So...this bothers me. I'm not really one to get up-in-arms over government and due process and whatnot when it comes to people actively advocating the violent overthrow of the US government. But.
He was an American citizen (notice the CNN title says "American-born" which both admits and at the same time understates the citizenship issue) who lived here for about half his life. He was pretty indisputably encouraging fighters to wage violent jihad, he may even have participated in some materially supportive way. But he wasn't tried or convicted of treason, even in absentia. He also wasn't an important figure within al-Qaeda, although his role in motivating other American al-Qaeda sympathizers was significant.
I guess I feel outright assassination of anyone, but particularly American citizens, without trial, especially when their primary crimes are abetting terrorism rather than engaging in it directly is a whole new level of executive prerogative.
Can anyone think of a comparable case?
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I've been reading stories with his name attached to them for months that dispute his lack of importance. A lot of commentators have put his importance right up there with Bin Laden as far as his ability to recruit and actually get people to commit themselves to being suicide bombers and fighters. He was a pretty important tool to their recruiting drives.
I would have liked to have seen him tried in absentia, but for something like this, I'm not entirely sure I have a problem with killing him. Capturing him seems to be nigh impossible, and he was actively involved with attempts to attack the United States.
I'm very leery of the Executive Branch being able to declare whoever they want, even an American citizen, an enemy of the state that is executable without trial. But in cases where it has been deemed too difficult to actually capture the person, and they are outside United States territory, I'm sympathetic to a trial in absentia.
Also, I seriously question the difference between "abetting terrorism" in this situation, as oppose to "engaging in it directly." When you're the leader of Al Qaeda's recruitment arm, you aren't just abetting, you're actively engaging. When they have war crimes tribunals, "but hey, I never pulled the trigger myself!" doesn't work as a defense.
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Not just in the US, but especially in the US, the concept of the citizen threatening the violent overthrow of a tyrannical government is usually a popular stance. Hence the worries about guns being confiscated, the debates on a what constitutes a well-regulated militia, etc.
But it seems to me that it hasn't been clearly established what the US government should do in response. For example, when OSC advocates the violent overthrow of the government if it recognises gay marriage, does the President really have the right to kill him without a trial?
And why did we* used to be upset that the Bush was holding foreigners without trial at Guantanamo if it turns out the guy could have just arbitrarily ordered anyone, Americans included, killed anyways? Seems kinda pointless.
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You're only allowed to threaten to violently overthrow the government if JESUS is the deity you model your revolution on.
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That's a pretty flippant response, Lyr (the second, not the first).
I could see this being used as precedent for, for instance, ending a David Koresh-type standoff. Arresting him is difficult and is likely to lead to deaths of women, children, and federal agents. So we put a drone 5,000 feet above the compound in Waco, TX, wait for him to show his head, then rain the wrath of the Almighty Hellfire down on him. It's clean, it's easy, it's technologically feasible. It also seems unconstitutional, and probably immoral to boot.
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Aren't you sort of ignoring the fact that the FBI and every SWAT team in America has a sniper on hand? He's not there to pass out cookies after the standoff is over. He's there to end the standoff. Without a trial.
And yeah, it was flippant...but close to the mark.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I feel this is an intolerable overreach/abuse of power. He should have been tried in absentia and given the chance to turn himself in to defend himself.
Think about it, a big problem is that people can be detained as enemy combatants and held indefinately in gitmo right? But as soon as you press charges you can't just "un" press charges? You have habeus corpus and the right to a speedy trial then.
Should have been given the chance to turn himself in, charges officially pressed and announced. Either he arrives and can be detained or he doesnt and is 99% probably convicted.
Then you can have your targeted drone strikes.
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On the importance of al-Awlaki, my impression is that he wasn't important organizationally to AQAP, even as a recruiter. His value was more as a Tokyo Rose, a tool of the group's propaganda arm. I'm trying to remember what that impression was based on, but I can't find an original source. My guess is it was something said to me in class by a professor of Political Science at MIT who studies terrorism, but that could be wrong.
