Declassified memo 'confirms' direct connection between Saudi government and 9/11
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
>Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, told Insider he's skeptical that Bayoumi knew about the plot, or that he was working for Saudi intelligence. Many high-ranking Saudis, Zelikow pointed out, were despised by bin Laden and opposed to his efforts. "The information that Bayoumi might have been a paid informant ... if it is true, actually tends to cut the other way," Zelikow said — suggesting that Bayoumi would have been working against the hijackers.
>Zelikow, for his part, remains skeptical. He suggested that the drawing and calculations might be related to Bayoumi's work with the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority. "It is possible that someone working in civil aviation might have worked on such equations, for various reasons," he said.
So still unconfirmed, more of a clickbait title than incontrovertible proof
...everything you said is facts tho.
One curious note is that only the gulf countries fuelled religious extremism with oil. Even then not all of them. None of the other major oil deposit holders like Norway or Russia did anything to further ideology. Political power may be. But not ideology.
I think that depends on how one defines religious extremism. In the Southern United States, Evangelical Christianity has ties to oil barons and oil money throughout the last 100 years.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history...
Perhaps you could expand on your definition of ideology because this is confusing.
"oil has enabled bad people to stay in power"
so I wasn't looking to write a thesis
but sure... we can add
religion, colonialism, nationalism, capitalism, gold, big tech...
there are more isms but I digress. And in theory we could lump oil, gold, etc under capitalism but oil (and more broadly fossil fuels) have had an outsized impact over the last 50-100 and in that very short time on overall scale have sewed massive destruction and continue to do so.
It doesn't make other things more or less bad but big oil has more power than countries today. (Big tech is getting close Apple would be ranked in the 30's if it was a country.) Exxon's $316.993B puts them between Singapore and Malaysia and pushing Ireland and Denmark next year... fucking Ireland. (Now think about where they are if you combine all of them because their interests very much align) From what I can see the world is far from prepared for corporations wielding more power than governments in fact that is the topic of a lot of dystopian fiction. It's far from theoretical... governments didn't shut down the Russian economy... they are still debating if they should shut down Russian oil (hmm there it is again) ...it was corporations who shut down Russia which should be a warning light even though many (myself included) agree with the outcome.
The stifling of emissions controls, fuel efficiency, alternative energies, regulation on pipelines and spills, emissions from extraction, fracking are horrific even when compared to other industries and destructive forces. They actively seek to destroy anything that could compete often murdering the tech in the research phase and using their limitless resources to spew propaganda and convince the masses of bullshit.
We can focus on one set of guilty people doing a thing right fucking now without having to include everyone else who has ever done a thing.
There is no evidence that either of these were targetted killings, let alone "executions". And it is intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise.
1 - Was he, or was he not, intentionally assassinated by the Obama Administration?
2 - Was he or was he not a US citizen?
3 - Is that, or is that not an extrajudicial assassination?
I wasn't talking about Anwar Al-Awlaki. I was talking about what happened to his children.
So sorry, but I will not be able to join you on whatever semantic buggy ride it is you're trying to pull me onto.
No, you intentionally ignored the entire point of the OP. And you did that because it is a case where President Obama ordered the assassination of a US citizen, and that citizen stayed on his hit list for 18 months until he was killed, despite his family begging the US government the entire time to charge him with a crime so that he could have his day in court.
https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/935/Al-Aula...
Right - because their intellectual dishonesty was so blatant that it not only distracts from, but actually cheapens the morally indignant point they were trying to make.
But as said, I am longer able you to accompany you on this semantic exercise.
That record, and Mr. Awlaki’s calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama with an urgent question: Could he order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial?
The legal analysis, in essence, concluded that Mr. Awlaki could be legally killed, if it was not feasible to capture him, because intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between the United States and Al Qaeda and posed a significant threat to Americans, as well as because Yemeni authorities were unable or unwilling to stop him.
Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, was also accused of playing a role in a failed plot to bomb two cargo planes last year, part of a pattern of activities that counterterrorism officials have said showed that he had evolved from merely being a propagandist — in sermons justifying violence by Muslims against the United States — to playing an operational role in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s continuing efforts to carry out terrorist attacks.
