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kill list
ACLU to Biden: Do Not 'Review' Drone Killing Program--End It Once and for All
"Tinkering with the bureaucracy of this extrajudicial killing program will only entrench American abuses," said the group's national security expert.
Mar 04, 2021
In response to reporting on President Joe Biden's review of policies governing lethal airstrikes in foreign countries and implementation of "temporary" limits on drone killings outside of designated war zones, the ACLU is telling the administration that the only acceptable reform is to permanently abolish the United States' extrajudicial overseas assassination program.
"In the name of counterterrorism, U.S. presidents have for two decades authorized unlawful, secretive, and unaccountable killing abroad," Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project, said Thursday in a statement. "This lethal program violates domestic and international law and has caused years of devastating harm to people in the majority-Muslim countries on the receiving end of American power."
"Tinkering with the bureaucracy of this extrajudicial killing program will only entrench American abuses," Shamsi added. "It must end."
In a tweet shared Thursday, the ACLU noted that "President Biden promised to end forever wars, but his administration has yet to take meaningful action."
\u201cPresident Biden promised to end forever wars.\n\nBut his administration has yet to take meaningful action.\u201d— ACLU (@ACLU) 1614894109
Forgoing an official announcement, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan quietly issued the order to temporarily limit drone warfare "outside conventional battlefield zones" on January 20, the day of the president's inauguration, according to the New York Times.
"The military and the CIA must now obtain White House permission to attack terrorism suspects in poorly governed places where there are scant American ground troops, like Somalia and Yemen," the Timesreported. "Under the Trump administration, they had been allowed to decide for themselves whether circumstances on the ground met certain conditions and an attack was justified."
Despite having issued "interim guidance" about the so-called "targeted" use of military force, Biden illegally "revenge" bombed Syria last week without congressional approval.
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US Journalist Demands to Know: "Am I on the Kill List?"
An American journalist will challenge his apparent inclusion in the US's classified 'Kill List' in federal court on Monday, 16 November 2020.
Bilal Abdul Kareem is a Peabody award-winning African American journalist who alleges that he has been targeted for assassination by the US because of his work covering the conflict in Syria. In 2016, he narrowly escaped being killed by five separate strikes, including an attack on his office and two strikes on cars in which he was travelling.
Nov 12, 2020
An American journalist will challenge his apparent inclusion in the US's classified 'Kill List' in federal court on Monday, 16 November 2020.
Bilal Abdul Kareem is a Peabody award-winning African American journalist who alleges that he has been targeted for assassination by the US because of his work covering the conflict in Syria. In 2016, he narrowly escaped being killed by five separate strikes, including an attack on his office and two strikes on cars in which he was travelling.
The case simply asks whether signals intelligence led the US to erroneously conclude that Mr Kareem should be added to the kill list, unaware that his meetings with various armed groups were for the purpose of conducting interviews.
The district court initially upheld Mr Kareem's right to bring the case, holding due process was "not merely an old and dusty procedural obligation", but instead "a living, breathing concept that protects US persons from over-reaching government action."
When the government then claimed that the case required disclosure of privileged "state secrets", the court felt constrained to dismiss the case. The appeal therefore presents a stark question: Can the US government issue secret death warrants for its own citizens in total secrecy, without any judicial review, even when that individual demands due process in a US court?
A three-judge panel will hear arguments in the case at 9:30am on Monday, 20 November. The hearing can be monitored live via the DC Circuit webpage.
Mr Bilal Abdul Kareem said: "I have always believed part of being an American meant if you were accused of doing something, you would be given the opportunity to plead your case in court. But now, here I am, standing at the courthouse doors and the US government is trying to deny me that opportunity. In Syria, in one of the most violent wars the world has seen, I try to champion the American ideals of justice, transparency and accountability. I hope the Court will see fit to uphold those same rights - my rights - here at home."
Jennifer Gibson, Lead for Reprieve's extrajudicial executions work and lawyer for Mr Kareem, said: "The Trump Administration is asking the courts to jettison the right to due process, a value which sets America apart from dictatorships. The executive should not be allowed to act as judge, jury and executioner unchecked. In a country founded on the rule of law, Americans must have a right to challenge a secret death sentence."
Tara Plochocki, Partner at Lewis Baach Kaufman Middlemiss PLLC, representing Mr Kareem, said: "What the government seeks to do in this case represents a radical expansion of the concept of a 'state secret'. The privilege has never been invoked to permit the government to bypass the Constitution in favor of summary execution, and we hope that the Court will not permit the government to do so here.
Clive Stafford Smith, international lawyer for Mr Kareem, said: "This case presents one of the most profound issues of human rights in our lifetime. Even George Orwell could not have imagined a lawyer from the 'Department of Justice' standing up in court to say the US president may order the CIA to execute an American journalist in total secrecy, without any judicial oversight."
