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Al-Qaida Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki Is Dead, Says Yemen
The US-born radical Muslim cleric, who has been linked to 9/11 and the Fort Hood shootings, has been killed in Yemen
An al-Qaida leader regarded as the terror group's most potent threat to western interests has been killed in Yemen, defence officials in the capital, Sana'a, say.
President Obama authorised a request to target Awlaki in April last year, making him the first US citizen to be a legal target for assassination in the post-9/11 years. (Photograph: Handout/AFP/Getty Images) Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual US-Yemeni citizen, is believed to have been killed at 9.55am on Friday morning at a site 90 miles (140 kilometres) east of Sana'a between the provinces of Marib and al-Jawf in what is believed to have been an air strike. He is thought to have been travelling in a two-car convoy, which local tribal officials say was destroyed.
The CIA and the US military have used drones to target al-Qaida officials in Yemen and had placed Awlaki near the top of a hit list. The US president, Barack Obama, authorised a request to target Awlaki in April last year, making him the first US citizen to be a legal target for assassination in the post-9/11 years
The US embassy in Sana'a declined to comment on the reports of Awlaki's death, fuelling speculation that the CIA had indeed got its man. Yemeni officials said they were not yet sure who had killed him.
However, they released details of the killing within several hours of it happening, suggesting that Sana'a was either directly involved or well-briefed by the US.
Awlaki is credited with inspiring or directing at least four plots on US soil in recent years – a shooting inside the Fort Hood military base, the failed Times Square bombing, the failed underwear bomber and a parcel bomb hidden inside a printer that also failed to explode while inside a passenger jet.
He is thought to have been the leader of the foreign operations unit inside the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula group, which has in recent years taken centre stage in the global jihad campaign inspired by Osama bin Laden.
Awlaki was born in the US state of New Mexico in 1971 to Yemeni parents who took him back to Yemen after early childhood. He returned to the US in 1991 to attend college. US authorities believe he came into contact with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers while giving sermons at a San Diego mosque.
His fingerprints are also all over failed plots to target British and European interests. The attempted murder of the MP Stephen Timms was inspired by Awlaki's sermons and a British Airways employee, Rajib Karim, was convicted in February of plotting attacks against the airline.
The death of Awlaki is the most significant blow to the al-Qaida organisation since Bin Laden was assassinated in May. He was one of the few senior operatives orientated to western ways and in recent years had become increasingly strident in his calls for Muslims to wage jihad against the US.
His firebrand rhetoric had become renowned on jihadi websites and is thought to have inspired many more followers. With a blog, a Facebook page and numerous YouTube videos of his sermons, he had increasingly been regarded by the US National Security Council as one of the most dangerous men alive.
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Show AllThe Guardian says: "...making him the first US citizen to be a legal target for assassination in the post-9/11 years"...-----
Legal? Legal would require a guilty verdict from a trial of his peers. Awlaki did not have a trial. The Guardian continues...
"Awlaki is credited with inspiring or directing"..."Credited"?
and The Guardian finishes with...
"He is thought to have been the leader"..."Thought".-----
"Credited" and "Thought" are not "Legal" reasons allowing a president to unilaterally murder a citizen. Where does the Guardian get this sh*t?----- The government locked away hundreds at Gitmo calling them the worst of the worst only later having to let most all ot them go free due to lack of evidence. Gitmo was filled with those the government "Credited" and "Thought" committed crimes. The government was wrong. Those prisoners were innocent.-----
The headline of this article should be changed to read: Barack Obama MURDERED a U.S. Citizen on his Hit List in an attempt to accrete the unconstitutional power of summary execution to the Unitary Executive.-----
Obama must now be impeached, prosecuted and imprisoned for the crime of murder in the first degree.
Want a different take on this?
U.S. assassinates its own citizen without a shred of due process, far from any battlefield, President Obama succeeds in killing Anwar al-Awlaki
by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/news/yemen/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/09/30/awlaki
Obama stated outright, albeit in a moment of MSM moderated and approved levity, that he would murder US citizens with no criminal record, just on his say-so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKG6ZmgAX4
And the Elite, and their Corporate lapdogs in the Media, laughed on cue. ( Because he probably would have had them shot if they didn't.)
Thank goodness this insane murderer is a rotting corpse.
He is still alive, an worse, he is the president of the USA.
Fascist amerika just keeps on murdering; daily, its slide into the abyss IS happening NOW !
Hooray for our side.
They finally got "The Jewel".