Other assertions about Mr. Awlaki included that he was a leader of the group, which had become a “cobelligerent” with Al Qaeda, and he was pushing it to focus on trying to attack the United States again. The lawyers were also told that capturing him alive among hostile armed allies might not be feasible if and when he were located.
Based on those premises, the Justice Department concluded that Mr. Awlaki was covered by the authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda that Congress enacted shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — meaning that he was a lawful target in the armed conflict unless some other legal prohibition trumped that authority.”
I think the point that needs to be asked is, at one point does a fellow American become justified as an enemy combatant?
You list out all of these "assertions" which may or may not be true, but they are assertions made by the people who killed him. So do we take that at face value because our government would never lie? Or is it fair that we would expect the government to prove those assertions in court, as we have throughout history?
And if you are comfortable with Presidents like Obama making those extrajudicial assassination calls, are you comfortable with Presidents like Trump doing the same? If not, why not?
US governmental bodies carry out extrajudicially killings of US citizen on a daily basis on the premise of perceived threat.
Look, I’m no legal scholar. These are social contracts, ultimately what’s legal is what society deems legal.
Do you have any sources documenting legal challenges against the administration’s memo?
Not sure if your misquoting me is intentional or not, since it completely changes the meaning of what happened in this case. This was not a police shooting. This was not an in-the-moment decision, or a reaction on a battlefield. So I think you're not understanding what extrajudicial assassination means.
You can read more about the Obama Kill List aka "The Disposition Matrix" by using Google and choosing your favorite source. But for the sake of this discussion, this list included people that the Obama Administration had decided needed to be assassinated rather than brought to justice (this part is key), some of them US citizens including Al-Awlaki.
In fact, Al-Awlaki's father[1] who was not a US citizen, but a US educated government official in Yemen, found out that his son had been placed on this assassination list. He pleaded with the US Justice Department to bring charges against his son, so that he could have his son turn himself in. The US Government REFUSED to file charges against Anwar Al-Awlaki, since that would then require them to prove their case in court, which they didn't want to do.
So please, stop trying to compare this to a police shooting, this was a targeted assassination of US Citizen who was on a hit list for 18 months before they finally killed him. That is an assassination by definition.
[1] https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/935/Al-Aula...
Like I said, I’m no legal scholar. This is what I’ve come across for legal opinion:
The criteria set by the following, outlining the circumstances of legal targeted killing of US citizens, here:
https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
In conjunction with the original memo arguing justification, here:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/second-circuit-foia-r...
…seems convincing to me.
As long as a certain criteria is met, extrajudicial targeted killings of US citizens is probably legal:
“The practice of targeted killing can be used in a manner that is consistent with U.S. and international laws. Permissible targets will be of a military nature, and killing them will serve a military objective. No laws, international or domestic, prohibit the practice if it is carried out by a state against an enemy of that state actively engaged in an armed conflict against that state. When the target is a U.S. citizen, the U.S. Constitution demands certain additional procedures before the U.S. government may kill the target. The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause dictates these procedures. The procedures ensure a just determination of the target's permissibility as a military matter and the subjective intent of the target not to avail himself of the further protections to which he is entitled as an American citizen. A neutral decisionmaker should balance the targeted citizen's life against the risk he poses. If the decision comes out against him, then the military may launch a strike.”
Do you have an official release of this disposition matrix, AKA kill list? It seems it’s existence has been confirmed via leak. I don’t see any info about who exactly is/has been on it.
“The process determining criteria for killing is not public…”
Knowing about it is not very useful if you don’t know the criteria. It’s not very helpful at all, in fact, in determining legality here.
You're citing a memo written by the people who ordered the assassination. But we are a nation of laws, and there is no law that says the government can order your assassination without charging you with a crime, finding you guilty and sentencing you. Which at that point, makes it no longer an assassination but an execution. Without the judicial procedures to justify it, it's just an assassination with a memo written by the killers.
>“The process determining criteria for killing is not public…”
>Knowing about it is not very useful if you don’t know the criteria. It’s not very helpful at all, in fact, in determining legality here.
No, the fact that the government doesn't make the criteria public is exactly how we know it isn't legal. There is no judicial process tied to it that accords rights to the accused. Therefore it's unconstitutional by definition.
>Keep conflating legal terminology.
Ok, man. I see. Take some time to read the legal opinion and memo I linked, and you would see justification under the law is possible. It’s very informative.
