Obama administration considering killing another US citizen without due process

[Nebor]

Heh. Nice sensationalist article. The 16 year old? He wasn't the target. Collateral damage in Dubya's war./QUOTE]

GO TEAM GO! RAH! RAH! RAH! GO TEAM GO! RAH! RAH! RAH!

oh yeah, BECAUSE BUSH!!!!!!

That 16 year old would just wind up wearing a suicide vest trying to kill Americans. Better some Chairforce pilot in Nevada pull the trigger on a hellfire than some 18 year old Private pull the trigger on an M2. Or worse, the kid makes it to his target and blows up a bunch of American soldiers.

A 16-year old kid of a named objective? 95% certainty of him being a terrorist too.

 

[Texashiker]

IMO they are POWs.

POWs can be, and are, detained indefinitely. There is no right to a speedy trial.

You are confusing or mixing up rules used under military the action and criminal law rules.

There is this little thing called human rights that we are all entitled to.

Detaining someone forever is a clear violation of those rights. Just as killing someone without their day in court is also a violation.

 

[bradly1101]

How do you tell anyone? Drones can fly lower and slower, and make more passes, than a manned aircraft because there is no risk to our people. Would you prefer to have your neighbor's house targeted by a Hellfire missile fired from a drone at 10,000 ft by an operator in Kansas viewing the house through a telephoto lens and requesting clearance to fire from another military officer not in harm's way, or by a Maverick missile fired from a Warthog at 15,000 ft by a pilot who has only the Maverick's optics to see by and who must keep a constant watch for missile trails coming to kill him?

You obviously want this done by troops on the ground. Now, I agree completely with Kage that the point of military action should not be a fair fight, but the very opposite. But setting that aside, no poorly armed terrorist force is going to adopt that kind of fair fight. You'd have civilians killed by massive explosions triggered to kill the American "cops", civilians killed because American soldiers interpreted their actions as going for a weapon or trigger, civilians killed while running because American soldiers are scary or they have something else to hide, in addition to the American soldiers and Marines killed attempting to be cops in hostile lands and worse, those taken captive and tortured to death. You'd likely have large scale warfare between American troops and those in Pakistan, Yemen, etc. since they could hardly avoid reacting to that kind of invasion.


Thanks. Now get off my lawn you damned kids!

Attempting to kill everyone who plans to 'do us harm' with remotes relying on cell phone signals is just going to kill a lot of civilians, and create more people who would do us harm. I believe it is a losing strategy. Push hard=hard push back.

 

[Fern]

Hardly, right up until this moment you hedged your bets with the whole "citizen" schtick-



Still differentiating US citizens from other combatants, even as you claim it's the other side doing it. Nice bit of obfuscation.
-snip-

US citizenship is indeed important in this issue. There is no hedging or "citizen schtick". I noticed your earlier posts with errors but do not always feel the need to correct. You have now made it neccesary.

From your post #137:

Why the Hell does it matter if he's a citizen? Our law applies equally to anybody under American jurisdiction. OTOH, he's not under American jurisdiction at all in a foreign country, so our law doesn't apply. Looking at it that way, our govt needs to build a case & request extradition, handle it as a police matter.

If it's war, his citizenship matters not at all. Did Loyalists give Revolutionaries a break in 1776 because they were British subjects? Did Free French troops give Waffen SS units a break because some of them were French?

Can't have it both ways.

You are incorrect.

The US govt MUST respect the Constitutional rights of US citizens even if they are abroad.

This does not apply to non-US citizens outside of the US. If it did we could never spy as it violate the 4th, non-US citizens abroad don't have that right like US citizens do.

The SCOTUS long ago ruled on this; see Reid v. Covert:

The Court's core holding of the case is that U.S. Citizen civilians abroad have the right to Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment constitutional protections.

The Court agreed with the petitioners, concluding that as United States citizens they were entitled to the protections of the Bill of Rights, notwithstanding that they committed crimes in foreign soil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_v._Covert

Chief Justice Black says:

At the beginning, we reject the idea that, when the United States acts against citizens abroad, it can do so free of the Bill of Rights. The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution. When the Government reaches out to punish a citizen who is abroad, the shield which the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution provide to protect his life and liberty should not be stripped away just because he happens to be in another land. This is not a novel concept. To the contrary, it is as old as government.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/05/14/the-bill-of-rights-applies-to-us-citizens-abroad-2/

Accordingly, the distinction between a US citizen and non-citizen when abroad is very important when considering Constitutional rights.

Fern

 

[Texashiker]

The SCOTUS long ago ruled on this; see Reid v. Covert:

The court also upheld slavery, forced eugenics and forced detainment of US citizens.

You can not hide human rights violations behind supreme court rulings.

 

[Jhhnn]

US citizenship is indeed important in this issue. There is no hedging or "citizen schtick". I noticed your earlier posts with errors but do not always feel the need to correct. You have now made it neccesary.

From your post #137:



You are incorrect.

The US govt MUST respect the Constitutional rights of US citizens even if they are abroad.

This does not apply to non-US citizens outside of the US. If it did we could never spy as it violate the 4th, non-US citizens abroad don't have that right like US citizens do.

The SCOTUS long ago ruled on this; see Reid v. Covert:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_v._Covert


http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/05/14/the-bill-of-rights-applies-to-us-citizens-abroad-2/

Accordingly, the distinction between a US citizen and non-citizen when abroad is very important when considering Constitutional rights.

Fern

All perfectly true, and completely irrelevant under the terms of the AUMF. You cite a narrow peacetime ruling only made possible by a grant of extraterritoriality to the US by the British govt. The court ruled that Covert must be tried under civilian rather than military rules. It has no relevance to neutralizing enemies in the field in times of War. Nor is it likely that such an agreement exists with the govt in question, rendering the issue moot. We have no legal basis for action against any person in another country other than the justification of War.

War transcends civilian law, which is why GWB put it in those terms, so that he didn't have to deal with legal niceties. Maher Arar. Jose Padilla. All of Gitmo. Covert renditions. Black prisons. NSA snooping. Mass (legal) deportations. 2 invasions, 1 seemingly endless occupation.

And so long as that War definition & the AUMF hold sway, the WoT will be pursued under the rules of War, regardless of who is the CinC. Failure to do so would be political suicide, particularly if a major terrorist event took place.

So, uhh, where was all this Conservative "concern" when Jose Padilla was held incommunicado in military prisons in this country, shuffled from place to place to prevent writs of Habeas? What happened with all that innuendo about "dirty" nuclear bombs?

Padilla was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002, on suspicion of plotting a radiological bomb ("dirty bomb") attack. He was detained as a material witness until June 9, 2002, when President George W. Bush designated him an enemy combatant and, arguing that he was not entitled to trial in civilian courts, had him transferred to a military prison. Padilla was held for three and a half years as an "enemy combatant." He was subjected to what were called enhanced interrogation techniques, regarded as torture under International law, including sleep deprivation, shackling and stress positions, the administration of psychotropic drugs, and solitary confinement.[1] After pressure from civil liberties groups, the charge was dropped, and his case was moved to a civilian court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Padilla_(prisoner)

Not a peep at the time, other than from soft headed Libruhls, nor likely will there be over much of anything the next time a Republican occupies the White House.

In for a penny, in for a pound, gentlemen. If you support the WoT as War, then there's no room to blame Obama for conducting it as such.