- An earlier article addressed the issue, accessed through
the following link:
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/targeted-assassinations-challenging-us.html
-
- In February, then Director of National Intelligence Dennis
C. Blair acknowledged it saying CIA operatives and Special Forces death
squads have been authorized to kill US citizens abroad, suspected of terrorist
involvement.
-
- Disapproval came from an unlikely source, Hollywood tough
guy Chuck Norris in an article titled, "Obama's US Assassination Program?
'A Shortlist of US Citizens Specfically Targeted for Killing?" saying:
-
- It's true, an "abandonment of our Constitution....based
on nothing more than" suspicion of terrorist involvement. "That's
right. No arrest. No Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet,"
bomb or slit throat, Washington's new approach along with torture as official
policy - justice, American-style under Republicans and Democrats, Obama
even more extreme than Bush, the rule of law defunct and defiled, the "land
of the free" disgraced, the entire world unsafe.
-
- Enough to arouse the ire of the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR) and ACLU, on August 30, filing a federal lawsuit (Al-Aulaqi
v. Obama) challenging America's right to kill US citizens abroad in cold
blood "far away from any armed conflict and without charge, trial
or judicial process," the way the Obama administration interprets
US and international law.
-
- Access CCR's full statement through the following link:
-
- http://www.ccrjustice.org/Al-Aulaqi-v-Obama+
-
- Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is a US citizen living
in Yemen, targeted for opposing US belligerency, not alleged or committed
crimes, putting all Americans at risk globally if outspoken against Washington's
imperial extremism, including its permanent war agenda endangering planetary
life and civil homeland society.
-
- CCR and ACLU are rightfully outraged, filing a successful
August 3 suit against the US Treasury and Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC) for violating Separation of Powers and First Amendment protection
of "the right of non-profit lawyers and legal organizations to give
pro bono legal representation to any US citizen," guaranteed also
under the Fifth Amendment. Still at issue is enjoining the assassination
of all Americans abroad, including al-Awlaki.
-
- On August 30, on behalf of his father, Dr. Nasser al-Aulaqi,
CCR and ACLU filed suit against Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta,
and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, challenging their right to kill his
son, in violation of US and international law.
-
- In early July, Dr. Aulaqi retained CCR and ACLU for his
son, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner calling him a "specially designated
global terrorist" on July 16, putting him on a hit list to be assassinated.
He's currently in Yemen, "without charge, trial or any form of due
process."
-
- After him, who's next abroad or at home, maybe writers
expressing outraged criticism, media hosts doing it on air, and speakers
justifiably denouncing the rule of law's trashing. Under America's new
standard, they're now potential "terrorists," making everyone,
everywhere unsafe because of rampaging government policy, recklessly out-of-control,
unhinged, without morals, ethics, or even knowledge or interest in the
difference between right and wrong.
-
- CCR and ACLU state:
-
- "Under international human rights law, lethal force
may be used in peacetime only when there is an imminent threat of deadly
attack and when lethal force is a last resort" to stop it. In contrast,
"A program in which names are added to a list through a secret bureaucratic
process and remain there for months....goes beyond" a last resort
justification as well as recognized US and international law.
-
- "Moreover, targeting individuals for killing who
are suspected of crimes (not proved) without oversight, due process or
disclosed standards....also poses the risk" of erroneously targeting
innocent people.
-
- Post-9/11, thousands of them, men and some women like
Aafia Siddiqui, have been wrongfully designated terrorists, then imprisoned
and brutally tortured, discovery later revealing their innocence in court,
in some cases too late to matter, their emotional and physical well-being
so systematically destroyed, no amount of therapy can restore them.
-
- Obama plans to speed up judgements under a ready, fire,
aim policy, murdering US citizens for their justifiable outrage, showing
how low American justice has sunk, hitting rock bottom under a president
who promised change - in fact, delivering it, a different kind than imagined
by too many Walter Lippmann once called "the bewildered herd,"
out of touch and supportive. Why others have to spread enlightenment before
it's too late to matter.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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