NBC (Michael Isikoff): Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans
The raw report (courtesy Secrecy News)...
While much of what it tells us is nothing new, certain details are brought to light demonstrating that the program is potentially far more insidious than one might have thought. For instance, as concerns the notion of "immanent threat," Glenn Greenwald notes in...
Gaurdian: Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens
The memo claims that the president's assassination power applies to a senior al-Qaida member who "poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States". That is designed to convince citizens to accept this power by leading them to believe it's similar to common and familiar domestic uses of lethal force on US soil: if, for instance, an armed criminal is in the process of robbing a bank or is about to shoot hostages, then the "imminence" of the threat he poses justifies the use of lethal force against him by the police.
But this rhetorical tactic is totally misleading. The memo is authorizing assassinations against citizens in circumstances far beyond this understanding of "imminence". Indeed, the memo expressly states that it is inventing "a broader concept of imminence" than is typically used in domestic law. Specifically, the president's assassination power "does not require that the US have clear evidence that a specific attack . . . will take place in the immediate future"...
One might have inferred the policy as such, however, synthesizing previously known administration efforts on a. pursuing "preventative detention" legislation, whereby the assumed but evidentially undiscovered proclivity to terrorism is enough to warrant detention; b. using loose criteria - "all military-aged males in a strike zone" - for identifying terrorists as adequate not just for capture but for killing; and c. the already executed policy (known to have occurred deliberately in one case and collaterally in two, including that of a minor) of drone assassination of U.S. citizens outside of judicial or congressional oversight.
It should come as no surprise then that Obama is indeed assuming dictatorial powers in the very arbitrary sense that the word "dictator" implies; and we can only bemusedly smile at the bewildered dismay of his otherwise supportive hopium tokers succumbing to the cognitive dissonance that these facts induce. Now having broken through the partisan blood-brain barrier and shafting into the very heart of the Obama-zombie echo-chamber - MSNBC - we shall see how the old adage, "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite," pans out for 21st Century America.
Discouragingly, there is a tendency to fish for apologies, excuses, and allowances that really it's not as bad as it looks. Even Scott Shane, co-author of many of the New York Times pieces on these matters, including most recently: Drone Strikes’ Risks to Get Rare Moment in the Public Eye; Mr. Shane was recently heard on NPR confabulating...
I don't think it's that [President Obama is] bloodthirsty and really enjoys trying to put people's names on lists to be killed. I think there's a certain wariness — probably a proper wariness — that any president would have towards agencies. Agencies kind of want to do what they're good at doing, or what they're job is.
So certainly, according to what we've heard, both the CIA and ... the element of the military that does these strikes are pretty aggressive. They want to find targets and kill them, and so I think the role of the White House — the role that President Obama assigned to the White House — was, and to himself, was really one of restraining the agencies...
Indeed, restraining these agencies from people like Stanley McCrystal...
Reuters: Retired general cautions against overuse of "hated" drones
Shane drones on...
...double-checking the agencies, making sure that at this sort of broader strategic, political level, that there was good judgment being exercised, that you weren't taking a shot in a very marginal situation or for a marginal gain and risking a big backlash that would put the United States in a worse position.
It is extraordinary that this is the same guy who previously described for us Brennan and Obama deciding whether or not to kill a 17 year old girl...
This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years...
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We have been brought to assume the worst about this president. Enough so that we should question whether the assassination policy has any constraints at all, and whether the methods include the CIA's more traditional "black bag" modus operandi, even with the president himself participating in the PSYOPS. A case in point, on the morning of Feb. 2, the White House issued a dubious photo of Obama demonstrating his purported marksman skills...
This Ain't Hell: Saturday steaming bowl of Skeet
Curious timing, as later that day, top rated Navy SEAL sniper, Chris Kyle, was gunned down in Texas...
The memo claims that the president's assassination power applies to a senior al-Qaida member who "poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States". That is designed to convince citizens to accept this power by leading them to believe it's similar to common and familiar domestic uses of lethal force on US soil: if, for instance, an armed criminal is in the process of robbing a bank or is about to shoot hostages, then the "imminence" of the threat he poses justifies the use of lethal force against him by the police.
But this rhetorical tactic is totally misleading. The memo is authorizing assassinations against citizens in circumstances far beyond this understanding of "imminence". Indeed, the memo expressly states that it is inventing "a broader concept of imminence" than is typically used in domestic law. Specifically, the president's assassination power "does not require that the US have clear evidence that a specific attack . . . will take place in the immediate future"...
One might have inferred the policy as such, however, synthesizing previously known administration efforts on a. pursuing "preventative detention" legislation, whereby the assumed but evidentially undiscovered proclivity to terrorism is enough to warrant detention; b. using loose criteria - "all military-aged males in a strike zone" - for identifying terrorists as adequate not just for capture but for killing; and c. the already executed policy (known to have occurred deliberately in one case and collaterally in two, including that of a minor) of drone assassination of U.S. citizens outside of judicial or congressional oversight.
