I trust President Obama's administration to only target genuinely bad guys for assassination

[Nye Bevan]

without a trial.

I am not, however, willing to extend this same degree of trust to future Republican administrations. Al-Awlaki was scum and gets no sympathy from me, and I understand why many DUers are celebrating his death, but it's going to be tough for those who vociferously defend his assassination to criticize future Republican presidents ordering American citizens to be killed without a trial. So since I oppose a hypothetical President Palin or President Perry from having this power, I need to oppose all Presidents, including Obama, from having it. I guess that puts me in the Glenn Greenwald / Rude Pundit camp.

What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President’s ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry’s execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists: criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.

http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/

[Harmony Blue]

1. Thank you!

This is the point that we are trying to point to others who belittle our point of view.

[Modern_Matthew]

2. Implying the MIC doesn't do what they want, with or without Presidential approval. nt

[grasswire]

3. situational constitutionality

That's what you advocate.

And that's outrageous.

No more "Rule of Law"

No more "nation of laws, not men"

All gone now.

The future of the citizen lies in caprice and whim.

OFF WITH HIS HEAD! becomes the cry feared throughout the land.

[Harmony Blue]

5. This is how Athenian Democracy died

most people don't realize this slipper slope is a killer one.

[BlueCheese]

6. I think what the OP is saying is that...

... because the OP doesn't trust future Republican presidents to handle the power of arbitrary assassination properly, that Obama should not have this power either.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Precisely.

I should have expressed myself a little more clearly. I will edit the OP accordingly.

[DCBob]

4. I wouldnt base any judgment on anything a future Republican admin might or might not do.

You could criticize and raise hell and try to force the Obama admin to do something you think is more fair or legal -- a future Republican administration could care less.

[tblue]

18. Yeah. Keep saying they differ on that.

They don't. Nothing I have petitioned our president to do has been done.

[chill_wind]

8. Painting people as "terrorist sympathizers"

to quash a larger question or discussion has always been a very effective tool of the right.

[Nye Bevan]

9. and there has been plenty of that going on in DU.

I wasn't happy to see principled DUers worried about constitutional abuses being accused of participating in a "terrorist lovefest".

[frylock]

19. like chill said, it has always been a very effective tool of the right

[Melinda]

21. Ah, indeed. And it continues as I type.

The mindless following because it's 'our guy in office' is startling scary.

Thanks for the OP.... I understand completely and appreciate your saying what needs to be said over and over and over again - most especially on DU.

[chill_wind]

24. A very similar point here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2034910#top

And that was my word for it, too. Scary. As you say, startling scary.

[Melinda]

28. I'm going to peruse DU's archives too; the contrasts will be...

interesting, to say the least.

Thanks for bringing the thread forward. :hi:

[fascisthunter]

43. your accusation is disgusting and doesn't add anything but resentment here at DU

[Nye Bevan]

46. You don't believe that DUers have been accused of a "terrorist lovefest"? Then see this link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2033920&mesg_id=2033979

[fishwax]

20. indeed n/t

[EFerrari]

10. We should know from our experience with the death penalty

that as soon as its put into use, so is the potential for abuse and uneven application, error and misapplication. And there are no do-overs.

I'd prefer not to trust Obama or any politician to be judge, jury and executioner. We have a system of laws we can use, that we are in fact bound to use.

typo

[Nye Bevan]

11. Agreed. I used to support the death penalty.

But now I see it being used in more and more dubious situations, so now I oppose it, and I wish I had opposed it from day 1. At least I can opposed assassination without trial of US citizens from day 1.

[Desertrose]

26. If killing is wrong, then why is "legal" killing any less wrong?

Death penalty and sanctioned assassinations really ultimately solve nothing.

The fact our President says its ok or even necessary? Unbelievable.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Ah, real Americans have nothing fear

Greenwald is spot on.