Interesting how the rule of law has become optional for the executive branch? I wonder what Madison and Jefferson would make of the fact of the president executing an American citizen without due process?
Who will be next? Is Obama America's Sulla? Leading us down the road to an Emperor? Who will be our Augustus Caesar? Has anyone noticed this slide down this slippery slope?
Obama is paving the way for even greater future repression and his followers will go along. This is the reason he was hired. If you support Obama, repression will get worse. If you vote for a third party with only a small fraction of electoral support, a Republican will win and repression will get worse. We've been saying this for decades but the MSM had power over our voices. So here we are, just as we predicted. We are Cassandra.
The only details the public has about the "threat" al-Awlaki posed is that he was an outspoken critic of U.S. policy and advocate for Muslim self-defense. So for all we know the Obama administration targeted him for being a loud-mouth, which would seem to be protected under the First Amendment. The Guardian's reporter is similarly at a loss to provide any evidence of al-Awlaki's "guilt" -- except his outspokenness:
"His firebrand rhetoric had become renowned on jihadi websites and is thought to have inspired many more followers. With a blog, a Facebook page and numerous YouTube videos of his sermons, he had increasingly been regarded by the US National Security Council as one of the most dangerous men alive."
A blog, a Facebook page, and YouTube videos!!! One of the most dangerous men alive!!! (This would border on facetiousness and irony, if the subject weren't so deadly serious.) And the UK's premier leftist newspaper makes no mention of the questionable legality of "targeted assassination" nor of the U.S. court struggle, engaged by the ACLU, to take al-Awlaki of the "hit list"...
In Counterpunch yesterday, an article warned of "The Dangerous Cult of the Guardian," arguing that this media outlet's reputation within the US and UK left for truth-telling should be re-examined... Since when has the Guardian become a cheerleader for imperial assassination?
Please to point out specifically where this article is "a cheerleader for imperial assassination."
Right on the money Cygnus-X1. This is a tragic breach of the US constitution. Horrible consequences will flow from this action! While this is not Caesar crossing the Rubicon; it is Sulla laying the framework for that day. We have been drifting this way since WW2; but especially since BUSH 2.
Obama is a murder with a smile on his face. Bush was a murder with a smirk on his face. Today I have shame on my face. Not for these two murderers but for America.
Hoa binh
Obama is a murder with a smile on his face. Bush was a murder with a smirk on his face. Today I have shame on my face. Not for these two murderers but for America.
Hoa binh
Obama is actually more despicable than Bush in this regard. Bush kidnapped people and sent them to Guantanamo or some foreign prisons. There, in spite of their illegal detention and torture, they still had a chance to be tried in a court of law and freed if found innocent. Obama murders the "suspects" so that they cannot be given a fair trial. Osama Bin Laden was overpowered and arrested, so he could easily have been brought to USA for trial. But Obama ordered him murdered and his body to be dumped into the sea.
Some good news for the week.
Due Process? We don't need no stinking due process!
If I vote for Mr. Obama does that mean I agree that we have a right to execute people without due process. You see, this is the problem, those who say we must vote for him because he is all we have, make us, by so doing, complicit.
Exactly. Obama and Eric Holder became war criminals as soon as they decided to "look forward", as, arguably did Pelosi when she took impeachment off the table--
See, the USA has The War Crimes Act that puts all torturers , all the way up the chain of command, on the hook for prison, or the death penalty if anyone died from torture you did, or authorized--
Or REFUSED TO PROSECUTE.
Yep. Anyone who knows of War crimes and is in a position to prosecute and does not--are also guilty of the War Crime they refused to prosecute.
Yet--
People protest that he's better on some minor issue, like DADT. They're saying, I guess, that it's important that gays serve in the military so they may conduct illegal warfare and the torture of men, women and children worldwide.
Beats starting a draft--the SUREST way to end the war--
Which state is more civilized, Prussia under the Police Commissar Goering in 1933 or our USA today under Obama? Remember that Goering in 1933 brought the alleged arsonists of the Reichstag into court where they were allowed to defend themselves. In fact, the communist Dimitrov who was not even a German citizen defended himself so well that Goering had to let him go. Several years later the plotters who had tried to kill Adolf Hitler by exploding a bomb in his military headquarters were not summarily shot but were given at least sham trials. Any future dictator of our nation does not have to make new laws to arrest people and hold them indefinitely without charge or even murder them without a court order or in "self-defense". The "laws" will already be in existence then.
