“in a time of war”

Within an endless war, the concept of “time” is irrelevant. The last decade has shown me that, for the US military and its political puppeteers, peacetime will never come.

Let’s imagine two parallel situations to try to untangle this a bit:

a. Dozens of witnesses observe a guy murdering his wife. The guy then flees across a border and is hiding out in some country that won’t extradite him to us. Is it okay for the president to review both the public evidence (say, videotapes) and the private evidence (say, police reports), and then order a death squad to cross the border and assassinate the guy?

The core element here is that I’m assuming the guy is really guilty, and asking whether the president has the authority to judge him guilty and have him executed on his authority alone. My answer is no–the president doesn’t have the legal authority to do this, although I have no doubt he has guys working for him who will kill almost anyone he orders them to kill. (I imagine it would be hard for Obama to get anyone to follow orders to kill, say, Mitt Romney or John Boehner.) Justice would be served in this particular case by having the guy killed, but the cause of justice would not be served by giving the president the power to decide on his own that some guy needs killing and have it done on his own authority, because that would be misused. (Compare this with the main argument against lynchmobs–it’s not that they will never hang a guilty man, but rather that their false positive rate is much too high.)

Now, I’ve eliminated the element of war here. So maybe war is the thing that makes the difference. So, let’s make up another situation:

b. We’re in the middle of the cold war, and we’re also fighting the Communists in Vietnam. There is an American who is living outside the US, perhaps in Sweden. This American is making propaganda for the Soviets–he’s editing a Communist Party newspaper that urges workers to unite and overthrow the capitalist system. Can the president, again on his say-so alone, decide that this American deserves to die, and order a death squad to go to Sweden and knock the guy off? Is this a legitimate power of the president? And is it good policy?

Here, we have a shooting war going on somewhere (Vietnam instead of Afghanistan), and a larger ideological/spy agency/political battle going on across all the planet. And this guy is clearly a propagandist for the other side. Is it okay to have him knocked off?

Again, I say no. I think it’s bad policy on many levels, but the most basic is that I don’t want to give the president or the spy agencies or the military the power to decide what Americans are or aren’t allowed to say or write. If that is to be decided at all, it needs to be decided in court, based on evidence. The assertion that the administration is convinced he deserves to die isn’t enough, and will never be enough.

The potential abuses here are real and scary. Glenn Greenwald is a citizen living abroad and is supporting the rights of many enemies of the US, and criticizing US policy pretty routinely. Why can’t he be assassinated? How about American citizens who go to the middle east to protest Israel’s treatment of the people living in Gaza? How about Americans living abroad who are volunteering for Wikileaks? How about Americans who go hang out with Hugo Chavez and make anti-American statements on the Venezuelan press. (Just now, I think Chavez mainly would like American oncologists to come hang around with him, rather than actors.) The next time Noam Chomsky goes overseas to give a talk, can Obama order him killed?

Again, “that would be bad policy” isn’t much of an answer, because we’re talking about what powers the president should have. If the president has that power, we’d better assume it will often be used in ways we’re not too thrilled with, that it will sometimes be stretched to the limits of what we think the power really is, etc. That certainly fits what we saw from the Bush administration.

It’s not enough to say “because that would be a bad, evil, crazy decision,” unless you think the president and his people will never make bad or evil or crazy decisions, which requires ignoring a great deal of the last decade. Whatever power Obama has in this regard will also be held by all his successors, whether good or bad people, whatever their ideas and belief and inclinations.

That is exactly what he did through Inspire Magazine. It gives methods, targets, and times to attack. He was waging war against the U.S. And was a legitimate military target so long as he was outside the reach of law enforcement. He was as legitimate target as any other member of AQ.

I suppose the alternative was what, try him in absentia? That would that have satisfied the legal requirements? I suspect then the argument would shift that he didn’t get to face his accuser or testify, so it would be called a sham trial.

ight, because he said, “I am recruiting for AQ.” And when sued to present evidence that he was a threat of any kind, the government said, “It’s secret. We can’t show you how we know he’s an important person in Al Qaeda, because it’s secret.” Where have you been hiding

WTF? Are you saying he was waterboarded in a confession, or his volumes of videos and writings are faked by the government, or he was mentally ill and making shit up, or the government air dropped him into Yemen to have an excuse to waste a cruise missile? What exactly are you suggesting is the alternative explaination here? He was just a poor preacher who fell into the situation through a series of Forrest Gump-esque misunderstandings?

I’m really don’t understand your point of view here. Are you saying you are willing to give the government the unfettered ability to execute American citizens at will as long as their considered an enemy of the state? Are you OK with this taking place within US borders, because that’s where this is headed? Do you really not see the genie being let out of the bottle here?

Wrong wrong wrong. All of that is in fact protected speech, as it passes the imminent lawless action test established under Brandenburg v. Ohio. It is (or at least it is supposed to be) perfectly legal for a U.S. citizen to say “You should kill Americans.” It is even supposed to be legal for a U.S. citizen to say “You should kill Americans via bombing airliners.” What isn’t protected speech is for a citizen to say “You should kill Americans via bombing airliners and you should use this type of bomb on this flight at this time.” As for the “certainly not in a time of war” bit…

Show me where we are in a time of war. Laws matter, rules matter (or at least they are supposed to.) Just because “this is a different threat” and “TERRORISM” doesn’t mean the government gets to do things differently. The Authorization of Use of Military Force was and is not a declaration of war, no matter how much everyone wants it to be. As Juice pointed out above, it seems to have morphed beyond whatever it was originally intended to be and has become a catch all act under which the government can do whatever the fuck it wants as long as it somehow attaches the word “terrorism” in there.

The wiki ariticle on German detention in WW II states all the detainees were German nationals. My understanding was that some naturalized citizens were also detained on suspicion of membership in various “cultural groups”. My recollection may be in error, or the article at Wikipedia may be in error. I do not know which is the case.

Oh…I dunno…maybe it was all that radical shit he kept putting on…you know…You Tube…

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/awlaki-dead-yemen/
Whether or not Awlaki in fact had any operational role in al-Qaida, his influence over its propaganda operations is undisputed. For years, Awlaki has preached al-Qaida’s message in English on YouTube. It was a clear propaganda coup for the terrorist network: an American citizen, speaking English, constructed religious arguments for killing his fellow Americans. The administration prevailed on YouTube to take many of Awlaki’s videos down, out of the fear that YouTube trollers would heed the call, but keeping them down has been difficult. A YouTube search on Friday yields several of Awlaki’s conspiracy-soaked sermons.

Awlaki’s fingerprints are also all over Inspire, al-Qaida’s English-language online magazine, published from Yemen. Several issues have featured interviews with Awlaki or articles he penned. His message has stayed consistent: Muslims have an obligation to attack the perfidious United States. According to the terror-watching organization IntelCenter, Awlaki was working on yet another Inspire piece justifying the killing of innocents, titled “Targeting Populations of Countries at War with Muslims.”

Sooper seekrit. Can’t find it at all. Nope.

I guess that includes Glenzilla at Salon.

By the by, that most definitely is not protected speech…and certainly not in a time of war and in support of a hostile party.

Okay, then. How many prisoners (“captured on the battle field!”) during WW2 did we have to let go because they weren’t really Nazis?

We locked up quite a few a few German Americans in detention camps because of their participation in German cultural groups that were suspected of being fronts for the Nazis. Some were detained for years after WW II and then forced to return to Germany…based on little evidence other then hearsay.

How many prisoners (“captured on the battle field!”) during the Civil War did we have to let go because they weren’t really Confederates? How many people imprisoned (and tortured) (“captured on the battle field!”) have we had to let go because they weren’t really Al Qaeda?</i.

Yeah, try harder.

Ah, so now you’re using “country talk” to refute points. Brilliant. Hard to argue at that intellectual level, though. I’ll give it a shot.

There was nothing secret about it. Where the fuck have you been hiding? The guy was openly recruiting for AQ.

