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Secret Panel Can Put Americans on "Kill List'
American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric linked to al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, gives a religious lecture in an unknown location in this still image taken from video released by Intelwire.com on September 30, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Intelwire.com)
There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.
The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.
The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.
Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.
The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki's killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.
In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use of executive power in his "war on terrorism," is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.
Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder.
Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process.
Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.
The process involves "going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law," Ruppersberger said.
LAWYERS CONSULTED
Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described.
They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC "principals," meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.
The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
They confirmed that lawyers, including those in the Justice Department, were consulted before Awlaki's name was added to the target list.
Two principal legal theories were advanced, an official said: first, that the actions were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001; and they are permitted under international law if a country is defending itself.
Several officials said that when Awlaki became the first American put on the target list, Obama was not required personally to approve the targeting of a person. But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals' decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.
A former official said one of the reasons for making senior officials principally responsible for nominating Americans for the target list was to "protect" the president.
Officials confirmed that a second American, Samir Khan, was killed in the drone attack that killed Awlaki. Khan had served as editor of Inspire, a glossy English-language magazine used by AQAP as a propaganda and recruitment vehicle.
But rather than being specifically targeted by drone operators, Khan was in the wrong place at the wrong time, officials said. Ruppersberger appeared to confirm that, saying Khan's death was "collateral," meaning he was not an intentional target of the drone strike.
When the name of a foreign, rather than American, militant is added to targeting lists, the decision is made within the intelligence community and normally does not require approval by high-level NSC officials.
'FROM INSPIRATIONAL TO OPERATIONAL'
Officials said Awlaki, whose fierce sermons were widely circulated on English-language militant websites, was targeted because Washington accumulated information his role in AQAP had gone "from inspirational to operational." That meant that instead of just propagandizing in favor of al Qaeda objectives, Awlaki allegedly began to participate directly in plots against American targets.
"Let me underscore, Awlaki is no mere messenger but someone integrally involved in lethal terrorist activities," Daniel Benjamin, top counterterrorism official at the State Department, warned last spring.
The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.
But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki's hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.
For instance, one plot in which authorities have said Awlaki was involved Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underpants.
There is no doubt Abdulmutallab was an admirer or follower of Awlaki, since he admitted that to U.S. investigators. When he appeared in a Detroit courtroom earlier this week for the start of his trial on bomb-plot charges, he proclaimed, "Anwar is alive."
But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the U.S. target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.
Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employee's computer showed what an investigator described as " operational contact" between Britain and Yemen.
Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother. But there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother's side when the messages were dispatched. British media reported that in one message, the person on the Yemeni end supposedly said, "Our highest priority is the US ... With the people you have, is it possible to get a package or a person with a package on board a flight heading to the US?"
U.S. officials contrast intelligence suggesting Awlaki's involvement in specific plots with the activities of Adam Gadahn, an American citizen who became a principal English-language propagandist for the core al Qaeda network formerly led by Osama bin Laden.
While Gadahn appeared in angry videos calling for attacks on the United States, officials said he had not been specifically targeted for capture or killing by U.S. forces because he was regarded as a loudmouth not directly involved in plotting attacks.
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94 Comments so far
Show AllReading this is like viewing the works of Hieronymus Bosch.
I prefer Bosch. At least he has his moments of mordant whimsy.
During his 2008 campaign, Obama represented himself as a constitutional law expert, making the actions described in this aricle more egregious than Dubya's actions. Dubya only represented himself as being the decider, never claiming any expertise in manything.
I think this piece is unfair and one-sided. Stalin had secret hit lists, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Pinochet and maybe Idi Amin had such lists, and the regime in Myanmar today may even have such lists. It is unfair to single out the USA.
The fact that others commit atrocities in no way justifies the actions of the United States.
Yes Kivals was and made an excellent point.
Indeed he did.
Groan! Please get a clue!
But to turn things seriously, the only flay in kival's biting sarcasm is that all the worst thugs around the world since the end of WW2 - from Diem to Suharto to the Shah to Saddam to the Argentine Junta to Pinochet to Marcos, were not only the best friends of Uncle Sam, they stayed in power only becsue of Tio Sam's help. The sun never sets on US-puppet thuggery.
I think we all got that.
And it was the CIA that provided the thugs with the lists.
Thank you for pointing out the company we keep.
Mr. Obama should run his campaign based on his association with such notables.
I bet he does in the backrooms with the plutocrats, where he does his real campaigning.
