing program, which has remained highly obscure despite expanding rapidly under his watch, burst into the public discourse again on Monday after a DOJ briefing paper, outlining the executive branch's interpretation of its powers to kill extrajudicially, was published by NBC News.

But back in late 2011, the program, and its possible reach, was just starting to receive attention. That September, an American citizen named Anwar al-Awlaki, who had become a significant figure in al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Yemen. President Obama hailed the killing in a public address (see the video below).

A week later, Charles Savage, another national security reporter at the Times, wrote that Awlaki's killing -- and the killing, more broadly, of any American with close ties to al Qaeda -- had been authorized by a secret memo from the Office of Legal Counsel.

Shane pushed the Justice Department about his aging FOIA request. In June 2010, his request had been immediately accepted and granted "expedited processing," but now Shane wanted, as the OLC's FOIA officer later wrote to a colleague, "an explanation of why it had taken a year and a half to respond."

"We are almost finished processing his request," the colleague, OLC lawyer Peter Finn, wrote back.

A few days later, a response finally arrived in Shane's mailbox: Not only was the OLC denying his request, but it refused to acknowledge if the documents he'd requested even existed. "The very fact of the existence or nonexistence of such documents," the letter said, "is itself classified."

For the past three years, delays and convoluted explanations of this sort have been the response of the Obama administration to any effort to learn anything about the targeted killing program. For years, the government described any such program, and particularly the CIA's role in it, as so sensitive that it couldn't even be discussed. But long after the practice of targeted killing became a matter of widespread discussion -- and the president himself addressed targeting decisions in an informal Google hangout -- the administration has continued to use elaborate legal rationales and the blanket assertion of national security needs, to prevent any releases.

"To say that there is little transparency about the CIA's role in this is a real understatement," said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has had several FOIA requests denied on similar grounds. "We really have nothing at all, from the CIA itself, about its role, about the standards, about the process used to add people to kill lists, about number killed, about anything."

On his first day in the Oval Office, Obama promised to deliver a new era of government openness and ordered that FOIA requests be met quickly and generously.

Instead, the administration has thrown up roadblocks at every effort to learn about the targeted killing program. Court filings have been greeted with assertions of executive privilege or national security exemptions. Human rights researchers have been ignored. And at least a dozen formal inquiries from Congress have been met with silence.

FOIA experts have explored every avenue to squeeze out information. Jason Leopold, an investigative reporter with Truthout, has even asked for the emails behind the government's decisions to deny other FOIA filings. (It was one of Leopold's requests, shared with The Huffington Post, that revealed the OLC exchange about Shane.)

The administration's effort not to answer has been so convoluted and shrouded in obfuscation that one federal judge recently decried its "Alice-in-Wonderland nature," even as she concluded there was no way around the administration's arguments.

The lack of information affects not just legal watchdogs and government oversight; it also limits outside attempts to measure the efficacy of the program.

James Cavallaro, a human rights researcher at Stanford, recently spent six months attempting to meet with members of Obama's national security team before publishing a study that revealed the deadly consequences of the U.S. drone program in Pakistan. He never received a reply.

"It's disconcerting that there's not greater transparency and really unacceptable," Cavallaro said.

In his research on human rights violations around the world, Cavallaro noted that it's not uncommon for host countries to rebuff his requests for access and interviews (although he's had luck in some unlikely places, like Panama and Cambodia).

"But here's the kicker," he said. "Is that the standard that should apply in the United States? The standards of the many abusive governments that commit rights violations? If that's the standard the U.S. should hold itself to, then they're doing a fine job."

The ACLU had no better luck when it brought a lawsuit in mid-2010 against the government to prevent the killing of Awlaki, with his father as the plaintiff. The government responded in part that the case should be dismissed on the grounds that defending itself would require acknowledging a classified program. The case died a few months later.

But with every new speech by an administration official discussing the program, the blanket claim that the government cannot respond to FOIA requests or defend itself in court "becomes substantially less plausible," said Micah Zenko, an expert on targeted killing at the Council on Foreign Relations who has closely followed the secrecy debate.

"Every administration wants maximum power and minimum oversight," Zenko said. "Nobody wants to have their homework graded. But the whole point of the Constitution is that the president has his homework graded."

The Awlaki killing was the first known time an American citizen was deliberately killed by a U.S.-controlled drone strike. Two weeks later, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was killed in a separate attack in Yemen. As Zenko has noted, administration officials initially claimed the boy was "in his mid-twenties" and "of military age," before being confronted with his true date of birth. The State Department still refuses to address the killing, saying that it has yet to receive proof of his death from Yemeni authorities.

The DOJ briefing paper published on Monday offers yet another twist in the saga. It is not the OLC memo on which Savage had reported in 2011, but is instead an unclassified summary of the memo that was given to Congress last summer.

But when a handful of journalists, learning about the existence of the paper last year, sent a FOIA request for a copy, they were told that it was just an unfinished part of the government's internal deliberation process. In other words, they were told it was a draft -- and not subject to FOIA release.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/obama-drone-program-targeted-killing_n_2631425.html
 
Maddow has always had a troubling view of the military IMO, and I am not a big fan of hers. I am not sure her reaction would have been different under Bush. But Sharpton and O'Donnell forget about it. They would have went nuts, and in O'Donnell's case I mean literally since he is a rageaholic. I think Schultz would have been much more vociferous in his criticisms if this was Bush. They are definitely hypocrites.
 