I see there being a distinct difference between someone who provides emotional or rhetorical support for a movement, versus someone who provides material support. Al-Awlaki wasn't a bomb maker, he wasn't a financier, he wasn't an organizer. He was a mouthpiece, and not a hugely influential one outside of the US. I can't say I'm sorry he was killed, I think it's probably overall good for the interests of the US that he was, but it's not comparable in symbolic or military value to the killing of bin Laden.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Aren't you sort of ignoring the fact that the FBI and every SWAT team in America has a sniper on hand? He's not there to pass out cookies after the standoff is over. He's there to end the standoff. Without a trial.
And yeah, it was flippant...but close to the mark.
But the CONOPS isn't "just send a sniper and take him out."
And I don't think your statement was particularly close to the mark. One of the reasons I mentioned David Koresh was because I think the US gov't has a track record of confronting credible violent threats from religious fundamentalists, regardless of worshiped deity. I think your belief that Christian fundamentalists get a free pass is based on normative bias more than reality.
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And many more if you go to look for them. All of them paint him as a very influential individual who has had direct contact with various terrorists who either committed or attempted to commit acts of terrorism, who looked to him for guidance which he subsequently gave by directly exhorting them to violence and even guided them in its execution.
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When the military leadership is afraid to do what they know is best for the safety of the United States lest they discomfort bureaucrats who be remiss in losing the opportunity to practice in what may as well be a high level mock trial, we are at risk.
They had the opportunity, motive and justification. one could argue that ignoring the ability to cripple the recruitment ability of our enemy would be a dereliction of responsibility to this country and its many innocent people, even a single additional bomber to be recruited by Awlaki would be blood on their hands.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Aren't you sort of ignoring the fact that the FBI and every SWAT team in America has a sniper on hand? He's not there to pass out cookies after the standoff is over. He's there to end the standoff. Without a trial.
And yeah, it was flippant...but close to the mark.
But the CONOPS isn't "just send a sniper and take him out."
And I don't think your statement was particularly close to the mark. One of the reasons I mentioned David Koresh was because I think the US gov't has a track record of confronting credible violent threats from religious fundamentalists, regardless of worshiped deity. I think your belief that Christian fundamentalists get a free pass is based on normative bias more than reality.
If there's a reasonable chance of getting the suspect alive, then sure. If there's no chance, then the order is to take him out. There's no difference here. The order on al-Awlaki is "capture or kill." They couldn't capture, so they killed. As I said, there were steps before that that I would have liked to see taken.
As for being off the mark, that depends on whether you only count the small handful who have actually done something, and not the very prominent figures that constantly agitate for an overthrow of the government while cloaking themselves in the mantle of Christian religiosity to help justify it.
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quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: When the military leadership is afraid to do what they know is best for the safety of the United States lest they discomfort bureaucrats who be remiss in losing the opportunity to practice in what may as well be a high level mock trial, we are at risk.
They had the opportunity, motive and justification. one could argue that ignoring the ability to cripple the recruitment ability of our enemy would be a dereliction of responsibility to this country and its many innocent people, even a single additional bomber to be recruited by Awlaki would be blood on their hands.
They've had months and years to engage in a trial in absentia. They've almost killed him three times now. It's not like this suddenly came up and there was no time for a trial.
And just because trials like that have often been cartoonish in the past doesn't mean this one needs to be.
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quote:When the military leadership is afraid to do what they know is best for the safety of the United States lest they discomfort bureaucrats who be remiss in losing the opportunity to practice in what may as well be a high level mock trial, we are at risk.
They had the opportunity, motive and justification. one could argue that ignoring the ability to cripple the recruitment ability of our enemy would be a dereliction of responsibility to this country and its many innocent people, even a single additional bomber to be recruited by Awlaki would be blood on their hands.
This is...well, pretty dangerous rhetoric, actually, AH.
When valid civil rights concerns are reduced to 'bureacrats wanting to practice in a mock-trial', when 'if you don't do it, civilian blood will be on your hands', when it is taken as a given that the military leadership has motive and justification...well.
I'm fine with the assassination, if. If he was actually as important and involved with terrorism and the targeting of civilians as is claimed. If it was sufficiently dangerous, difficult, and unlikely to succeed to attempt to capture him. And if a trial in absentia would have been a non-starter for reasons of intelligence or something along those lines.
