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ACLU to Obama: ‘Entire World is Not a War Zone’
The American Civil Liberties Union has sent a strongly-worded letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to end an alleged program that allows 'targeted killings' of terror suspects outside of war zones.
The American Civil Liberties Union has sent a strongly-worded letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to end an alleged program that allows 'targeted killings' of terror suspects outside of war zones. (Rob Jensen/USAF via Getty Images) In the letter
(PDF), the civil liberties group argues that the alleged program --
which, according to news reports, is now targeting at least one US
citizen -- is unlawful and unconstitutional, and could set a dangerous
precedent leading to foreign governments killing people on US soil.
"The program that you have reportedly authorized appears to envision the use of lethal force not just on the battlefield in Iraq, Afghanistan, or even the Pakistani border regions, but anywhere in the world, including against individuals who may not constitute lawful targets," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero stated in the letter.
"The entire world is not a war zone, and wartime tactics that may be permitted on the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be deployed anywhere in the world where a terrorism suspect happens to be located."
Romero's letter came the same day as a House foreign affairs subcommittee convened to probe the legal issues surrounding the use of targeted killings. It also comes in the wake of a series of news reports suggesting the US's use of targeted killings has expanded significantly in recent months.
In February, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair announced that the United States may target its own citizens abroad for death if it believes they are associated with terrorist groups.
"We take direct action against terrorists in the intelligence community," Blair told the House Intelligence Committee. He said US counter-terrorism officials may try to kill American citizens embroiled in extremist groups overseas with "specific permission" from higher up.
If "we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Blair said.
Earlier this month, news reports indicated that Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was added to the CIA's list of alleged terrorists the US has targeted to kill.
Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico and served for years as an imam in the United States. He has not been charged with a crime, but was linked by US officials to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the psychiatrist alleged to have killed 13 at an Army base in Fort Hood, as well as Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called "Christmas day" bomber who attempted to detonate a jetliner en route to Detroit.
"Such a program of long-premeditated and bureaucratized killing is plainly not limited to targeting genuinely imminent threats," Romero wrote in his letter. "Any such program is far more sweeping than the law allows and raises grave constitutional and human rights concerns."
Romero argued that the alleged program could set a dangerous precedent for other nations, which could result in foreign governments killing US citizens on home soil.
The program you have reportedly endorsed is not simply illegal but also unwise, because how our country responds to the threat of terrorism will in large measure determine the rules that govern every nation's conduct in similar contexts. If the United States claims the authority to use lethal force against suspected enemies of the U.S. anywhere in the world - using unmanned drones or other means - then other countries will regard that conduct as justified. The prospect of foreign governments hunting and killing their enemies within our borders or those of our allies is abhorrent.
The ACLU is not alone in attacking the program as unlawful. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said in February that the program raises serious questions.
"This is something that President Bush developed," Turley explained. "We actually saw the Bush administration kill an American citizen named Kamal Derwish in 2002 with a Predator strike. ... The Obama administration, once again, seems to be morphing into the Bush administration."
59 Comments so far
Show AllWe must respect international law. If we can kill others at will others can do the same to us. Others not convicted of a crime killed by our drones invites the law of the jungle.
Are the Obama Regime's actions any different than the CIA's covert overthrows of democratically elected governments around the world starting in Iran in 1953 ?
Yes. Persia's oil was targeted ie occupation by surrogate w/ the savak, trained by the US, quelling dissent w/ torture & murder for 25 yrs. Similar to Cuba, Nicaragua, Nam-oops, whipped like dogs by guys in pj's, but we made up for it by blowing Archbishop Romero away during mass......raw materials our target, commies our cause de celebre.
Now, since our industrial base is wasted, gutted, near dead, we need a bit less of some things, But
GE, Lockheed, Drones r us, et al must kill to manifest their raison de etre, reason for being to push profits as they race to the cliff's edge. Since the reds quit the bs game we dropped the towers and can now slaughter terrorist arabs for the next 50 yrs, except this;in 2053 the US will have a bloody revolution. The working class replacing the tired bourgeois and obviating the need for political power-it was only an expression of repression & class division, a structure crumbled soon-as certain as the rising Son.
Afrique, beautiful woman, will see India, Us, Russia and the PRC get it on w/all they have; the final, the finale. But her children can fight. In pj's, barefoot & on the right side. A place we deserted when we discovered America and began killing nations, whole cultures.
Blessings raydelcamino.
Current empires, official or de facto, can't be, and never have been, bound by the ground rules of legit modern democratic republics.
The ACLU should openly address the efficient cause of US lawlessness in this case: the hijacking of the US government by unelected and fraudently-elected insiders who've in turn created an illicit and illegal US Empire.