So, every argument that it is already legal is necessarily specious, from the outset, and succeeds only because the people responsible for prosecuting abuses are refusing to do their assigned job. This is how lawful government is subverted everywhere it happens. And, it does happen everywhere it is not stopped.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/second-circuit-foia-r...
You know that none of this is new, you're not shedding light on anything. You're just trying to carry water for the same people who hold prisoners in Guantanamo indefinitely. There is not a Constitutional basis for it, and everybody understands that.
Just call it what it is, you're not fooling anybody and they're clearly not going to face justice for it so it doesn't matter. But everybody knows what was done.
You just sound like the guy explaining how OJ didn't kill anybody because the jury said so. lol k
The only thing blocking indictment is that the perps control the DoJ.
It's unconstitutional.
“Before the United States killed him, Al-Aulaqi should have been given notice that he was wanted for treason, or another crime, and that if he refused to return and stand trial, then he would be considered a military target. Functionally, A1-Aulaqi had notice that he was on a kill list. The media had been abuzz about killing him, and his father even filed an unsuccessful lawsuit on his behalf. Nonetheless, he did not return to the United States for trial.”
Doesn’t sound like it’s the government’s responsibility to bring charges. It appears to be the individual’s responsibility to surrender.
Yes, and in our legal system the government notifies you by filing charges.
>Doesn’t sound like it’s the government’s responsibility to bring charges. It appears to be the individual’s responsibility to surrender.
Surrender for...what exactly? Not court, he wasn't being charged so there is nothing to surrender to. That was literally the entire point. If the government thought he was guilty of something, then charge him and prove it in court. This is not some obscure idea, our entire judicial system is based on it.
Apprehended for...what exactly? He was never even charged with a crime. There is no legal framework for arresting a US citizen on no charges.
>and evidence is presented as such
No evidence was ever presented. Which is obvious, since there were no charges and thus no court proceedings.
>there is legal maneuvering to carry out a targeted killing-which is a military matter-, against a combatant.
He was not a combatant because he was not killed on a battlefield or even in a country that we were at war with.
He had been directly tied to conspiring with terrorist groups to carry out attacks. Support, logistics, etc. He even publicly stated his support and affiliation. That is known. One of the arguments is that the US government was acting in self defense.
The logical justifications as outlined in the specifications for targeted killing in the target list is unknown, due to state secrets law. It’s impossible to say if the action was legal or not. As legal scholars have been able to make a legal case for targeted killings, it’s completely possible that it was legal. That’s why it’s relevant. But due to the law, we’ll probably never know. It’s probably a good indication too that the courts declined to pursue the case.
Have you taken the time to read what’s available of the actual memo? Heavily redacted: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/10/us/16firstolc...
“The conclusion draws further support from the fact that even, in domestic law enforcement, the operations the Supreme Court has noted that the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm , deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape and if, where feasible, some warning hasbeen given.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471U.S. 1, 11-12 (1985), where a capture operation is infeasible and the targeted person is part of a dangerous enemy force and poses a continued and imminent threat to persons or interests, the use of lethal force would not violate the FourthAmendment.”
The Supreme Courts ruling, as cited, seemed to support this. No formal charges need to be brought against an armed civilian threatening others in the street, they would simply be given a warning, and shot dead.
Al-Awlaki was not some innocent American sitting in a Starbucks drinking a coffee when the US decided it was his time. He was an active participant, facilitator, and leader of a hostile enemy group that sought, and tried to carry out terrorist attacks against the US.
That is exactly what makes it unconstitutional. The AUMF doesn't trump the US Constitution. Using the "global war" terminology literally justifies assassinating some guy in Cleveland or Detroit or Seattle too. It was also written specifically to constrain its use to those who directly conspired against the US on 9/11. Anwar Al-Awlaki had nothing to do with planning or participating in 9/11. And that's not a defense of him as a good person, but that's why we have a judicial system.
>It’s impossible to say if the action was legal or not.
It's quite clearly unconstitutional. Rather than quoting the war criminals responsible for the assassination as proof that it's legal, why not show me which part of the Constitution you think justifies putting US citizens on a hit list and denying them their rights.