Good list, kivals, but you have left out the brains behind the destruction of human rights law--Israel, which is proud to have "invented the targeted assassination thesis." Check this out-- "Israel is Changing the Rules of War."
http://original.antiwar.com/bisharat/2009/04/02/israel-is-changing-the-rules-of-war/
From the article:
"Israel’s campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel’s 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General’s office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries … International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."
http://original.antiwar.com/bisharat/2009/04/02/israel-is-changing-the-rules-of-war/
Extra-judicial killings can go both ways. If assassination is OK for the United States, then it is OK for everybody. No doubt various terrorist organizations are preparing their own "hit lists." The point is that lawlessness spreads like a virus, infecting whole societies.
You only kill someone who is about to destroy the lives of others, but you don't kill those making plans to raise havoc or buying weapons or ordering others to do the dirty work. You arrest those people and try them openly, thereby discrediting the movement they represent. That is what rule by law is all about. Too bad constitutional lawyer Obama forgot that simple fact.
"The point is that lawlessness spreads like a virus, infecting whole societies."
There are 3 states of being that come to mind:- Lawful state. Might is right. Lawlessness or anarchy.
We really are in the second state. The USA and its "allies" can do such dirty deeds without consequences. You dont really imagine that Iran could get away with doing this, of course. That would give the USA the long awaited pretext for invasion desired by the likes of our Zionist troll Fuster.
For as long as the USA continues to have more weapons the rest of the world combined, this state will continue. When China and India out-gun the USA (in a decade or two) there will be a transition. To what state is unclear.
P.S. I get that my post maybe misses your point. I think your point might be that unlike wealth, lawlessness trickles down.
Give me a freakin break. Mr. Underwear was obviously a false flag. He was attempting to ignite explosives that required percusion, after boarding a plane in Holland without a passport, passing through an isreali corporate controled Amsterdam airport security checkpoint.----------- And if the article is referring to the dummy Fedex cargo bombs give me another freakin break, what terrorist sends dummy bombs? Either the target blows or it doesn't.-------- All the "evidence" is "we think there was communication with Alwaki"----------Oilybomber is the first head of state to openly claim extrajudicial execution since Monarchs.---------- Extra judicial murder of non USA citizens is also illegal.
Thankyou!
"In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use of executive power in his "war on terrorism," is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments."
Who writes this stuff?
Oh, right, Hosenball did.
Never heard of you, and what an inauspicious way to introduce your writing, by assuming your readers are stupid/misinformed--
It isn't "ironic" that Obama has escalated illegal wars and started others and that he has assassinated a citizen without even charging him--and that torture, rendition, and refusal to prosecute same are all war crimes on par OR EXCEEDING those of Cheney et al--
It's a human tragedy, and it makes me want to put on a leaded glove and slap you a dozen times before I start asking if you get it yet.
But then, I'd be just like you, a torturer, and an apologist for torturers.
Wouldn't THAT be ironic.
SORRY FORMATTING DOESN'T WORK
Come on CD. FIX THE DAMN FORMATTING.
SORRY FORMATTING DOESN'T WORK
Just put this at the end of the paragraph (but with no spaces) < /br >< /br > If you copy that, you can just paste it whenever you want a new paragraph.
That is what I do and, as you can see, it works!
One has to wonder in light of this current revelation that a secret panel has authorized the killing of Americans, without being considered too whacky, if there is a shadow government in place that is controlling the decisions of the government and that is strongly influencing if not actually pulling the strings of Barack Obama.
Shadow government or whatever it is, it's never exposed by the American Press. Oops, I forget, they're too busy spotlighting war 'heros' and cashing their own blood money funded checks while backing this criminal One Party System. Yeah, that goes for Brian Just-One-of-The-Guys Williams, Scott Peckerhead and What's-Her-Name.
Then if Oblahblah had a shred of decency in him, wouldn't it be his job to expose and thwart that shadow government?
like JFK?
If that's what it takes in order to behave with a shred of decency.
Regarding kivals, Oct 6 2011 - 9:56am:
Is this person for real? Kivals's post does not seem to be ironical in intent.
The Romans and the Greeks practiced slavery, so did the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians. On kivals's argument, it would thus be unfair to indict and condemn the practice of slavery on the part of white Americans during the earlier history of this country.
To be brief, the argument's general structure is as follows: since others in the past or elsewhere have committed or are committing reprehensible acts, it is not fair to "single out" anyone for committing reprehensible acts.
In fact, according to this line of reasoning, since history is littered with reprehensible acts and atrocities of all kinds, we should never single out or condemn any criminal or immoral act or atrocity.
It comes awfully close to the notion that one wrong justifies another wrong.
Pretty distressing to have to read this sort of thing here.
It sounds like you would infringe on the freedom of Americans to own other Americans or even the freedom of Americans to stop other Americans from defending themselves through the use of government. That is what is distressing. You need to stop putting yourself in other people's shoes and stop trying to understand the positions of both sides in disputes and disagreements. Try hypocrisy a little more often. You will be surprised at how easy it is.