[qb]

13. What if anyone who threatens Obama's centrist agenda is considered a genuinely bad guy.

:eyes:

[ZombieHorde]

14. Consider our history with torture over the last 10 years.

What makes you think Republican administrations will obey a law against assassinations? What makes you think they will be persecuted if they are caught assassinating Americans?

[Nye Bevan]

22. Future Republican presidents are more likely to assassinate Americans without trial

if Obama does it. You are right, they may do it anyway, but they are more likely to do it if Obama's actions give them a precedent. And at least, like Glenn Greenwald, if this happens, I will be able to say that I also opposed it when Obama did it.

[MilesColtrane]

36. The precedent was set with Bush II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_Derwish

Obama had a chance to do things differently, but power, once accrued, is rarely given up.

That's why the founders specified that citizens are entitled to due process.

[LooseWilly]

44. Yet again, Obama chooses to turn W's aberrations into precedent for the future.

:patriot:

[undeterred]

15. But sometimes they bail out bad guys, don't they?

[tblue]

16. How can you trust any administration without question?

Because the potus is a D? That's dangerous stuff there. Plus, what is this assassinated man accused, let alone guilty, of? TALKING. SAYING WORDS. Where do you draw the line? What about the Constitution?

I can't believe how many people are okay with killing Americans without due process. That's every bit as bad as when Republicans do it. We as a party are no better than them after all. We have just ceded the moral high ground.

[emilyg]

29. Thank you.

[tblue]

38. emilyg...

I like you tagline. How sad, huh?

[Mira]

17. YES! 5th recommendation

It is also (one of the most important) the reason Cheney and Bush should not ever ever ever get away with their crimes.

[PurityOfEssence]

23. What about the next administration? There will be one. What about the War Powers Resolution?

I am not impressed by that many other human beings to the extent that I'll abdicate all personal efficacy and just ride along with whatever their exalted genius desires.

We are a constituent republic, and this cult of the individual runs against the very soul of our society.

I'm so fucking sick of being told what a super-genius and deeply moral pristine entity of greatness this man is. He's just a guy. He's not a fighter. He doesn't seem to have much of any policy desires for which he'll fight. He's a corporatist. He cynically uses religion for personal gain.

Yes, he's somewhat better than the alternative, but only somewhat. As the right is appeasing their base with social conservatism that's been put off and denied for the last 30 years, thus rekindling their loyalty, Obama is dismissing the left as a bunch of orphans of the storm who will always stand with him regardless of how insane the accommodations of the reactionaries become.

Precedent is being set. To allow a President free rein to rain death from the skies in any sovereign land with impunity is a bad thing. Some future administrations will not even be feigning populism or decency; they'll just be able to use such acts as tacit permission.

As for the al-Awlaki incident, he was obviously a danger and a thug; I'm on the fence about whether that was necessarily a bad act of ours, but to chirp along that we should just fall in line with the cult of the individual is nonsense and extremely dangerous.

[Melinda]

27. ***Standing O***

Wonderful oration, exactly right. Thank you. :)

[Octafish]

25. Like people who lie America into war?

Should we ever hear of any.

[TBF]

30. Please define "bad guys". nt

[krabigirl]

31. I don't trust any of them.

[rhett o rick]

33. Agree, either you believe in assination or you dont. How can you trust one politican over another

with that. That's like saying you trust Obama to only torture bad guys. Good Grief CB.

[yurbud]

32. the assassinations serve the same purpose as quantanamo prisoners

The point is not to punish the guilty,or even protect us, but to make these guys look scary and dangerous so we beg for protection.

[TheKentuckian]

34. Obama has far passed the age of 33 and has not be nailed to a tree so I doubt his perfection

but those that pretend this problem is about the individual, Al-Awlaki willfully using a tried and true right wing frame to distort and de-legitimize the entire conversation.

I am coming to the conclusion that many, maybe most people, even the most well intentioned and decent think individual first and system in a secondary fashion, if at all. Supporting a dangerous system based on outlier individuals is a complete failure of holistic thinking.