You keep on using the tired ass "whelp, we investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong" defense. It's circular logic, which you are well aware of. So dust off that torn US Constitution from your bookshelf and make a real case, or just be honest and say you don't care if it was constitutional.
This whole conversation began on the question of whether it was legal or not.
> Using the "global war" terminology literally justifies assassinating some guy in Cleveland or Detroit or Seattle too.
I literally just explained to you the difference.
> It was also written specifically to constrain its use to those who directly conspired against the US on 9/11. Anwar Al-Awlaki had nothing to do with planning or participating in 9/11.
No, that’s not true.
“ SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) <<NOTE: President.>> In General.--That the President is Al-Awlaki falls under the umbrella as outlined in the actual document.
> It's quite clearly unconstitutional. Rather than quoting the war criminals responsible for the assassination as proof that it's legal, why not show me which part of the Constitution you think justifies putting US citizens on a hit list and denying them their rights.
I quite clearly outlined to you a situation in which constitutional rights would not be afforded in my comment above. A position supported by the supreme court.
But just to be clear:
First,
In Hamdi, A plurality of the Supreme Court use the Matthews V Eldridge bouncing test to analyze the fifth amendment due process rights of a US citizen captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and detained in the United States who wish to challenge the governments assertion that he was a part of enemy forces, explaining that “the process do in any given instance is determined by Wayne the private interest that will be affected by the official action against the government certain interest including the function involved and the bird is the government with face and providing greater process.” [542 US at 529] [Mathews V. Eldridge, 424 US 319, 335 (1976).
Although the circumstances of war as the Hamdi plurality observed, the risk of erroneous deprivation of a citizens liberty the absence of sufficient process is… very real, 542 US at 530, the polarity also recognizes that the realities of combat render certain uses of force necessary in appropriate… including against US citizens who have become part of enemy forces in the due process analysis need not blink at those realities id. at 531.
realities of combat and the weight of the government's interest in using an authorized means of lethal force against this enemy are such that the Constitution would not require the government to provide further process to the U.S. person before using such force. Cf. Hamdi 542 U.S. at 535
Second,
The Supreme Court has made clear that the constitutionality of a seizure is determined by bouncing the nature in quality of the intrusion on the individuals fourth amendment interest against the importance of the governmental interest alleged to justify the intrusion [Tennessee V Gardner, 471 US 1, 8 (1985] accord Scott v. Harris, 550 US 372, 383 (2007).
Where high-level government officials have determined that a capture operation overseas in feasible at the target person is a dangerous enemy forces and engage in activities that post continued and eminent threat to US persons or interest the use of weeks of lethal force we’re not violate the fourth amendment and those that intrusion of any fourth amendment interest would be outweighed by the importance of the governmental interest that justified intrusion, [Garner, 471, US at 8].
Lastly-
“In applying this variant of the public authority justification to the contemplated operation, we note as an initial matter that DoD would undertake the operation pursuant to Executive war powers that Congress has expressly authorized. SeeYoungstown & Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S.579,635 (1952) (Jackson, I., concurring) ( When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum , for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate."). By authorizing the use of force against organizations” that planned, authorized, and committed the September 11th attacks, Congress clearly authorized the President's use of necessary and appropriate force against al- Qaida forces, because al-Qaida carried out the September attacks. See Authorization for Use ofMilitary Force ( . L.No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, 2 a) (2001) (providing that the President may use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons,in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States 27 And, as we have explained, supra at 9, a by such nations, organizations, or persons ) .decision-makercould reasonably conclude thatthis leaderofAQAP forces ispart ofal-Qaida forces. Alternatively, and as we have further explained supraat 10n.5,the AUMF applies with respect to forces associated with al Qaida that are engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or its coalition partners, and a decision-maker could reasonably conclude that the AQAP forces of a which al-Aulaqi is a leader are " with al Qaida forces for purposes of the AUMF. On associated either view, DoD would carry out its contemplated operation against a leader of an organization that is within the scope of the AUMF, and therefore would in that respect be operating inaccord with a grant of statutory authority.”
Due Process. Learn it.
>I literally just explained to you the difference.
No, you didn't. There is nothing in the AUMF that says a target can't be killed in the US, hence the "global" designation.
>This whole conversation began on the question of whether it was legal or not.
By definition, if a law does not pass constitutional muster, then it is not legitimate. The AUMF as implemented here was nothing more than an attempt to withhold Due Process from a US citizen. It's clear you think a text wall written by the guilty party will prevent me from pointing out that you are unable to show how assassinating a US citizen without Due Process is constitutional.
Show me how Al-Awlaki got his Constitutionally guaranteed right to Due Process. I'll wait.
I gave you two court settled situations in which the fourth and fifth amendment don’t apply in the context of imminent threat. The first, for example, law enforcements confrontation with a dangerous individual. Second, the impossible weight put on the govt to observe due process in the face of imminent threats. Please refer to the court cases above. They are cited for a reason. Those are not my words. They are not the words of the executive branch. Those cases/opinions are the words of the judiciary. Refer to them. If Al-awlaki hadn’t been a combatant in a foreign force targeting the US, this may not have applied. But he was.
If he had been in the US the govt couldn't have said that they were unable to attempt to apprehend him—-it wouldn't have been believable. Being in Yemen, and the fact that both the DOD and CIA said it was not possible to launch an operation (given they had attempted, which they said they had) for capture due to extraordinary circumstances, it was not in the govts court to provide due process in the face of imminent threat. In the case of Al-awlaki the self-defense justification holds merit when the United States' response to an armed attack is necessary and proportionate. The United States can invoke self-defense prior to an actual attack.
U.S. citizens who serve as soldiers for the enemy can be shot without trial during military operations but must be afforded a trial as traitors if they can be captured (Which the military apparatus deemed not possible).
For example, before the United States killed him, Al-Aulaqi should have been given notice that he was wanted for treason, or another crime, and that if he refused to return and stand trial, then he would be considered a military target. Functionally, A1-Aulaqi had notice that he was on a kill list. The media had been abuzz about killing him, and his father even filed an unsuccessful lawsuit on his behalf.138 Nonetheless, he did not return to the United States for trial.
You can’t ‘assassinate’ an individual once they enter the throngs of a foreign force. They are considered a legitimate military target. targeted killing" denotes a state's intentional and premeditated use of lethal force through agents acting under color of law against a specific, reasonably unobtainable individual. Targeted killing and assassination are similar but distinct operations that commentators often conflate. assassinations are killings that are politically motivated and use subterfuge, while targeted killings are military strikes. This distinction is important because President Ronald Reagan's Executive Order 12,333 bans assassination.
Please, just read the documents. Thanks.
There was no imminent threat. He was not on a battlefield. He was not in the active process of causing harm. Nobody would care if we were killed on an battlefield having taken up arms against US soldiers. But that isn't what happened. And the people who killed him can't just change the definition of the battlefield to "the world" and call it justifiable. I mean, they can and they did because neocons are gonna neocon. But it's very clearly and obviously unconstitutional.
>If he had been in the US the govt couldn't have said that they were unable to attempt to apprehend him—-it wouldn't have been believable.
That's not true, and in fact the correct interpretation of the "active threat" requirement can be found in numerous police shootings or barricaded gunman situations. An oft cited example is the BLM activist who murdered 5 cops in Dallas from a barricaded nest in a parking garage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_police.... Authorities sent in a robot with explosives to kill him, and it can be justified with very few people arguing against. An anti-US dissident saying provocative things in a blog or on youtube videos, is not the same.
>Nonetheless, he did not return to the United States for trial.
On what charge? He was never charged with a crime. That was the entire point of the lawsuit, so why are you being dishonest?
Irrelevant example. Imminent. Not active.
He held the rank of ‘regional commander’ within Al-Qaeda. The government’s actions are consistent with the DPC because al-Awlaki was located, purposefully, in a place where neither the host-state government nor the United States had a plausible opportunity to capture him, and because of his asserted operational role and the resultant premise that he posed an imminent threat to life.
And the court case ruled what? Nothing. It was dismissed.
>Charged with what?
He had notice that the US was after him and, if he wanted, he could have submitted to the court system. The Supreme Court has consistently held, most notably in Matthews v. Eldridge, that the amount of process due is context dependent.
>Hamid only applies to those in custody. It is dictating what due process is required to those people who are already in custody.
No portion of the constitution requires that you capture enemies in a war, and neither does any norm of international law.
Al-Awlaki was not captured. It was not possible to capture Al-Awlaki. It is not required that Al-Awlaki be captured.