Double groan!!!
Good grief, my dear Oikos, get a clue for crying out loud!
This is exactly one of the symptoms of what Steve Job's portable gadgets doing to society - turning people into autistic Aspergers teenagers who are incapable of getting a joke!
To pjd412, Oct 6 2011 - 11:58am:
As far being funny goes, you're outdoing yourself this morning. A true barrel of laughs, this pjd!
Oikos, I really think you have misinterpreted kivals's sarcstic, satirical remarks. As for pjd, he is making a joke at his own expense, as one who himself has Asperger's. You'd recognize him under another name, which, ironically, escapes me at the moment.
Wow, how far does the rabbit hole go?
to the worm hole, then through the black hole and out the hare hole!
There are so many familiar sayings that apply to this type of activity - among them...
First they came for the Muslims....
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
But can we tell Tuttle from Buttle?
In Brazil, somewhere in the 20th century, apparently they could not...
Hi jc...,
Here's a graphic restating that 6th Amendment quote: http://im-agi-ned.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Executive-Assassination.jpg
Nice job. Should be posted in civics classes, if they are still given.
Many states, in "cost-cutting" measures, have substituted video screening for the allegedly outmoded "civics" classes. The largest provider of such outsourced "instruction" is News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS), through their "Fox News" subsidiary.How the mighty have fallen.
can we get a list like this for the clowns in congress? that would be a useful tool for the american people
Oops. Saw the headline and thought this was an article about the Catfood Politburo.
My bad.
- an official said: first, that the actions were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001 -
Public Law 107-40.
Congress declared war against enemies to be named later.
Bush named al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Obama named al-Qaeda affiliates.
Obama's panel named al-Awlaki.
Death Panels!
Public Law 107-40.
The President is authorized to use military force to prevent future terrorism by our enemies. The war will go on until all future terrorism is prevented. Al-Awlaki. having been named as an enemy and then killed, will never commit an act of future terrorism. Now, all that has to be done is to continue to prevent future terrorism by al-Qaeda, the Taliban, those affiliates and anyone who gets named to the secret list.
I have posted many times about this law and its danger to us and I'll continue.
Someday, people will care enough to do something about this law.
"The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness".........Wow, assassination for the purpose of scoring political points. How low can our government go? If Occupy Wall Street is our revolution finally come, it's about time.
I'd like Obama to prove his toughness as well. I'd like to see him stand up for the rule of law, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremburg Charter, to name a few, all by himself against the rapacious Fascist Machine that is the U.S. government. Now that would indeed require a toughness of unparallelled measure. And I and millions of other Amereichans would be impressed, and stand by him. For just once, put the Congress and the War, er, Defense Dept, and Pentagon and all other chickenhawks on the defensive and make THEM defend their illegal conduct, instead of allowing them to frame the debate and twist the truth around until we have our current Orwellian system where up is down, war is peace, authoritarianism is democracy.
I'd like that a lot. However, Obama defines toughness by committing murder and shitting on the rule of law. Very well, then: ditch the Secret Service and meet me in a locked, empty room for 10 minutes. It would be extremely cathartic for me at the very least.
No nation in history has ever fallen to foreign belligerents without having first fallen to the pseudo-patriotic traitors within its own ranks. What once was the United States of America was not the first, nor will it be the last. Unfortunately for the planet…
The thing that seems so dumb to me, is if the US gov't is going to have a 'hit list'
why publish it? They could have killed al-Awlaki with a drone or some other way and then claimed it was just 'collateral damage' from a stray bomb.
The fact that the 'hit list' even exists, let alone is published, seems to be grounds for some kind of legal action...maybe against the government lawyers/strategists who come up with this crap.
Probably the point of publishing the hit list is to spread fear, thereby limiting dissent. People who live in a country where the rulers have arbitrary life and death power over them live in fear.
Amitola -
On your last point, al-Awlaki's father filed a legal action in federal court here in the United States months ago. He sought a declaratory judgment that listing his son on a secret hit list threatened to take his life without due process of law, in violation of the plain language of the 5th Amendment. In the lawsuit (al-Awlaki Sr. was represented by the ACLU I believe) he also sought discovery disclosure of the standards that were ostensibly being used to decide who belonged on the target hit list and who didn't.
It is my understanding that the suit was dismissed on the government's motion. Discovery was denied under the state secrets doctrine because it sought highly classified information, and I think the judge ruled there was no justiciable case or controversy, because it was premature, the risk of Constitutional harm was too theoretical, and/or dad lacked standing to sue.
Now that the dirty deed has been done, maybe the case could be refiled as a money damage/wrongful death action. It might meet the same judicial fate, now in part on the Kafkaesque rationale that the case and controversy was moot.
