Terrorist Killed Legal or Illegal?

[Quantum Windbag]

How ,many posters do we recall seeing from the westerns in movies, imprinted, "WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE".... Was that not not just an opportunity for gunslingers and bounty hunters to' make a killing (pun intended)' on some hapless criminal who ran afoul of the law without a conviction in a court of law?

It was wrong, so was this.

 

[saveliberty]

Step back for a second. Why did we attempt to capture Osama or other key terrorist leaders? For the intelligence they could provide. This guy was very important in the organization with vast knowledge of the entire operation. This was wrong on many levels.

 

[Amelia]

How ,many posters do we recall seeing from the westerns in movies, imprinted, "WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE".... Was that not not just an opportunity for gunslingers and bounty hunters to' make a killing (pun intended)' on some hapless criminal who ran afoul of the law without a conviction in a court of law?

Psst!

Movies are not real. They can use artistic license.

C'mon... some of them tell it like it was, didn't they?

Remember how liberals accused Bush of having a Wild West mentality and how liberals are supposed to be so much better than that?

 

[BlindBoo]

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn "declared war" against America, and there's actual physical proof that they killed people...How are they doing today?

Thanking their lucky stars Tricky Dick didn't have Preditor Drones?

The government they declared war on was forcing conscripts to fight, kill, and die in a foriegn land. Riots on Campuses. They really didn't target civilians but the plan to bomb a military dance that ended up killing some of them was pretty shitty. I'm pretty sure they were on the most wanted list. They avoided capture and eventually turned themselves in, I mean after we quit Vietnam, stopped the draft......oh yeah didn't we normalize relation with Vietnam a few years back?

What does that have to do with us greasing a high level operative of the organization that delclared war on us and carried out 9-11?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Something for ‘advocates of assassination’ to consider:

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations. Amazingly, the Bush administration's policy of merely imprisoning foreign nationals (along with a couple of American citizens) without charges -- based solely on the President's claim that they were Terrorists -- produced intense controversy for years. That, one will recall, was a grave assault on the Constitution. Shouldn't Obama's policy of ordering American citizens assassinated without any due process or checks of any kind -- not imprisoned, but killed -- produce at least as much controversy?

Obviously, if U.S. forces are fighting on an actual battlefield, then they (like everyone else) have the right to kill combatants actively fighting against them, including American citizens. That's just the essence of war. That's why it's permissible to kill a combatant engaged on a real battlefield in a war zone but not, say, torture them once they're captured and helplessly detained. But combat is not what we're talking about here. The people on this "hit list" are likely to be killed while at home, sleeping in their bed, driving in a car with friends or family, or engaged in a whole array of other activities. More critically still, the Obama administration -- like the Bush administration before it -- defines the "battlefield" as the entire world. So the President claims the power to order U.S. citizens killed anywhere in the world, while engaged even in the most benign activities carried out far away from any actual battlefield, based solely on his say-so and with no judicial oversight or other checks. That's quite a power for an American President to claim for himself.

Presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

This is a policy advocated by both a republican and democratic president – this is about the aberration of the Imperial Presidency, the violation of due process and the rule of law.

And as much as one might blame Bush and Obama, the American people must share in the blame, as they made it clear to politicians they’d better keep us safe ‘or else.’

 

[The Infidel]

Shouldn't this have been debated when the FBI put him on a dead or alive ticket?

 

[The Infidel]

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn "declared war" against America, and there's actual physical proof that they killed people...How are they doing today?

Well, thats different

 

[The Infidel]

Treason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This should make it a little more clear to people.

 

[Amelia]

Treason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This should make it a little more clear to people.

Yes, it does. Thank you. It underscores the fact that people are supposed to be TRIED for treason before the sentence is handed down and carried out.