But I don't really have any way of knowing the anwers to most of those questions, aside from accepting as completely honest the claims of...well, the people who ordered his assassination. We're supposed to have rules-we do have rules-about when and how we kill American citizens. I don't know why you're so eager not just to sweep them aside, but to suggest that those who do have concerns are petty bureacrats with American blood on their hands.
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It's also a funny argument. "Because we keep on having mock trials, we should just skip trials altogether!" Well, let's skip the Godwin.
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And many more if you go to look for them. All of them paint him as a very influential individual who has had direct contact with various terrorists who either committed or attempted to commit acts of terrorism, who looked to him for guidance which he subsequently gave by directly exhorting them to violence and even guided them in its execution.
That's not enough?
No, I don't buy it.
The two articles (I couldn't get the video to load) make it clear that he "inspired" Nidal Hassan and Faisal Shazhad, and that he "may have had contact" with Abdulmutallab. President Obama says he "called on individuals" to commit terrorism and was "directly responsible" for deaths in Yemen (by omission, he was not "directly responsible" for deaths in the US). None of that contradicts what I was saying, which is that his primary role was one of propaganda not of operations, that he wasn't significant in the organizational hierarchy of AQAP (let alone AQ proper), and that his death is primarily of importance because it decreases the likelihood Americans will be recruited to jihad through his presence on Facebook and Youtube, not because it inhibits non-American recruitment or disrupts operational planning and execution.
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Yemen convicted him of being directly involved with Al Qaeda activities resulting in the death of Yemeni citizens.
Not saying I really trust the Yemeni court system, but supposedly the US signed off on the trial.
He had direct contact with both Shazhad and Hassan. He told them specifically to commit acts of violence against Americans.
He's not sitting on a mountain top somewhere with vague notions of action. He's one-on-one telling people to kill Americans, and they are!
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Heh, I don't really trust American sign-offs of foreign trials related to terrorism either, anymore-I tend to think they're along the lines of, "We know this guy is who we think he is, so sign off on the trial already."
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Yeah I guess I don't either, but there appears to be at least some evidence that he was directly involved in violent activities.
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I thought the idea of terrorists assasinating the guy who pushes the button on the drone to be a fascinating ethical exercise.
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It seems to me that the dividing line has to go between "treason" and "being actively in arms against the legal government". If you provide nuclear documents to the Russians, you're a traitor but you have the right to a trial. If you carry a rifled musket and shoot at Sherman's soldiers, you are a traitor ("levying war against [the United States]"), but they're allowed to shoot back - they don't have to capture you and bundle you off to the courts, American citizen or not. If you give Lee's boys some ham and corn as they pass by your farm, you're technically a traitor (aid and comfort to the enemies of the US), but you can't be shot without trial and it's fairly likely you won't even be arrested. (If nothing else, because arresting the population of a whole state is not very practical.)
al-Awlaki was undeniably waging war against the US, but he wasn't (I assume) in active combat at the time of the drone strike. On the other hand it doesn't seem right to require the armed forces to wait for the other guy to shoot first, when he has both declared his intention to do so, and done so in the past. They can reasonably set up ambushes and surprises using all the means at their disposal. Confederate soldiers could still have been shot while they were, say, peacefully sitting down for coffee, with no idea that loyalist forces were anywhere nearby. The al-Awlaki situation seems analogous to this.
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I thought the idea of terrorists assasinating the guy who pushes the button on the drone to be a fascinating ethical exercise.
It's not just a thought experiment. I believe (although that article doesn't state it as such) that that base was targeted specifically because it housed the drone pilots who had recently been responsible for several high profile killings.
I'm not morally uneasy about the use of drones vs. more conventional weapons. People theorize that turning war into a video game makes it easier for an operator to push the button, but I don't think that's true. More generally, the question of the difference between a targeted assassination and killing someone on a battlefield is interesting, and I think we ought to have an honest discussion about what level of threat needs to exist before we're morally justified in killing someone, since it seems like "battlefield" is becoming an increasingly hazy concept.
