- Mon Feb 04, 2013 7:53 pm
#18455
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens in the USA if they are believed to be “operational leaders” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.Hitler started the same way, ignoring the German Constitution, turning Germans against Germans, spending to buy support without regard to debt, hand outs to hard core members who agreed with his agenda, installing his puppets, disarming private Germans then declaring those who didn't agree with him as "threats to Germany". Obama is using Hitler's play book.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
But the confidential Justice Department “white paper” introduces a more expansive definition of self-defense or imminent attack than described by Brennan or Holder in their public speeches. It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.
An “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threatand “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo does not define “recently” or “activities.”
This is a chilling document,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which has sued unsuccessfully in court to obtain administration memos about the targeted killing of Americans. “Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen Obama considers a threat to America as he sees it should be. "
In one passage in Holder’s speech at Northwestern in March, he alluded – without spelling out—that there might be circumstances where the president might order attacks against American citizens without specific knowledge of when or where an attack against the U.S. might take place.
“The Constitution does not require the president to delay action until some theoretical end-stage of planning, when the precise time, place and manner of an attack become clear,” he said.
“A lawful killing is not an assassination,” the white paper reads. “In the Department’s view, a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses a threat against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban. Similarly, the use of lethal force, consistent with the laws of war, against an individual who is a legitimate military target would be lawful and would not violate the assassination ban.”
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