 

[Amelia]

Apparently Obama ran it by the Justice Department and killing Awlaki was considered hunky-dory. But if Bush had marked for death an unindicted American citizen on the strength of a memo like this people would be rushing the White House. They would accuse the Justice Department of telling Bush what he wanted to hear. There would have been calls for impeachment from many quarters, including from members of Congress. There would be calls for more than impeachment from some quarters.

The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials.

The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said.

Secret U.S. memo sanctioned killing of Aulaqi - The Washington Post


(p.s., I found that a very interesting article - two pages with some pretty good detail.)


.

 

[Photonic]

Treason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This should make it a little more clear to people.

Yes, it does. Thank you. It underscores the fact that people are supposed to be TRIED for treason before the sentence is handed down and carried out.

I'm starting to be swayed by the argument that he should have been captured.

But I guess they have pissed off the US just a bit too much.

Honestly, I think the Mexican Gangs should be a higher priority.

 

[hortysir]

Obama's position:

Waterboarding KSM was illegal but putting an American citizen on an assassination list without benefit of trial is legal.


My position:

The Constitution took a major blow today.

No....that was the sound of his head exploding like a ripe melon.

 

[syrenn]

I was murging 3 threads and tried to delete just one duplicate post from it and the whole thread disappeared. My most humble apologies.
Having said that....carry on....

You assassinated my posts!

 

[FA_Q2]

Political assassinations and summary executions are plain old Stalinist.

Fucked up an individual as al-Zipperhead was, even Bin Laden had an opportunity to surrender.

I highly doubt that. He was not walking out of there alive

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn "declared war" against America, and there's actual physical proof that they killed people...How are they doing today?

Totally different situations.

This basically boiled down to this: The ability to capture, the location of the individual and what they are actively engaging in. I don't really see a problem with taking action against AN ENEMY COMBATANT. Citizenship does not matter when you are talking about active resistance on a battlefield. Now, you can claim that he was not on a battlefield but in today's world, the lines are not clear. There is no trenches or a defined battlefield. These battles are all over the world. He had a chance to surrender. He went to a country where we had no ability to capture him and where we had no ability to give him a trial. That was his choice and that choice leads to making him a legal military target. It is a MASSIVE stretch to try and fit this into Americans that are located here or in countries that we have legal access too. That is simply not the case. What would you have done? Capture may not have been a military option. Should we simply leave him alone then because he is a citizen? There are consequences to actively engaging in attacking this country and one of those is death. If he wanted the trial, he could have turned himself in.

 

[Ravi]

If someone is put on the dead or alive capture list the best thing to do is to turn themselves in. Otherwise, all bets are off.

This is what should have been done with any terrorists that later ended up in Gitmo. They should have been killed on the battlefield. Once taken into custody they are then guaranteed by the constitution due process of the law.

Of course, being certain they are terrorists is of the utmost importance.

 

[saveliberty]

I was murging 3 threads and tried to delete just one duplicate post from it and the whole thread disappeared. My most humble apologies.
Having said that....carry on....

You assassinated my posts!

Its okay, I had them deemed terrorists threats first.

 

[Katzndogz]

This is the problem with citizens of more than one country. They get to pick and choose over where their loyalties will be at any one moment and we let them.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Remember when people like Cheney were ranting at Obama and others for treating terrorism like a law enforcement problem rather than like a war?

Remember when those critics got almost unanimous cheers from the Right for that?

What changed?

 

[saveliberty]

Remember when people like Cheney were ranting at Obama and others for treating terrorism like a law enforcement problem rather than like a war?

Remember when those critics got almost unanimous cheers from the Right for that?

What changed?

We started killing Americans without an attempt at due process. I know the term American paints an ugly picture for you, but it is what it is.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Remember when people like Cheney were ranting at Obama and others for treating terrorism like a law enforcement problem rather than like a war?

Remember when those critics got almost unanimous cheers from the Right for that?

What changed?

We started killing Americans without an attempt at due process. I know the term American paints an ugly picture for you, but it is what it is.

I'm not the one siding with the terrorists.