Another American who was with him, Samir Khan was also killed.
Mr. Awlaki’s name had been added to the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command hit list in April 2010.
The ACLU, on behalf of Nasser al-Awlaki, the cleric’s father, had filed a lawsuit last year in order to prevent the administration from targeting him, but to no avail.
He was the only American citizen to be included on the hit list…
President Obama justified the killing thus:
Earlier this morning, Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed in Yemen. The death of al-Awlaki is a major blow to al Qaeda’s most active operational affiliate. Awlaki was the leader of external operations for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
In that role he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans. He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas day 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up US cargo planes in 2010. And he repeatedly called among individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.
Hence, the President repeatedly emphasized that Mr. al-Awlaki was a leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and that he directed specific attacks on US targets.
As a result, the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki was justified, regardless of whether he was an American citizen or not…
What evidence did the President or his administration present to justify the killing of an American citizen, one who had never been charged with or convicted of any crime?
None.
Since the President asserted that Mr. Awlaki was affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or rather its leader, and this organization affiliated with the original al Qaeda, formerly led by the now deceased Osama ben Laden, then he was a legitimate target, since Congress had approved the use of military force against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
The fact that the drone attack took place in Yemen and far from the original theater of war, Afghanistan was irrelevant, since the war on terror is a global one…
As a belligerent, Anwar al-Awlaki forfeited all due-process rights.
What constitutes due process in this case is a due process in war, an administration official told the WP, therefore death by drone attack.
Furthermore, the Justice Department, in a legal memorandum, confirmed the legality of ordering the killing of a US citizen.
The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a US citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Awlaki, the officials said, wrote the WP.
Those who defended the killing of Mr. Awlaki made similar arguments.
Before someone like Mr. Awlaki is targeted, multiple intelligence sources support the conclusion that he is a dangerous threat, top lawyers from many agencies scrutinize the action, policy makers at the highest levels of government approve the action after assessing its legal and political risks, and the Congressional intelligence committees are informed about the intelligence community’s role in the operations, wrote in the NYT Jack L. Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the preceding administration.
Satisfied therefore, that all relevant legal issues had been adequately addressed, and since the principle parties inside the administration agreed with the memorandum’s conclusions, Awlaki became a legitimate target, and killed at the first opportunity…
What was the administration’s legal analysis?
We do not know, for the document remains confidential, and the administration refuses to comment further on the matter.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. The administration officials refused to disclose the exact legal analysis used to authorize targeting Awlaki, or how they considered any Fifth Amendment right to due process, according to the WP.
The Fifth Amendment stipulates that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
In essence, why Mr. Awlaki was denied his basic constitutional rights remains classified and is none of our business…
As such, we shall have to satisfy ourselves with the President’s claims that Mr. Awlaki was the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula…the leader of external operations for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, that he took the lead in planning and directing the efforts to murder innocent Americans.
If the President says so then it must be true…
The President’s word will have to suffice, we are implicitly told…
We shall have to trust him and remain confident that he acted appropriately and that the nation’s laws were fully adhered to…
Did he not swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?
Yet, if the evidence against Mr. Awlaki is so convincing, why not share it with the rest of us?
If the finest legal minds of the administration concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Awlaki was a dangerous terrorist masterminding evil plots against the American people, why should these conclusions remain classified?
Secrecy can only fuel suspicion, and rightly so, for the historical precedents in this field are devoid of any ambiguity…
In the run up to the invasion of Iraq, US intelligence agencies were under great pressure to produce evidence the administration urgently required to justify its imminent attack.
As a result, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate confirmed with high confidence the existence of Iraq’s WMD programs…
That is what was expected from the intelligence community by the Bush/Cheney administration, and that is precisely what it delivered.
Prior to the war, the politicization of intelligence gathering and analysis was blatant and extensive, according to Paul Pillar, a former official of the National Intelligence Council.
A similar phenomenon can be detected concerning the Bush/Cheney policy of enhanced interrogation techniques, to use the official expression then in vogue.
The Bush/Cheney administration was obviously seeking legal cover to utilize methods universally considered torture, even by previous administrations, against high value terrorist suspects.
The Bush/Cheney euphemism covered such methods as grabbing and slapping detainees, forcing them to remain standing while handcuffed for forty hours or more; confining naked detainees in cold cells while regularly dousing them with cold water and, of course, waterboarding.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee dutifully complied, drafting a series of legal memoranda now infamously known as the Torture memos.
At my direction, Department of Justice and CIA lawyers conducted a careful review. They concluded that the enhanced interrogation program complied with the Constitution and all applicable laws, including those that ban torture, Georges W. Bush wrote in his memoirs…
As a result of this legal authorization, a number of suspects were waterboarded including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah.
The former was subjected to this part of the enhanced interrogation program some 183 times, the latter a mere 83 times, at least…
Through these memos (subsequently made public by the Obama administration in April 2009, following an ACLU FOIA request in court) Justice Department lawyers authorized interrogators to use the most barbaric interrogation methods, including methods that the US once prosecuted as war crimes. The memos are based on legal reasoning that is spurious on its face, and in the end these aren’t legal memos at all-they are simply political documents that were meant to provide window dressing for war crimes, concluded Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, upon their release.
The documents released today provide further confirmation that lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel purposefully distorted the law to support the Bush administration’s torture program, added Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU.
Should a man’s fate truly depend on advice and information coming from these quarters?
Is there any reason to believe that the intelligence services and the Justice Department are less politicized today then they were two years ago?
What is clear is the following: government departments run by political appointees cannot be trusted to deliver objective, unvarnished, and potentially undesirable advice to their employers in the White House.
As a result, should matters of signal importance such as constitutional rights, that concern every citizen in the land, be confiscated by politicians and their appointees, who purport to be the sole custodians of our best interests and most fundamental rights?
Should not evidence that can lead to the execution of a citizen be reviewed by independent parties?
What are courts and judges for?
President Obama has just asserted the hubristic authority to execute who he wants, when he wants, where he wants (even his fellow citizens), at his sole discretion!
In a democracy, a leader does not possess that kind of power.
If he does, then it is incumbent on the people and their representatives to deprive him of it.
American citizens are not to be trusted with the evidence that justified the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, since it will not be released.
Would they come to a different conclusion?
If not, why the secrecy?
In Obama’s America (a legacy of the Bush/Cheney administration he chose not to repudiate), the function of the citizen, kept willfully ignorant, is to salute the leader for his boldness, and express his gratitude for the President’s successful efforts to keep him safe…
Does a democracy worthy of the name function thus?
Drone justice just dispatched Anwar al-Awlaki into the next world.
That he was a radical who condoned violence in fiery sermons posted on YouTube and in interviews is irrelevant, or is the First Amendment, like the Fifth, obsolete as well?
Incidentally, the young American Samir Khan (who edited al Qaeda's online magazine Inspire) was also killed in the attack..
He had never been charged with any crime either.
Presumably, knowing and meeting with Awlaki was sufficient to deserve the death penalty. Up to seven people may have killed in the drone strike...
Awlaki and Khan yesterday…
Who shall it be tomorrow, who shall be obliterated by a drone or series of drones, after the President of the United States determines in total secrecy that that particular individual is an enemy of the US and thus deserved to die?
(the above photograph of a drone strike was found here)
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire