Obama targets US citizen for 'kill or capture'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7089899.ece

The Obama Administration has authorised the targeted killing of an American citizen in what is believed to be an unprecedented move in the War against Terror.

According to US media reports, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been linked to last November's attack on Fort Hood, Texas, and the failed Christmas day airline bomb plot, has been approved for capture or killing.

Mr Awlaki, who is in hiding in Yemen, is understood to have moved from encouraging attacks on the United States to participating in them directly, The New York Times reports.

He has been directly linked to Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, and to Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, the Nigerian who tried to blow up a Detroit bound plane with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas Day.

American counter-terrorism officials told the newspaper that Mr Awlaki was an operative of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. He is also believed to actively recruit new members for the terror network.

Experts said that targeting him was was extremely rare, if not unprecedented. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush told The New York Times he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.

more...

...Does anyone know of any terrorist actually targeted under Shrub? Because from where I'm sitting he was just aiming at oil derricks.

But whether they were actually targeted:shrug:

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NY that he ordered killed in a drone strike? He mentioned it in one of his SOU speeches as something like "lets just say they won't be bothering us anymore.

I think the guy's name was Derwish or something???

might prove that former senior legal official to be wrong-

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a110302assassination

I remembered discussing this here on DU when it happened-

I always figured he wasn't the target, Al-Harithi was, and Bush et al just sort of took credit after the fact.

about it here on DU when it happened, and Bush's reference to the killing in his SOU(?) speech saying something like "let's just say they won't be bothering us anymore".

There was a lot of talk about the constitutionality of targeted assassination at the time, and the claim was that they were ...'enemy combatants'?

I'm surprised that the article in the OP says that a Bush expert said that what is being done by this administration is virtually unprecedented. :shrug:

some things stick out in my memory- this was one of them.

without a trial or conviction? Is it constitutional to do this to an American citizen?

nt

For example, If you murdered your neighbor while visiting Egypt with him...
Are you tried in the US or Egypt? Whic laws did you break, US or Egypt?

Talk about having a huge bulls eye painted on your back! Drones, satellite surveillance, helicopters, drive by shootings, the CIA, the perfect opportunity for your enemies to get rid of you, and the fact that 'collateral damage' is all in a day's work would make me paranoid. Or is it paranoia when they really are after you?

He is an enemy of the nation.

This is absolutely no different from American citizens who returned to Germany to join the Wermacht during World War II.

What about you? What happens when it is your dumbass that is accused of being a terrorist by the US Government? Will you simply shoot yourself in the head or wait for the cruise missile to take out your entire family while you sit down for a birthday party? It seems you merely need an accusation to begin killing people by the truckload in an attempt to kill a fellow American citizen.

I guess it will not be until a pilotless drone kills an American without trial on American soil for some to start to understand that allowing OUR government to assassinate and murder our fellow citizens based solely on the word of some intelligence agency or solely on the word of the President might be a bad thing. We have a Constitution for exactly this reason.

Article III, Section 3. This isn't just an accusation, the guy's on video justifying killing Americans and calling for more.

Until there is a trial in front of a judge, there are only accusations. Even if this guy goes on TV and admits that he killed OTHER Americans, he would still get a trial. This is an important point!

The problem really is that Awlaki lacks Constitutional status.

Bush refered to it in his SOU speech- we talked about it here on DU.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a110302assassination
? I'd be interested in knowing who the former senior legal offical in the Bush administration is.

from Glenn Greenwald.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations/index.html

Glenn Greenwald defending GWB? I never thought I would see that!

And it is wrong.

I can't quite put my finger on it.

Sid