Moral questions aside, my primary concerns over the current use of drone technology are constitutional. How is it legal to operate a drone in a sovereign country with whom we have not declared war (and, let's say, without the permission of its government). And, in the case of al-Awlaki, drone technology or not, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that an American was targeted for assassination by the US government. At a minimum, it seems like he should have been afforded a trial in absentia, even if the trial was closed, rather than just a "thumbs up" from the NSC.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I think that your analogy would only hold KoM if we had went to kill specifically Jefferson Davis, Lee, Grant or individual Confederates specifically. Killing enemy soldiers indiscriminantly is only valid in that sense because they were wearing a uniform.
There are no battalions of US Citizen terrorists with whom this would apply, only a relative handful of named high profile people of whom should be tried.
Also there is issue with this being a "war", no war was declared, there is no state of emergency, no war powers act or mobilization of the reserves or of the business and industrial sectors towards victory.
This is at best, a policing operation, of a militerized and paramilitary nature for sure, involving armed forces sure, involving transnational borders, but all of this simply serves to underscore the ridiculous paradoxical overreaction the whole thing is.
Government expects people to live normally, carry out their day to day as if nothings changed while demanding no sacrifices, no raised taxes to pay for it, no mobilizations, while harping on the global insurgent threat behind every trashcan, while slowly squeezing political and social liberties.
It's ridiculous, it's a police action dressed up in the cloth of war while no war is being fought and no effort expended to bring it to conclusion.
He should be tried, in absentia or not, then killed if found guilty. All of the terrorist leaders should be also be tried in criminal or international criminal courts for crimes against humanity. With paramilitary, armed police or special forces doing the ground work; not aircraft carriers and amroured divisions draining the treasury and hammering the poor and middle class through inflationary spending.
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quote:Killing enemy soldiers indiscriminantly is only valid in that sense because they were wearing a uniform.
Wearing a uniform is supposed to increase, not decrease, your protections under the laws of war. Under the Geneva conventions, guerrillas may be shot without trial, and are not entitled to the protections given to prisoners of war, unless they were wearing a uniform. Anything you can do to a soldier in uniform, you can most certainly do to an illegal combatant, that is to say, someone who shoots at you without being in uniform. That includes indiscriminate killing, targeted killing, and, you might be surprised to learn, bombing when there will be civilan deaths. The laws of war are written to minimise the incentive for people to fight out of uniform, because if it's allowed that leads to the most protracted, deadly, and disgusting wars; the western world has traditionally (and rightly so!) preferred a single decisive engagement between organised armies, whose result both sides would accept. Hence, for example, Lee's appeal to his soldiers not to go guerrilla but accept that the war was over; the South could have fought on from the hills, and impoverished the US without affecting the outcome. Thus, when someone (in or out of uniform) tries to use civilians as a shield, and the other guy uses artillery and kills both the armed combatant and the civilians, that's a war crime by the one who was using the civilians as a shield, not by the one who killed them.
I am reasonably convinced that both the loyalist and Confederate armies would have jumped at any chance to kill the opposing generals. Stonewall Jackson was indeed killed by a rifle shot, as were many less famous officers. During WW2, the US army told off snipers specifically for the purpose of shooting at enemy officers. Your analogy to Jefferson Davis, a civilian leader, is not a good one; we deal with an enemy that, in some sense, doesn't have any civilians.
quote:It's ridiculous, it's a police action dressed up in the cloth of war while no war is being fought and no effort expended to bring it to conclusion.
A valid point, and I agree; but it is separate from whether people who actively shoot at US soldiers should be treated by the laws of war or the laws of peace. I think there is a very good case for the former, declarations by Congress or none.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I am reasonably convinced that both the loyalist and Confederate armies would have jumped at any chance to kill the opposing generals. Stonewall Jackson was indeed killed by a rifle shot, as were many less famous officers. During WW2, the US army told off snipers specifically for the purpose of shooting at enemy officers.
Part of my concern over al-Awlaki is that I don't think he was actively engaged in planning operations against the US, as the analogy to generals would indicate. Someone like al-Rahman I could see that being an accurate depiction. But al-Awlaki seems to have been primarily an element of the bueracratic rather than operational wing of the militant organization. Maybe a military chaplin is a better analogy; someone who engages in violent and virulent rhetoric, but leaves the fighting (and the direction of the fighting) to others.