A Network divided against itself
MSNBC Hosts Argue With Each Other About Drones, DOJ Memo (VIDEO)

MSNBC hosts split sharply from each other on Tuesday over the question of the Obama administration's drone policy.

The majority of the channel's programs devoted some attention to the Justice Department white paper obtained by NBC News, which says the government can order the killing of Americans if they are believed to be senior Al Qaeda members, even if they are not actively plotting attacks.

The network's more conservative hosts had the most vociferous arguments against the program. Joe Scarborough, long a critic of drone strikes, professed himself outraged.

"This is so frightening," he said. "If George Bush had done this, it would have been stopped."

On "The Cycle," conservative S.E. Cupp had a heated argument with Obama supporter Touré about the strikes.

"We're at war with Al Qaeda right now," Touré said. "If you join Al Qaeda, you lose the right to be an American." After going back and forth with him, Cupp shouted, "700 innocent children were not in Al Qaeda, Touré! That's what's happening."

Touré also talked about the killing of the 16-year-old son of alleged Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Co-host Steve Kornacki said that he was troubled that "someone decided he should die."

"If we have people who are working against America, then they need to die," Touré said.

In the evening, Ed Schultz spoke against the program.

"I'm troubled by it," Schultz said. "It doesn't meet the moral or constitutional standard that we expect of any administration ... we're losing the moral high ground by doing this." He added that liberals who backed the program had "come a long way" from opposing warrantless wiretapping under the Bush administration.

But Chris Matthews spoke in favor of it on "Hardball."

"If someone joins an army that's determined to destroy the United States ... is that person still an American?' he asked, adding, "That's a great question." He concluded, "I still think sometimes you have to do things that are not nice. We're fighting a war."

On her show, Rachel Maddow -- who was the first anchor to talk about the paper on Monday -- said that she was not troubled by the idea of the US killing "bad guys."

"The issue here is, who's a bad guy, and how do you figure it out?" she said.

There was no way to know what Al Sharpton or Lawrence O'Donnell thought of the paper, because they did not address it on their shows.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/msnbc-drones-doj-memo_n_2630070.html?utm_hp_ref=media

One word .. UNPRINCIPLED.

These are the same people who screamed at every excess of George Bush. They screamed at his color-coded terror alerts, sreamed when innocent peopl;e were being killed, screamed at his lack of transparency, screamed when he attacked small nations, and screamed at his lack of congressional oversight.

Now, none of that is a problem when Obama does the same things and worse.

White House Drone Response To Media Harks Back To Bush Years
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/white-house-drone-media-_n_2632538.html?utm_hp_ref=media

Funny that good ole Toure thought we should extend constitutional rights to folks at Gitmo. Good stuff
 
Good ole Toure sounded like a neocon in that clip. Very funny.

Something to think about is that during the Bush years, everything he did to fight Al Queda was a recruitment tool for Al Queda. So it begs the question, does sending in unmanned drones to Yemen (a country we have not declared war against) and dropping bombs on people obviously killing innocents a recruitment tool for Al Queda.

I knew the libs words under Bush would come back to bite them in the ass.
 
This is a very dangerous and unconstitutional precident to continue to use. I am outraged and it seems that we dont have a choice as almost all of our elected offiials are on board with it. I dont see why it matters if they are Americans or not, it makes no difference when we are killing people who are NOT in the act of harming us at the time they are killed. We owe them a TRIAL if they can be captured. Just because its hard is not an excuse.
 
I was thinking about something you said, gatorman. You claimed you have confronted people who were carrying firearms and they put them back in the truck afterwards.

The reason you have done these confrontations is that you do not feel safe with these people being armed, since you don't know what they are up to.

I am sure you feel better (provided any of that actually happened). But the funny part is, you have accomplished nothing of value. If those people were willing to meekly surrender and put their guns back in their vehicle (which I doubt), they were no threat to you anyway. All you did was remove firearms from people because of your own insecurity, and did not remove any from anyone dangerous.
 
Maddow has always had a troubling view of the military IMO, and I am not a big fan of hers. I am not sure her reaction would have been different under Bush. But Sharpton and O'Donnell forget about it. They would have went nuts, and in O'Donnell's case I mean literally since he is a rageaholic. I think Schultz would have been much more vociferous in his criticisms if this was Bush. They are definitely hypocrites.

First, it clearly demonstrates why Olberman and Uger are no longer there. Truth tellers unwelcome.

This is what they're arguing .. that Obama has the right to murder anyone he or some other "official" designate to be murdered without judicial process anywhere in the world .. AND, they're arguing that Obama has the right to murder anyone standing around his drone strikes .. AND, they are arguing that Obama can use dounle-tap drones strikes which are designed to impose terror on a population and to murder doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, and anyone else who rushes to the scene of his drone strike .. including family members who rush to the scene of where they last saw their loved one alive.

That's their fucking argument.

AND, theses are the vey same slimy bastards who screamed at bush for the war on Iraq, his color-coded terror alerts, the Patriot Act, attacks on civil liberties. and the murders of innocent Iraqis.

Same fucking people.

Democrats have become teabaggers .. and MSNBC is Fox News..
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top