It should come as no surprise then that Obama is indeed assuming dictatorial powers in the very arbitrary sense that the word "dictator" implies; and we can only bemusedly smile at the bewildered dismay of his otherwise supportive hopium tokers succumbing to the cognitive dissonance that these facts induce. Now having broken through the partisan blood-brain barrier and shafting into the very heart of the Obama-zombie echo-chamber - MSNBC - we shall see how the old adage, "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite," pans out for 21st Century America.
Discouragingly, there is a tendency to fish for apologies, excuses, and allowances that really it's not as bad as it looks. Even Scott Shane, co-author of many of the New York Times pieces on these matters, including most recently: Drone Strikes’ Risks to Get Rare Moment in the Public Eye; Mr. Shane was recently heard on NPR confabulating...
I don't think it's that [President Obama is] bloodthirsty and really enjoys trying to put people's names on lists to be killed. I think there's a certain wariness — probably a proper wariness — that any president would have towards agencies. Agencies kind of want to do what they're good at doing, or what they're job is.
So certainly, according to what we've heard, both the CIA and ... the element of the military that does these strikes are pretty aggressive. They want to find targets and kill them, and so I think the role of the White House — the role that President Obama assigned to the White House — was, and to himself, was really one of restraining the agencies...
Indeed, restraining these agencies from people like Stanley McCrystal...
Reuters: Retired general cautions against overuse of "hated" drones
Shane drones on...
...double-checking the agencies, making sure that at this sort of broader strategic, political level, that there was good judgment being exercised, that you weren't taking a shot in a very marginal situation or for a marginal gain and risking a big backlash that would put the United States in a worse position.
It is extraordinary that this is the same guy who previously described for us Brennan and Obama deciding whether or not to kill a 17 year old girl...
This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years...
+
We have been brought to assume the worst about this president. Enough so that we should question whether the assassination policy has any constraints at all, and whether the methods include the CIA's more traditional "black bag" modus operandi, even with the president himself participating in the PSYOPS. A case in point, on the morning of Feb. 2, the White House issued a dubious photo of Obama demonstrating his purported marksman skills...
This Ain't Hell: Saturday steaming bowl of Skeet
Curious timing, as later that day, top rated Navy SEAL sniper, Chris Kyle, was gunned down in Texas...
Eliminating dissent? Or was Kyle executed in order to cover up an attempted character assassination?
Examiner: SEAL sniper being sued by Jesse Ventura found murdered
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Another likely assassination, though in this case the "persons of interest" would be associates of the Bushes (which could include Obama), as the target was one Phillip Marshall, a former CIA/DEA pilot and author of books on 9/11 and Iran-Contra (in which he was an unwitting participant as a flyer out of Mena, Arkansas with notorious CIA drug-runner Barry Seal who, incidentally, was assassinated on this day in 1986, and is regularly cited as a denizen of the Bush and/or Clinton body count). In the case of Marshal, the "black bag" operation was particularly vicious, as he was "suicided" after allegedly murdering his teenage son and daughter and dog...
Santa Barbara Review: Phillip Marshall Wrote About a Conspiracy; Was He the Victim of One?
Wayne Madsen seeks to connect this to the murder mystery of Sarai Sierra in Istanbul the same weekend, as Marshall's ex-wife was also in Istanbul at the time of the murder. The connection is unclear, but his observation in conclusion is worth noting...
WMR: Is there a connection between alleged double murder-suicide in California and dead American woman in Turkey?
President Obama's policy on assassinating American citizens anywhere in the world has been authorized by what are called "elastic" Department of Justice criteria. Four Americans are now dead with Turkey being a common factor. Because of his policies, Mr. Obama now owes the nation a full explanation of "what he knew and when he knew it" every time an American dies from suspicious causes at home or abroad. The Marshall-Sierra deaths call for an immediate "what they knew and when they knew it" explanation from Mr. Obama and the architect of America's torture, kidnapping, and assassination policies, John O. Brennan, nominated by Obama to head the CIA.
Madsen, following up on the Murphy, California side of the story, concludes that Phil Marshall had something that someone was willing to kill to obtain, noting that Marshall was currently working on a new book, telling a friend that "You're not going to believe the stuff I'm going to have in the next book."
Madsen, who was on site Feb. 13, notes that a stack of empty bankers boxes were found at the front door. Subsequently the premises was broken into and then visited by Marshall's estranged inlaws, who were said to have made "quite a mess." It is unclear whether the inlaws or the Sheriff currently possesses Marshall's computer. In either case, the fate of his unfinished, final book is not looking good.
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In other deaths with opportunistic timing, Paraguay's populist president has been "aviated" into the netherworld...
Economist: The last caudillo - Lino Oviedo’s death may help the Colorados return to power
Will the Bush family finally cash in on that investment made some years ago...?
FourWinds10.com: BEAUTIFUL PARAGUAY - THE BUSH'S LIKE IT - WONDER WHY?