Your fancy document could be introduced as an attempt at a defense in the trial of the perps, and they could try to persuade a jury it justifies the murder, provided the judge allowed it. That is all the legal value it legitimately has.
The laws of war apply under the AUMF.
>It was not possible to capture Al-Awlaki.
We know this is a lie. The fact that his family offered to have him turn himself in as soon as he was charged with a crime, proves that there was zero attempt to capture him. The Al-Awlaki family was begging the US Government for over a year to charge him with something so that he would get his constitutionally guaranteed rights.
And that is exactly why the US Government refused to charge him, because doing so would have afforded him his rights in court, which the US Government specifically wanted to avoid. That shows clear intent to deprive a US citizen of his guaranteed rights.
The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki under the 2001 AUMF was constitutional.
Under the 2001 AUMF it would have only been legal if he had planned or participated in 9/11, which he didn't. Read the text of the law.
There was never a justification to not charge him with a crime, especially knowing that he would have turned himself in if they had. But we both know why they didn't, don't we..?
The long list of historical supreme court decisions provide evidence enough that due process under the war powers is not relevant.
Charles Evan Hughe (former chief justice) said, that the power to wage war is the power to wage war successfully in the defense of the republic.
Here are all the cases I’ve cited during this discussion.
Prize Cases -> Milligan Case -> Ex parte Quirin -> Mathews -> Hamdi -> Al-Awlaki
The bill of rights does not apply to the legitimate exercises of military power by the government. Therefore the due process clause and the bill of rights wasn’t even relevant in this target killing. That doesn’t mean there weren’t restrictions.
There’s nothing new about targeted killings (non indiscriminate killing). They were conducted in the George Washington era-the battle of Saratoga during the revolutionary war. They were conducted in World War II (Yamamoto). Targeted killing has been an aspect of every single American war to date.
Under the a AUMF there is no prohibition grounded under the bill of rights. This can be grounded in the Civil War cases where American citizens were directly targeted.
No one is reading the due process clause literally. As it doesn’t distinguish citizens and noncitizens.
The weight of judicial authority rest with a proposition, the due process clause of the fifth amendment and the Bill of Rights generally, simply doesn’t apply to exercise a military force under the War Power. A long line of Supreme Court cases that have their roots in the Marshall Court era, lots of cases that came out of the Civil War, the WWII case Ex parte Quirin is another example (the 1942 decision by the supreme court that upheld the legality of president Roosevelt’s Military commissions of 8 Nazi saboteurs and at least one American.)
When the government is acting not as a government governing people, but rather as the defender of the republic, although there are legal limitations on what it may do, those limitations do not include Bill of Rights protections. The Civil War being the most app example of this. The United States government deprived thousands of citizens of their lives without giving any of them due process. It deprived thousands of other US citizens of their liberty, without giving due process. The seizure of private property as well, without due process.
The US government position was that these US citizens forced war upon the United States. Before they were the lawful objects of the war powers, being used not to govern but rather to defend the republic.
Hamdi is not in contradiction to this because the Hamdi case was under the power of governance and not under the power of war.
It’s in this very specific position where an American citizen is the lawful target of military force under the exercising of war powers, under the long line of Supreme Court decisions that have been cited, Government doesn’t have the ability to choose to use the war powers as opposed to using the ordinary powers of governance.
This argument, an even more strongly supported one on the back of supreme court ruling, invalidates your entire position.
Not a single one references specifically targeting a US citizen who isn't actively engaged on a battlefield and who wishes to turn themselves in to face charges, charges which the government refused to bring.
So no, none of your citations are relevant. All the government had to do was charge him with a crime. The refused to specifically because they needed to deprive him of his Constitutional rights in order to keep their secrets secret. .
And you have refused to answer the question posed numerous times - why wouldn't the US Government just charge him with a crime? We're expected to go with "just trust us bro"?
“ to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
You see the word future there, don’t you? It’s right there. Read it. “to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Al-Awlaki was an AQ cheif propagandist and recruiter. It’s entirely applicable. But I guess calling for the death of Americans as part of AQ is totally irrelevant, right? https://imgur.com/a/g97JUa7
And since terrorist qualify as combatants…voila!
And just to reiterate, so it sticks with you this time!