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About to Have His Day in Court, This American Journalist Wants to Know If He's on the US 'Kill List'
Award-winning war reporter Bilal Abdul Kareem, who says he has been the target of numerous U.S.-led airstrikes, was also wounded by Syrian tank fire while covering the country's civil war.
Nov 12, 2020
An American journalist who alleges he has been targeted for assassination for his reporting on Syria's civil war will challenge his apparent inclusion on the U.S. "kill list" in federal court next week.
Bilal Abdul Kareem, a Peabody Award-winning war reporter from Westchester County, New York who has worked for major international media outlets including CNN, Sky News, and the BBC, will ask a federal court in Washington, D.C. on Monday whether U.S. intelligence marked him for death because of his coverage of the nine-year conflict in Syria. As part of his work, Kareem conducted interviews with members of various armed groups, including militants targeted as the enemy by the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Syria in 2014.
"I have always believed part of being an American meant if you were accused of doing something, you would be given the opportunity to plead your case in court."
--Bilal Abdul Kareem, journalist
Kareem narrowly escaped being killed in five separate U.S. airstrikes in 2016, including an attack on his office and two strikes on vehicles in which he was traveling. Kareem was also wounded when he and his crew came under fire from a Syrian army tank while reporting for Sky News in Idlib last year.
A lower court initially upheld Kareem's right to bring the case, however it dismissed it after the government claimed the proceedings would require disclosure of "state secrets." Now on appeal, the central question before the court is whether the government can secretly authorize the assassination of American citizens without judicial review.
"I have always believed part of being an American meant if you were accused of doing something, you would be given the opportunity to plead your case in court," said Kareem. "But now, here I am, standing at the courthouse doors and the U.S. government is trying to deny me that opportunity. In Syria, in one of the most violent wars the world has seen, I try to champion the American ideals of justice, transparency, and accountability."
"I hope the court will see fit to uphold those same rights--my rights--here at home," he said.
\u201cPRESS RELEASE: Bilal Abdul Kareem - award-winning African American journalist - will challenge the US government in court on Monday after narrowly escaping 5 US drone strikes in Syria in 2016. \n\n\ud83d\udc47\ud83c\udfff\nhttps://t.co/IbmawjXvSV\u201d— Reprieve (@Reprieve) 1605281420
Jennifer Gibson, an attorney who works on cases involving extrajudicial assassination for the U.K.-based international human rights advocacy group Reprieve and who is representing Kareem, accused the Trump administration of "asking the courts to jettison the right to due process, a value which sets America apart from dictatorships."
"The executive should not be allowed to act as judge, jury, and executioner unchecked," Gibson asserted. "In a country founded on the rule of law, Americans must have a right to challenge a secret death sentence."
Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer who also represents Kareem, said that "this case presents one of the most profound issues of human rights in our lifetime."
"Even George Orwell could not have imagined a lawyer from the 'Department of Justice' standing up in court to say the U.S. president may order the CIA to execute an American journalist in total secrecy, without any judicial oversight," he added.
In 2018, journalist Matt Taibbi, then working for Rolling Stone, offered this profile of Kareem, including a look at the possibility he was placed on the U.S. government's targeted assassination list:
Although Kareem projects a sense of humor--"Most of my drama revolves around having a big mouth; I got it from my mother," he said in a recent interview--he has no illusions about the forces he is up against.
"You take a Black guy who's a Muslim and he's on a kill list he's trying to get himself off. What are the chances of that? I don't really have a lot of optimism," he told Syria Direct in July. "At the end of the day, it would be a long and messy court battle for them to have to prove anything. But why should they even go through all of that when they can just cross state secrets and finish me?"
"You take a Black guy who's a Muslim and he's on a kill list he's trying to get himself off. What are the chances of that? I don't really have a lot of optimism."
--Kareem
In May 2012, the New York Timesrevealed the existence of a secret Obama administration "kill list"--formally known as the disposition matrix--that included an unspecified number of U.S. citizens deemed mortal enemies in the so-called War on Terror. One of the men on the list, U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was assassinated in a joint CIA and military drone strike in Yemen in September 2011. His son, 16-year-old Colorado native Abdulrahman al-Awkal, was killed in a similar strike the following month.
When pressed on why an innocent American teenager had been killed, a senior Obama adviser said the boy should have "had a more responsible father."
"Turns out I'm really good at killing people," Obama once boasted, according to the 2013 Mark Halperin and John Heilemann book Double Down. "Didn't know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine."
President Donald Trump has his own assassination list, as the January 2020 drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani reminded the world. In the first major atrocity of his administration, U.S. and UAE special forces raided the village of Yakla in Yemen in January 2017-- killing 23 civilians including 10 children, among them Anwar al-Awlaki's daughter (and Abdulrahman's little sister), 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki, who died slowly and painfully after being shot through the neck.
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