Bill from Saginaw
Let us temporarily assume the accuracy of the underlying facts in this Reuters article.
What it means is that a secretive bureaucratic structure has evolved within the executive branch of the US government in which certain individuals - American citizens, dual nationals, or persons with no connection to US citizenship - can be placed on a kill-or-capture "hit list", authorizing active duty US military forces and/or Central Intelligence Agency operatives to murder them whenever or wherever opportunity knocks. If the targeted assassination also kills folks in the general vicinity, such collateral damage is just, well, tough shit.
By fleshing out the opaque decision making protocol of this dark bureaucracy, and getting at least one elected public official in the ostensible oversight process (Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger of the House Intelligence Committee) to speak publicly about its existence, Mark Hosenhall's news report performs a valuable service. If folks are worried (as I am) about living in a country in which premeditated murder is considered a legal policy option potentially on the table for use by American soldiers, spies, and presidents, we at least have now identified where to focus attention if the political will can be mustered to unequivocally stuff this sordid, blood stained genie back into its bottle.
The remedy is to amend the National Security Act of 1947. This federal statute is the sole basis of ostensible legal authority for some shadowy bureaucracy under the umbrella of the National Security Council to have evolved, a group of public servants who believe it has the power to make murder legal, and supposedly also a morally acceptable policy tool, in US foreign policy and in our domestic political life.
But outside the context of a formal Congressionally declared war, or capital punishment imposed by a functionary in a black robe following indictment, trial, and sentencing, human life cannot be taken without due process of law. The history and text of the US Constitution and its Fifth Amendment is categorically clear about that.
Therefore decent, concerned American citizens regardless of religious belief or partisan affiliation who do not want to live in a police state or a society in which some faceless cabal of Murder, Inc. takes upon itself the purported power to kill with impunity should deal directly with the source.
Force the Congress, probably starting with the House Intelligence Committee, to hold hearings. Make the spooks and soldiers and politicians and most important of all their lawyer enablers who concocted this hit list bureaucracy physically to appear, and testify in a public forum to try to justify the lawfulness of their collective behavior. According to this Reuters account, there appears to be bipartisan Congressional support for staging just such a desperately needed spectacle of democratic decision making in action.
Once a full, fair hearing is completed, then simple straight forward legislative action can outlaw this macabre, murderous stain upon the nation's fundamental principles once and for all.
Amend the National Security Act of 1947 to expressly, totally outlaw extrajudicial assassination. Make it a federal felony for any spy, or anybody other than uniformed soldiers acting pursuant to direct orders in time of declared war or a death row execution team, to take human life in the name of the United States of America.
Anywhere. Any time. For any reason, other than immediate, personal common law self defense of course.
Period.
Thank you, Mr. Rosenball and Congressman Ruppersberger, for drawing a roadmap outlining a path back towards national decency and sanity. Time to take the toys away from the boys.
Bill from Saginaw
>>Once a full, fair hearing is completed, then simple straight forward legislative action can outlaw this macabre, murderous stain upon the nation's fundamental principles once and for all.
Amend the National Security Act of 1947 to expressly, totally outlaw extrajudicial assassination. Make it a federal felony for any spy, or anybody other than uniformed soldiers acting pursuant to direct orders in time of declared war or a death row execution team, to take human life in the name of the United States of America.
Period.
Anywhere. Any time. For any reason, other than immediate, personal common law self defense of course.
Period.
I agree with your whole comment, as usual, but I can't help wondering who is going to enforce the new law?
Great post, Bill from Saginaw. You probably realize that atrocities like torture were committed under the aegis that enemy combatants are not prisoners, and therefore Habeas Corpus does not apply to them. Get ready: that same elastic use of language will be attempted here, too. ----------------------------------------------------------------
When the WORD unitary executive came into use, it blurred the checks and balances on power intended by 3 governing branches. Essentially, the prez is now not much different from a royal figurehead. ------------------------------------------------------
The War on terror, also alters the parameters. ----------------------------------------------------
What I fear, in addition to the eloquent points you raised, is the degree to which an Orwellian substitute language has come to replace the basic tenets of and for law. This is yet another case in point to back up Chris Hedges' assertion that Amerika has been rendered a post-law society. And I'm sure you share with me the horror, that Fox News & Hate Radio have helped to engineer in the form of US citizens cheering for the (missing) head of Bin Laden, or cheering that governor Perry approved over 200 executions on his watch. A veritable Roman Arena sensibility has been generated that will see a dangerous percentage of US citizens backing the very policies that consign so many to Hades, without fair trials, or any trials at all.------------------------
The terrorists have taken over the US government. And who is positioned to strip them of power? This covert coup began with the assassination of JFK...