Such killings have occurred in contexts as varied as the Civil War and the Cold War, based on powers vested in Article II of the Constitution (which makes the president the commander in chief of the armed forces) and upheld by the 1866 Supreme Court decision Ex Parte Milligan (which confirms that “command of the forces and the conduct of campaigns” rests with the president).
You have absolutely no understanding of application of case. You don’t seem to be able differentiate between powers of governance and war powers.
In this context, your same tired statement is completely irrelevant, as the situation doesn’t ever arrive at, or need to ask such questions.
Ah yes, the wording used to permanently deprive Constitutional rights because "I said so". That seems legit to you?
>And since terrorist qualify as combatants…voila!
This then applies to Antifa, Proud Boys, BLM, Communists & Qtards too, just as the founders intended. How convenient.
>You have absolutely no understanding of application of case. You don’t seem to be able differentiate between powers of governance and war powers.
YEs you have said clearly that the Constitution is literally irrelevant if the government wants you dead. And you think that sounds correct.
>Such killings have occurred in contexts as varied as the Civil War and the Cold War, based on powers vested in Article II of the Constitution
Name another US citizen put on a "Kill List", and denied Due Process while begging to be charged for 18 months with a crime. You can't, because it's never happened before.
Now about that question you absolutely refuse to answer, let's try it again shall we? Give me a legitimate reason why the government wouldn't charge him with a crime. They talked to the family countless times over that 18 months and received repeated assurance he would turn himself in as soon as he was charged, since it would guarantee his safety. So why didn't the government charge him?
Have a nice day.
The Constitution doesn't refer to battlefields at all. It does give Congress the power to declare war, which it exercised via the AUMF. There are numerous cases establishing that, in war, US citizens who are combatants of the enemy are not entitled to special treatment.
Congress did, in fact, declare war. It is well established in law that the Cobstitutional power to declare war doesn't require using any particular words, and that it may be conditional on either external events or executive determinations. The AUMF is, Constitutionally, a conditional declaration of war.
It's not, but that actually isn't relevant and doesn't matter in the Al-Awlaki case anyway.
The text of the AUMF specifically references those who participated in or planned 9/11, which means it's not relevant to Al-Awlaki. Also, Al-Awlaki's family offered to have him turn himself in the second he was charged with a crime but the US Government refused to charge him since that would immediately guarantee him Due Process which they specifically sought to avoid.
Also, as has already been said in other posts, the Al-Awlaki family begged the US Government for over a year to charge him with a crime, ANY CRIME, so that he could turn himself in and have his day in court. The US Government refused to ever charge him with a crime specifically so they could deny him his rights.
You guys need to stop pretending this was some American killed on a battlefield while shooting at US soldiers. All it does is make you look dishonest, so what is the point?
Now, are you ever going to answer why the US Government never bothered to charge him with a crime?
Something else authorities agree on is that making them into martyrs has caused much more harm than any of them ever did alive, so even had the logic justifying wasting them had been sound, on its own terms, it was still very, very stupid.
Often principles are there to protect you from your own stupidity.
Like, say... the 5th Amendment?
Don't know what to tell you, other than that's not the way the English language works. Regardless of your feelings about the moral and geopolitical aspects of the situation -- the verbs "to murder" and "to execute" obviously mean very different things, in plain functional terms.
That's all there is to it.
The President is nowhere assigned any legal authority to waste US citizens on his own say-so, so everybody involved participated in what is, by strictest legal definition, a murder. There were accessories before the fact, and after, with copious documentary evidence.
I'm not playing word games about anything. And it seems you're getting weirdly hostile about something completely straightforward and basically trivial.
There was never a question about the comparative effect on the victims. The issue is that execution and murder are different. Replacing one term with the other as if they are interchangeable is dishonest. Specifically, this tactic is posed to evoke an emotional reaction and implies the victim was targeted specifically.
I don't actually need to explain this to you, as you already know it, but (often paired with ncmncm) disregard it in some perverse trolling exercise.
If you walk up to my initial comment (which everyone seems to have forgotten about) - it had nothing to do with whether one was "better" than the other.
But rather, and exactly as stated in that comment: it was about the blatantly dishonest attempt, in the parent comment, to portray the situation as something that it obviously wasn't.
This entire time the US Government knew it and covered it up and instead blamed Iran, Iraq, et cetera