Pretending the system that took out who was probably a very bad guy is not one that not only violates our apparently quaint fundamental law but more so is by its very undefined and unchecked nature is not a quick and easy slide to wicked abuse betrays little thinking of any sort.
What in the world insures only the correct people are identified as "combatants" and just as crucially what insures that definitions of who can be and what behavior makes anyone a "combatant" in a war that by definition has no discernible time frame, location, nebulous actors, no state, no flag, uniform, concrete conditions for victory, or specific allegiance.

Even somehow accepting all of that, we still have allowed and some are actually encouraging a system that has no check whatsoever of being abused beyond that dicey jumble of crazy because if it were how would anyone even know.

This is completely contrary to the principles of limited government, or in other words that the government functions on the consent of the governed and is granted powers and authority from the people rather than the people being subjects to an all powerful government that grants them rights as it sees fit.
The key defenses to which appear to be that;
1) The courts that at any other time are readily admitted to be stacked ten miles high with fascist authoritarians would ***probably*** support so we won't and will pretend we did.

and

2) The same fuckwit "bipartisan" that allowed us to go to complete lying clusterfuck of a war and passed every manner of unconstitutional to immoral to insane law almost imaginable gave the unitary executive who they treasonously ceded their constitutionally mandated powers, obligations, and authority to another absurd, unchecked power the violates the entire premise of the fundamental law of the nation but hey, the otherwise despicable and contemptible court that seemingly does not understand reality, much less the law that they otherwise ideologically misinterpret said it was good law.

Other than that we are essentially dealing with "I'm glad that they got HIM, who cares about HOW", which misses the entire conversation which distorts it back to the individual and sympathy and any number of irrelevant paths of distraction from the system, who we are, what our ideals mean, and the nature of our laws.

What is hard to get about requiring a process with oversight to define what terrorism is, who meets that definition, that the assessment is correct, that the definition doesn't creep and expand, and that there is a mechanism that enforces corrective measures on enforcement???

[Melinda]

35. +1 ad infinitum

From your post:

Pretending the system that took out who was probably a very bad guy is not one that not only violates our apparently quaint fundamental law but more so is by its very undefined and unchecked nature is not a quick and easy slide to wicked abuse betrays little thinking of any sort.
What in the world insures only the correct people are identified as "combatants" and just as crucially what insures that definitions of who can be and what behavior makes anyone a "combatant" in a war that by definition has no discernible time frame, location, nebulous actors, no state, no flag, uniform, concrete conditions for victory, or specific allegiance.

Even somehow accepting all of that, we still have allowed and some are actually encouraging a system that has no check whatsoever of being abused beyond that dicey jumble of crazy because if it were how would anyone even know.

:applause: :applause: :applause: TheKentuckian :applause: :applause: :applause:

[lunatica]

37. I think these assassinations have always been happening

They just never made it public before.

[TheKentuckian]

39. and?

[lunatica]

45. and what?

Why does it make a difference that now we know and before we didn't? Do you prefer to be kept in the dark?

[joeybee12]

40. Nope...unrec for many, many reasons...I don't trust Obama, and even if

I did...I sure don't trust the people who are giving him "classified" information...oh, and the constitution might want to be consulted first.

[bvar22]

41. This assassination sets a HORRIBLE Precedent.

The concept of the Unitary Executive needs to be destroyed,
not affirmed and reinforced.

How can people who were horrified when Bush-the-Lesser grabbed these extraordinary powers for the Unitary Executive,
change their minds so easily? :shrug:



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Logical]

42. And the GOP trusted bush.

[JVS]

47. Trust is a poor substitute for a functional system with oversight.

[LWolf]

48. It's not okay for ANY President, regardless of party.

It's pure hypocrisy, and purely corrupt, to say that it's okay for a Democratic president to violate the Constitution, but not for a Republican president.