Right, because he said, “I am recruiting for AQ.” And when sued to present evidence that he was a threat of any kind, the government said, “It’s secret. We can’t show you how we know he’s an important person in Al Qaeda, because it’s secret.” Where have you been hiding?

http://politics.salon.com/2011/09/30/awlaki_6/singleton/

You keep comparing the war on terror, an undeclared, unending war to wars like the Civil War and WW2 because there are “legal” definitions of combatants.

Okay, then. How many prisoners (“captured on the battle field!”) during WW2 did we have to let go because they weren’t really Nazis? How many prisoners (“captured on the battle field!”) during the Civil War did we have to let go because they weren’t really Confederates? How many people imprisoned (and tortured) (“captured on the battle field!”) have we had to let go because they weren’t really Al Qaeda?

And you want me to try harder? Really?

My days of not taking you seriously are really coming to a middle.

The mayor and council cop-out is just that: a lame excuse. No matter what oversight authority they might or might not have over the MDHA once the members are appointed, they still have the ultimate veto authority over the board’s actions: the checkbook.

The MDHA cannot possibly put the taxpayers on the hook for anything unless the city agrees to write the checks. Stop writing checks (including checks for the MDHA’s employees, expenses, and office space): problem solved.

I know you guys here are talking about the “sooper sekrit evidence” that the gubmint sez we can’t see. That does not concern me. I am going what Alaki has put into the public record all on his own. He talked his way into a missile in a fairly deliberate fashion. Darwin Awards in action.

Was al-Awlaki leading troops or even fighters against U.S. forces? Yes? Says who? The government? Evidence? Can’t show us any? He must be guilty!

There was nothing secret about it. Where the fuck have you been hiding? The guy was openly recruiting for AQ. Goebbels didn’t shoot a gun on the battlefield, but being a propagandist still made him a legit target in WW II. Again, I am not concerned with the secret evidence against him on bombing plots. He made himself a target with his own mouth.

Your comparison isn’t just historically ridiculous (the endless war on terror is nothing like the Civil War in any way, shape, or form),

They are both conflicts that involve legal definitions of American combatants. You need to try a little harder than that.

but it ignores the point that the only evidence the U.S. has against al-Awlaki is so secret, it can’t show it to us.

See my above comments.

Wait what? Are you really reading this blog? Clearly since this incident is going to a law suit, you have MORE legal recourse with private security, versus the innumerable times when you DON’T have legal recourse with police (“qualified immunity”).

Re: celticdragonchick #17: Spot on. An awful lot of private security officers are police academy rejects and washouts who like dressing up like Pennsylvania State Troopers, projecting the image with none of the responsibility. These guys are dregs even in comparison to the jackbooted skinheads and low-IQ linebackers who staff many small-town police forces.

One problem with allowing these people to impersonate cops is that much of the citizenry doesn’t realize that these rent-a-cops have no police authority. If Americans knew their rights these dipshits would be entertaining curiosities, dressed up as policemen for Halloween all year long. Instead, we get privatized police state nightmares such as the terrorism fusion center at the Mall of America, with “intelligence” being provided to the FBI by idiots who wouldn’t have a chance of making detective at most real police agencies but fancy themselves Eliot Stabler.

Yes, the training for real cops is better than what rent-a-cops get. At good agencies it’s indescribably better.

One of the greatest services that good cops can perform is to express their unreserved contempt for rent-a-cops who attempt to exercise one iota of false authority. As an unsuccessful former police applicant myself, I find the delusional grandeur of the spectacle pathetic and despicable.

On the other hand, it’s in Alabama — a state that makes Arizona (my home) look reasonable.

Should the government have been required to bring documentation of illegal insurrection before a judge and then try to serve a warrant on a battlefield to General Hood or Stonewall Jackson?

Was al-Awlaki leading troops or even fighters against U.S. forces? Yes? Says who? The government? Evidence? Can’t show us any? He must be guilty!

Your comparison isn’t just historically ridiculous (the endless war on terror is nothing like the Civil War in any way, shape, or form), but it ignores the point that the only evidence the U.S. has against al-Awlaki is so secret, it can’t show it to us.

You’re accepting a system wherein the government can accuse and kill someone without evidence, so long as it claims that evidence is top secret.

That’s not how things work in a free society.