Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens

Post by vdaniuk » Tue, Sep 24, 2013, 10:41 AM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #94

grey-area wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those people were plotting to kill hundreds/thousands of your more innocent citizens And if they weren't?

Yeah, that's one of the problems. You'd hope the agencies involved are only taking these actions where they have extreme certainty. And even if they do have that super-high certainty, it still is an execution without a trial, which makes a lot of people uneasy. Utmost transparency (probably has to be after-the-fact) into each case where this is done might help to put some people a little bit more at-ease about it. In…

Post by chii » Tue, Sep 24, 2013, 10:45 AM UTC

r0h1n wrote: post #46

tikhonj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he is not missing the main point. Rather, he is addressing part of the issue. All his post says is that it does not--and should not--matter whether the person in question is an American citizen. This is a fact which stands regardless of your opinion on the rest of the problem, and so it makes sense not to address that. In more explicit terms: if you believe this sort of extrajudicial killing is illegal (which man…

As I see it, there are two issues here: (a) an person is declared a terrorist in secret by a bunch of secret govt folks, basis which he or she is 'approved' for assassination by the US state, (b) the person may or may not be a US citizen, though the former confers significantly better chances of not being assassinated. While not disagreeing with the import of your argument, namely that "citizens and non-citizens" oug…

Post by chii » Tue, Sep 24, 2013, 10:52 AM UTC

flumbaps wrote: post #74

aurelius83 wrote: post #22

The other day several american muslims strapped a bomb onto themselves and killed themselves and many innocent people in a suicide attack in Kenya. If there were actual legal mechanisms built into the US constitution or laws created that dealt with fighting an asymmetrical war with people like this then I really doubt the President would go through this process, but that's not the case. I'm not really sure how we sho…

In yearly global death count, terrorism accounts for around 10,000. That would not be a big deal even if all those deaths were in the US (and not scattered over the globe, and mostly in places of high civil unrest). I'm not saying 10,000 deaths isn't sad, but in 2011 a whopping 597,689 Americans died of heart disease. Yet, there aren't secret government enforced exercise camps, are there? There aren't secret courts t…

Post by chii » Tue, Sep 24, 2013, 10:54 AM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #60

kubiiii wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge donwside is that it creates 10 potential terrorists seeking revenge for every suppressed potential threat.

That's a good point, it might do that. (haven't seen evidence, but it does sound plausible)

Post by grey-area » Tue, Sep 24, 2013, 10:57 AM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #94

grey-area wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those people were plotting to kill hundreds/thousands of your more innocent citizens And if they weren't?

Yeah, that's one of the problems. You'd hope the agencies involved are only taking these actions where they have extreme certainty. And even if they do have that super-high certainty, it still is an execution without a trial, which makes a lot of people uneasy. Utmost transparency (probably has to be after-the-fact) into each case where this is done might help to put some people a little bit more at-ease about it. In…