It's useless for the ACLU to target for legal edification a make-believe (and, to boot, proximate) cause of the problem: i.e., bad behavior by an assumed (genuine) US republic, when we all know there is no such republic nor set of accountable, corresponding laws.
Get real, Mr. Romero & Co.
I can't say that I agree with you jj. The ACLU achieves a blow against the empire just by calling into question this targeted murder policy.
Empires may not be "bound by the ground rules of legit modern democratic republics," but they loathe to appear lawless.
I think this is a very "real" action by the ACLU.
Not to be too snide, but have you or any organization or person that you know taken any action that is "more real" or has a "more real" effect?
It's murder.
ACLU's still sane. - That's a relief.
Don't trust the ACLU any farther than you can throw it. Anthony Romero in particular was rolling over and playing dead for Dubya Bush right after 9/11 -- on the issue of privacy rights!
He regained his sanity a year or so later, but should've been fired on the spot.
Don't trust the ACLU any farther than you can throw it. Anthony Romero in particular was rolling over and playing dead for Dubya Bush right after 9/11 -- on the issue of privacy rights!
He regained his sanity a year or so later, but should've been fired on the spot.
Well, in the context of the insanities flying by every day now in the "wars", just a few lucid moments of sanity is a welcome respite.
Anything for reminders that injustice isn't really the "normal" state - of the state.
Yes We Can! Try and stop the USI--we will kill you from your sky, and when they finally ask us why? because we could is our reply.
Let me see, as "Supreme Leader of the World" in the "New World Order" proclaimed by The Council on Foreign Relations and The Tri-Lateral Commission led by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Barack Obama is obliged to follow "The Rules of Law" decreed by "The New World Order" and its "Ruling Elie".
When Obama declared, "I will not look at the past." He was telling the American People, "I don't care if the Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal and immoral, they have a purpose to bring to fruition "The New World Order" that I and Zbigniew had envisioned and I spoke of in my Berlin Campaign Speech."
Murder is ok in Obama's book because he says so. Al-Awlaki has committed no crime....he had e-mail communications with a U.S. Mass Murderer. But, the DOD knew that the Mass Murderer was not well and should have been discharged and they had plenty of proof...(Was DOD hoping that their major would eventually commit murder and then DOD could claim he was a terrorist?)... Now, there was the Nigerian, Abdulmutallab! He got on a plane without a passport , but was vouched for by someone who was travelling with him, not al-Awlaki. (Two lawyers who witnessed the vouching were immeditely marginalized by the mass media and neither the ticket agent or the director that put him on the plane have been part of an independent investigation. ("The Official Versions" that come out of Washington are nothing more than "Official Spin" to justify their policies.(And, that Nigerian was the reason to buy all the Scan Machines for all the airports and have us stand naked in front of a $10 an hr TSA guard.)
We now know that DOD was bribing Afghans and Iraqis to turn in anyone, it did not matter that they knew nothing about Al Qaeda. (Thanks to testimony of Colonel Wilkerson)
When Obama sends in the drones, where is the evidence that those people are truly the enemy? But, don't forget the enemy changed to: Insurgents, Militants, and Taliban and none of those people has ever been a threat to the United States and never attacked the United States.
Maybe the imploding amerikan economy will cause the fascist military to run out of blood money for its terrorist acts against humanity. No chance for war criminals like obomber and his toady obamabot advisers to get any compassion. As for spineless congress...nada; perhaps the deluded masses are starting to wake up to the suffering their nation is doing to the world! Meanwhile there must be non-violent resistance to the fascist government at all levels, in all ways !
tioche, Mexico
Got plenty of insurgents right here in the US, 15 million at last estimate. They usually hang out behind Home Depot, and can be brought out by protest marches.
Bring the troops Home!
>^^<
The door was open to targeting American citizens years ago by our so called ally Israel: just search Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Jewish Defense League or JDL is a Jewish organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary".[1] While the group asserts that it "unequivocally condemns terrorism", and claims to have a "strict no-tolerance policy against terrorism and other felonious acts,"[2] it was characterized as "a right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation[3] in 2001, and as a hate group involved in "anti-Arab terrorism" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[4] According to the FBI, the JDL has been involved in plotting terrorist attacks within the United States.[3], but it is no longer listed as a terrorist organization.
With membership numbering over 15,000.[6] The group took to bombing Arab and Soviet properties in the United States,[7] and targeting various alleged "enemies of the Jewish people", ranging from Arab-American political activists to neo-Nazis, for assassination.[8] A number of JDL members have been linked to violent, and sometimes deadly, attacks in the United States, including the killing of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee regional director Alex Odeh in 1985, and a plot to kill U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa in 2001.[9]
The 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre, in which dozens of Palestinians at prayer were massacred by a gunman in the West Bank city of Hebron, was perpetrated by a one-time JDL member who had emigrated from the United States, Baruch Goldstein.[10] The JDL maintains, on its website, "we are not ashamed to say that Goldstein was a charter member of the Jewish Defense League."[11]
We have now joined their group which is supportive of israeli likud party
Let's not forget the recent assassination of the Hamas military leader in Dubai by Mossad:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=9871963
Notice how this story has just "disappeared!"?
I haven't seen any Mossad agents being thrown into cuffs and perp walked, have you?
What's happened to this investigation? Video cameras all over Dubai (literally) don't lie.
Actually, the brouhaha was all about the passports and almost nothing was said, even by Britain, about the assassination.
yeah, those little burgandy coloured bits of paper were more important than the heinous crime of assassination.................
What one has seen no one in the mainstream media report on is that these claims of "semi-legality" by executive action in regard to assassination of anyone anywhere overseas by the US--those claims along with the actual assassinations--are making it harder and harder for American citizens to travel anywhere abroad with safety.
That actually may be part of the intention, as the Chertoff's ERUV against Mexico is not designed to keep Mexicans out but to keep Americans in.
Brilliant Eugene Costa thank you
It's about BOTH, its about DISCONNECTING all. its CLEANSING, the empire is preparing for hostility. towards cannibalizing south/Latin America, its that haunting expression, (WE MUST FINISH THE JOB)cheney/bush/ramsfild. Everything is either a market to CONSUME or a fertile Peace OF EARTH to penetrate RAPE with steal and military bases.
MOST of what the empire does is about disconnection economically, politically, environmentally, spiritually, physically & metaphysically, it defies the very laws of physics & the cosmos its a worm hole.
Being counter productive and a threat to the life force, one can sea its disconnection in order to connect its very people to the people outside its borders and all to all.
Similarly to capitalism similarly to Israel the first hostages are their very people.
Take Care.
In Soulidarity
Eugene, i have been thinking/feeling this for a long time. The idea of keeping us in.
"He has not been charged with a crime, but was linked by US officials to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the psychiatrist alleged to have killed 13 at an Army base in Fort Hood, as well as Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called "Christmas day" bomber who attempted to detonate a jetliner en route to Detroit."
So all it takes is someone in authority to "link" another to "terrorists". Please define the nature of these "links". He has not been accused of terrorism. He is only "linked" to supposed "terrorists". Well, by that standard, just about anyone could be "linked" to anything. The author of this article is, obviously, for example, "linked" to the ACLU. All of us reading this article can be said to be "linked" to the author.
good point..............
Good start from the ACLU. But to go further...
War Zone - what a horrible phrase. What an invented hell. It means a place where mass murder is legal because we say so. Not only "the whole world is not a war zone", but there are no legitimate war zones anywhere, in my opinion. We have not been attacked by the countries of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen. We have no moral right, and probably no legal right, to slaughter people in those areas.
Joe
I f'ing hate America. I have been trying hard now for years to find a way not to be "anti-American", but I think I'm at the end of my rope. I f'ing hate the United States of America and I hate Americans. There, I said it. F' you America. Greedy f'ing a'holes. Selfish brats. Racist motherf'ers. You are destroying our planet. You cheat at everything from the Olympics to business and war. I have never met an American who didn't have at least a bit of Gringo in her/her. Even the most hippie-type, relaxed American still acts like they're better than the rest. Your country is f'ed and your "culture" is f'ed too. I hope and pray that this is the end of the Evil Empire and that it soon becomes a 3rd world country and that there is massive starvation within your borders and that you are brought to your knees. That is the only way you'll turn off your tv's and your internet and that is the only way you'll stop taking prozac and other pills to buy your way to happiness. I think you all have to get to that point before you actually do something about the total destruction of the planet at the hands of ignorant white jerk-offs. F-you! And then when you pick up the pieces you can start to maybe repay the entire world for all the resources and slaves you have stolen throughout your history. If any of you think that you are successful from sheer intellect and hard work, think again. You have the cheep capital because the treasury is full of other countries' money. F-you again!
He-he, good rant. I wouldn't be as blunt on the culture I'm immersed in myself, but I'm glad someone said it. Can't really fault it - too true.
(Hope you're not banned, dude - I think you went right up to the line. The comment deserves to be seen. Factual enough and representative enough of sentiments widely held. Pithy points.)
i understand your anger/frustration but really, you are targeting the wrong audience here............
most of the american people on this site appreciate what is being done to the world in their name, but are powerless to stop it...............
Hense the Cymbalta, et;al the days go easier if you are legally too stoned to notice.
>^^<
Uh, our president is black. Many others in the administration and military are latino and oriental.
Color is irrelevant at this point so don't just point-out us crackers.
Other than that, I'm pretty much with you, bro.
Rasism doesn't look so good when you look at it in a mirror :(
Are you trying to say that the US isn't racist? Ha! I have milk running out of my nose (coffee and milk).
**applause** good rant.
You know what I find pathetic is all the 'Yes We Can©' Obama-nauts™ defend Obomber's actions even when he engages in behavior like the ShrubCo™ Administration, but when the shoe is on the other foot the Lexus Liberal™ crowd is OK with Obomber's murder program.
Lexus Liberals™ are just as willing to be led around by the nose as the Rush Limbaugh™ Lemmings.
Flugzeug,
Well stated.
Chelsea
"Targeted Killing" is what the civilized world calls Premeditated Murder.
I'm glad I voted for Cynthia. Wish everybody did.
I wish I had not voted for this sick fuck warmonger.
Indeed, Cynthia would have been a far better choice and at least my hands would be clean.......
Every "DOG" has it's day,
Wake-up America Your day has arrived,
I truely have lost any kind of hope for you fools,
and yes you are all Idiots to ALLOW & Endorse Murder`,One day your Gunships will fly over your cities with Texas Cowboys at the guns and we`ve seen how that`s gonna end,`
(Nice Shòoting - Thanx) You think not`
I give you one year more with you and the Jews and it`s WW3
Thanx for your BIG part in wrecking the planet for my Grandson, Now kindly why don`t you all F`>% -off
Your Black Prez`is nothing but a joke hear me JOKE....
Your f*%^ing Country has been a joke since Billery was in office,No let`s correct that with that Baffoon Rocket Ronnie Raygun,So in finality I suggest you keep eating each other and Enjoy the last meal.......
Justified rage but not productive. Still you got it off your chest and helped me get it off mine.
Nevertheless, if the USA kills one of mine every USA citizen on the planet better be careful of me. They already have to be, but of this I am presently completely in control and all I do is make a fool of them. Rage, however, is by definition beyond my control.
Sorry about those who think this is bad manners. In reality this is language, or the word.
Which all goes to show that ultimately, in its inability to grasp this, the USA is a very simple minded country. The best thing to do is get rid of it. Break it up. Let the simpletons gather in specific areas. That will make a good target.
Better still ask Israel nicely to go live next to them: problems of Palestine solved and an even better target. On top of this the Pentagon can have a name change and be called the Penitentiary, it has nice, suitable religious undertones and, well, for fun you know, and placed right between the terrible twins: an even better target.
Finally just imagine the terror in the mind of those who feel driven to make an enemy of mankind.
Well, they are mad actually.
Which is of course the simple truth: the USA and Israel, have gone off its (no mistake) head
The posters on this thread made my day !!!!!
We should all get down on our knees and PRAY. Prayer is very powerful. If enough people PRAY WITH LOVE, this country could be saved, though not saved from having to pay some of the powerful karma we've invoked.
No thank you, god is a named accomplice by every President in everyone of their illegal and immoral endeavors. It usually goes something like "And with god on our side in our great crusade against the evil doers" sound familiar? It makes it so much easier for his followers to rationalize evil deeds. Now good night and god bless america. If he does it only confirms my accusations.
The poster did not specify praying to God. That was your interpretation.
"Are the Obama Regime's actions any different than the CIA's covert overthrows of democratically elected governments around the world starting in Iran in 1953" ?
SEEMS to me raydelcam they are a continuation of the above illegal actions.
Also, in a New World order/ One world govt any (former) state could order killings on US soil; ACLU can't see that.
The ACLU is very selective in what it sees. I suspect that has something to do with the amount of $$support they get from various groups and individuals. That's why I dropped my membership.
Do you think the Obomber got the memo?
"The Obama administration, once again, seems to be morphing into the Bush administration."
Morphing? Hardy, har har! That's a laugh!
Obombem's administration is nothing but a carbon copy of the Bush admin, particularly when it comes to killing people. How's that latest "surge" of "hope" and "change" going in Kandahar?
Soon now, Rembember Bushie used to ask God!, and according to him he got answers! :(
"If "we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Blair said."
-- Permission?? From whom???
If this were the Bush Administration saying this, the whole Democratic Party, and all the "progressives" would be up in arms. But when the Obama Administration says it, no one dares make a peep.
Sorry Danny boy, why do you think it's called the Bush/Obama World Terror Tour! Tour T-Shirts are available sizes S-XL $40 each, 2XL-4XL $50 each. All proceeds go to the reelect Obama fund and the General Warfare Fund.
Oh like the US government cares about rules. Go ACLU, send a "strongly worded" letter at them. Whats next four language?