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Well, this is a disputed point, but my understanding is that the official justification for killing him is indeed linked to his role in operations; USG is adamant that he was not killed for his public appearances and violent rhetoric, but for operational planning. You can believe them or not as to the facts, but it seems to me that if you take their words as true, then the legalities are on their side.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: [QUOTE]Your analogy to Jefferson Davis, a civilian leader, is not a good one; we deal with an enemy that, in some sense, doesn't have any civilians.
What's the justification for this claim?
Let's say you have a wealthy Saudi who contributes money to al Qaeda but has no other communication with the group. Wouldn't such a person clearly count as an "enemy civilian"?
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Saletan on al-Awlaki killing. His central point, similar to others made in this thread, is that according to a 2010 Classified DoJ briefing (filtered through a Time reporter) it is legal to assassinate a US citizen if: 1) he's fighting alongside an enemy, 2) he poses and imminent threat to the US and 3) he cannot feasibly be arrested. I'm still not clear how that can be reconciled with the constitutional guarantee that a citizen can't "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," but whatever.
I understand the pragmatic issues, and I'm certainly not lamenting the death of a declared enemy of the United States. I would just feel more comfortable with a more clear delineation of how this DoJ finding can be invoked (cf the David Koresh scenario). How immediate does the threat need to be? How realistic does the threat need to be? How difficult does an arrest need to be before it's considered infeasible? I'm not aware of any significant consideration on the part of the Administration of those issues. One would hope it's in the classified memos, but hoping is all one can do given that the memos are classified.
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This is an extremely dangerous precedent, and one we should shy away from if not scorn. I'm trying to imagine just how bad it would have been for John Adams and Benjamin Franklin if the British empire had sent predator drones to neighboring France, to blow them up while they were in carriages.
The fifth ammendment was designed to prevent trialess executions, and the the provision, "except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger" certainly doesn't apply here since he is not in the armed forces.
It's a difficult compromise as classified information that could lose it's value if made public, and even in some cases save lives is being forfeit. But I just can't see killing American citizens without due process with any less distaste than when they were arrested, and tortured in other country's without trial.
posted
I think it is clear due process of law is not just limited to judicial proceedings. If it were otherwise, any enemy fighting us would recruit a handful of US citizens to seed throughout their forces, then say "nanny nanny boo boo you can't shoot at us because you might be depriving a US citizen of life without due process of law".
So, it must be the case that due process of law can include a law that says in certain extreme circumstances a US citizen can be killed without judicial proceedings.
The tricky bit is that the Supreme Court is ultimately who gets to decide (in review) what "due process of law" is and whether or not specific laws are within that aegis. But the lack of judicial proceedings *can't* be presumed to mean the killing was extralegal -- it just doesn't make any sense to interpret the clause that way.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: This is an extremely dangerous precedent, and one we should shy away from if not scorn. I'm trying to imagine just how bad it would have been for John Adams and Benjamin Franklin if the British empire had sent predator drones to neighboring France, to blow them up while they were in carriages.
I'm reasonably convinced the rebel leaders could have been hanged (possibly shot?) without a trial, and quite rightly so; taking up arms against a lawful sovereign is no joke.
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I'm reasonably certain they would have had a trial in England. Major Andre a British officer spy who was captured by American rebels had a trial before being hanged.
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I think some careful distinctions are called for. Major Andre was presumably being treated as a captured officer under the laws of war, which are in the end based on the other side's ability to retaliate in kind. Thus, he was captured as a legal combatant, but tried (possibly by court martial?) as a spy. But he could certainly have been shot in whatever skirmish he was captured in. What's more, if he had been captured in battle and it had been impossible to transport him to a POW camp (or whatever), he could have been shot even after surrender, without trial. The laws of war do not require you to take prisoners you cannot feed, transport, or keep from escaping.
The same applies to Franklin and the other rebel leaders: They could have been shot without trial, if that were the only means of getting them. I shouldn't have suggested that they could have been hanged without trial, that confused the issue.