It can no longer be argued...everyone who votes for Obama believes the president has the right to murder American citizens without trial based entirely on him placing their name on a secret "hit list". Nor will these people who vote for Obama protest when president sarah palin or president jeb bush exercise this new executive authority.
When all the players wear black hats, how can you tell them apart?
There still is a uniform look you can use to judge. The White Geezer suit. (Obama is a token White Geezer. Plus ca change...)
This article is filled with unproven allegations. One thing is for sure: This was a murder and Obama is guilty.
To get him they destroyed a two-car convoy, which means they not only got "their man" but they got a number of other people, too, including a couple of drivers. No judicial process. It's straight out murder, and they do it because they can.
So it is actually half a dozen murders.
yeah, one of them was reportedly the co-editor of al-Qa'eda mag Inspire, another highly dangerous web design terrorist.
Even better news, yes other terrorist were crossed off as well and no friendlies were put at risk.
Whe I hear this litany of "terrorism" I would like to laugh out loud, if I wasn't so disgusted. Since when has Ft Hood become a "terrorist attack"??? It is as much a "terrorist attack" as the Virginia Tech or Columbine shootings. A base psychologist went "postal" over the murderous wars and anti-muslim oppression going on there. Times Square? A laughably incompetent "bombing" scheme made from stuff from a state-line fireworks store and some gas-grill tanks. It could have never killed anyone. Same with the underwear bomber - the guy didnt even know that high explosives are as harmless as play-doh without a blasting cap - it also has the suspicious marks of being staged or allowed to happen by the FBI or other agency.
My mind is fully open. As a trained civil and materials engineer in an organizationally complex workplace, I am fully aware of what is physically possible and what is physically impossible. The encouragement, by undercover FBI agents, to encourage unhinged individuals to attempt actions (usually incompetent actions known to not work), then scream "terrorism!" is well-established, and technically easily doable. But a staged WTC and Pentagon destruction with tons of explosives somehow planted without notice with remote controls somehow secretly installed on airliners without notice and the elaborate invention of life histories of 19 individuals - a scheme that would require the work of hundreds to thousands - including many outside expert consultants - all sworn to secrecy forever... Sorry it is just not credible, and this should be obvious to anyone who has worked in any kind of of technical or organizationally complex setting.
Your argument from personal incredulity AND personal authority is laughable.
Brian Brademeyer, BS, MS, M.I.T. 1973,1975
What was your major Brian....M.I.T is a great school.... ( one of my partners [ P.Eng.] studied at M.I.T in the late 70's.....
Thomas Gilbert-
Civil Engineering.
So, let us see all of the security camera footage from government and private business cameras whose frames include the side of the Pentagon hit by the "airliner". What does the government have to fear? Show me the airliner, and I'll forever shut up about 911.
Ft. Hood was not a "terrorist" act. It was an accident waiting to happen and allowed to happen by a military and "homeland" security which should have known you can only push people so far. "Postal" is exactly what it was. And as far as I know "postal workers" going beserk have never been classified as acts of "terrorism". Aren't they the epitomy of "lone looney"?
Obama and Clinton are both pragmatists who will do whatever they need to do to achieve their aims. This is the slippery slope of putting "interests" ahead of principles. Like the German people prior to WWII -- "I don't want to be free if it means free to starve." With all the talk about the sacred Constitution, people are still a superstitious, cowardly lot, who will endorse most anything when afraid.
I'd prefer to starve thank you. Rather than feed the rapacious apetitites of the rich and powerful. I'd rather scrounge for myself than rely on their "trickle down".
"I'd prefer to starve."
To Barack Hussein Obama:
I'd rather have my blood sucked out by leeches, shove an icepick under a toenail or two.
I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station ..... with my tongue
Than spend another vote on you.
Yes, I'd rather jump naked on a huge pile of thumbtacks ...
Or stick my nostrils together with crazy glue.
I'd rather dive into a swimming pool filled with double-edged razor blades
Than spend another another vote on you
I'd rather rip my heart right out of my ribcage ... with my bare hands
and then throw it on the floor and stomp on it ..... 'till I die...
Gasp!!
Than spend ... another vote ... on you.
(Thank you Weird Al Yankovic. Sorry for the slight alterations.)
The Assassin-in-Chief made good on his threat to murder an Amerikan citizen without what we used to call due process of law. The tatters of what remains of the Constitution have long been blown away by the bitter winter wind. Amerika has entered its final stage of totalitarian rule. Yet to be unveiled is the outright martial law that accompanies the most ruthless fascist and authoritarian governments on the planet.
Perhaps the glimmer of resistance, that is shining in New York City as protesters occupy the park in the world's financial capital, is foreshadowing the revolution that must occur if workers are to be allowed any semblance of a good education, decent housing, a living wage, cradle-to-grave health care and a pension that allows dignity and comfort in our old age.
Hey! What did I tell you? It's the same-old, same-old.
What garbage, this crud from The Guardian. The phrase "he is thought" appears 7 times in this piece of MI6/CIA/NSA propaganda. Every one of the terror events he is credited with are well-known to be Amerikan-run covert ops--inside jobs if you will. And "the most dangerous man in the world?"---I think not. Where did the Guardian dig this schit up anyway?
HOO-RAH!
The US has finally vindicated every single one of it's critics, who for years have stated with compelling evidence that the US is the single most corrupt and criminal nation in the world.
With the Harper Government in Canada acting as a cheerleader for US policy, we are just as corrupt and criminal because of this complicit support.
I honestly hope that the protesters and demonstrators of the Occupy Wall St. movement will safe, with their health and welfare intact. Because with this murderous precedent set, who is to say that 'targeted killings' will not come to your home soil?
>>Because with this murderous precedent set, who is to say that 'targeted killings' will not come to your home soil? <<
Who is to say that targeted killings have not already come to Amereicha's home soil? Remember the Pinkerton's? There is a long, proud history of targeted killings in this country.
The Pinkerton's?
Hell, let's get a little more recent.
JFK, for instance.
Or the Philly Police dropping an incendiary satchel charge on MOVE from a helicopter in 1985, which led to the deaths of 11 people, including FIVE CHILDREN. But hey, they were a bunch of 'uppity colored folk' who probably voted Democrat, so they don't count as people, do they?
Well you start with the outright assassination of one American citizen and then bit by bit, in small increments, you increase how many US citizens the US government deliberately assassinates. You start with torturing some, then you switch and do it with some new people, and then you keep doing it in greater and greater increments. And thus a police state tyranny is built. Cheney and then Obama... What State 'leader' will be next to get away with breaking the law while 'enforcing' the law?
"What State 'leader' will be next to get away with breaking the law while 'enforcing' the law? "
Answer: All of them and their hired contractors. Precedent is now set. It'll take a lot to reverse it now. And we have a Nobel Laureate to thank for it. The pigs now walk on two legs.
Show me the body. Oh, sorry, it was vaporized. I think we should at least consider the possibility that the early Yemeni reports might not be true. This asinine assassination article is bulging with false premise offered up as support for a killing: 911 (inside job), underwear bomber (a pasty put on an international flight without a passport or luggage) blah, blah. If, in fact, al-Awlaki has been murdered by order of our tyrant-in-chief, then Cygnus and Arkay have it covered very nicely in comments prior to this.
Let's see what we can "credit" to this deeply presumptuous and flippant piece of writing:
"western interests"
Well, yes, the United States, as certified by the British newspaper The Guardian, represents, defends, guards, and speaks for all western interests, i.e., for all western countries. In this respect, note the phrase 'British and European interests' in the ninth paragraph.
"a legal target for assassination"
How about that? Citizens of the United States may now be murdered by U.S. intelligence agencies, on the mere ground that said agency (as directed by the president) deems a citizen fit for execution, that is to say, without an investigation and a trial carried out by the judiciary, a power that is independent of the executive power (at least, according to the Constitution).
I note here that once the distinction between the three powers is eroded and fades into mere theater, one is faced with a dictatorship (that is what took place, for example, after Hitler was voted into office).
"His fingerprints are also all over failed plots to target British and European interests. The attempted murder of the MP Stephen Timms was inspired by Awlaki's sermons and a British Airways employee, Rajib Karim, was convicted in February of plotting attacks against the airline."
Wow, what a way with evidence: a British Airways employee convicted of plotting attacks against the airline now counts as a fingerprint of al-Awlaki.
What we see exhibited in this article is none other than the long arm of imperialist ideology and its complete disregard for the rule of law in a constitutional democracy, and for the most elementary application of norms of what counts as evidence in a criminal setting.
All that proof and we couldn't apprehend and try him? Why is that? We had to assassinate him covertly. I am just surprised our president isn't out on the White House steps selling flags and spurring celebrations. I am guessing his body was buried at sea. Navy Seals anyone? Not this time? I am guessing it was an independent contractor. Highly paid and professional of course and above all liability as outlined in Executive Orders.