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IIRC Major Andre was captured out of uniform, which was the major thrust to his being convicted as a spy.
Since Cornwallis refused to exchange Benedict Arnold (who had defected recently) for Andre, we tried him as a spy and hanged him.
Your right though insofar as Adams and Franklin are concerned, I suppose if capture is not possible, then perhaps predator drones are not so beyond the pale.
posted
I just think it's weird to consider a US citizen less, not more accountable for actions harmful to the interests of the U.S., defined in this context as not ending the lives of its other citizens.
quote:someone who engages in violent and virulent rhetoric, but leaves the fighting (and the direction of the fighting) to others.
Uh, yeah, this is Al Qaeda we're talking about. All the leadership whips up young people to kill themselves bringing death and terror to others without undertaking it themselves. Because they (the leaders) are too important. Sorry. I'm just bitter about Jihadist demagogues. Just a little hangup I have.
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So if a US citizen does something harmful to the interests of the US as defined here, he's more accountable as defined by losing some otherwise very concrete American civil rights?
Had we gotten information that he would be in such and such place at such and such time, and he'd been involved either directly or in finance and rhetoric in al Qaeda operations, I would probably have little problem at all with killing him (I'm unsure assassinate is the appropriate term).
That's not what happened here/
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I think it is clear due process of law is not just limited to judicial proceedings. If it were otherwise, any enemy fighting us would recruit a handful of US citizens to seed throughout their forces, then say "nanny nanny boo boo you can't shoot at us because you might be depriving a US citizen of life without due process of law".
So, it must be the case that due process of law can include a law that says in certain extreme circumstances a US citizen can be killed without judicial proceedings.
I find this a truly worrisome idea.
You really want to pass a law that says you can be declared guilty without a trial? Isn't the entire point of the 5th and 6th amendment that you CAN'T be killed extrajudiciously as an American citizen?
I don't even see why it's necessary. Speed wasn't an issue here. We had all sorts of evidence on him. What was to stop them from holding a trial in absentia? Dot the I's, cross the T's. Allow someone outside the executive branch to double check and make sure this guy really is worth assassinating, and then do it.
Passing a law that says you don't get a trial, so you can say that's now included as part of due process seems to be using the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law.
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posted
Lyrhawn: reread the post. First, nobody said anything about declared guilty, including the Constitution. Due process of law is not synonymous with being declared guilty. Second, you've completely ignored the core of the argument: if it is completely anathema for members of the military to kill US citizens without the judicial system becoming involved, what prevents foreign military forces from finding sympathetic US citizens, seeding their forces with them, and preventing the US military from engaging in operations (as that would probably lead to the killing without judicial involvement of US citizens)?
Note, I'm not saying that this specific killing was necessarily justified, just that anyone who says there absolutely must be a judicial process isn't thinking it through.
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There's distinct difference between avoiding a hypothetical firefight with a hypothetical force that hypothetically may or may not have a United States citizen somewhere in it, and the pre-meditated killing of a US citizen.
I apologize if I misread your post, but I think the disconnect between what I read and what you meant is over the issue of what is involved with killing. This was a clear execution. Killing an American citizen in the middle of a firefight, where he's actively engaged in hostilities is different.
I don't think anyone is disputing (or at least, I'm certainly not disputing) that there are clear situations where a US citizen can be deprived of life without a trial or judicial proceedings. See my above comment about SWAT team snipers. That's a different situation from this.
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quote:There's distinct difference between avoiding a hypothetical firefight with a hypothetical force that hypothetically may or may not have a United States citizen somewhere in it, and the pre-meditated killing of a US citizen.
Hardly that hypothetical; US citizens have frequently been parts of other countries' armed forces, including those fighting against the US, and especially including periods the writers of the Constitution were extremely familiar with (Revolutionary War, anyone?). And again, I don't disagree there's a difference, but a lot of people have commented that it is wrong because any killing of a US citizen by the US gov't requires judicial proceedings, and that obviously is not true. I'm glad you agree .
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posted
Oh no, I don't disagree with that at all. I was taking your extra-judicial argument to cover the case at hand, and that I would disagree with. But for ANY situation? I'm with you on that, there are certainly exceptions.
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