Should the flag protect those that are intent on destroying it?

I have no doubt that there would be a large contingent of the "but this is different, we're at war" crowd who'd be all too willing to cross that legal line and not look back.

 

Borla, I agree.

 

If I can make a reasonable case that Rush Limbough and Glen Beck are inciting violence and recruiting for the Tea Party Taliban would it be OK if we assassinate them if they travel abroad? Do we need to wait?

The opening that this creates for a President Palin or Bachman scares the crap out of me.

 

Yes, the framework in which Awlaki was killed is the issue. I don't believe Awlaki's extra-judicial killing can set a precedent for future abuse against political dissidents within the geographical territory of the US. In the other thread, I mentioned to Willravel that rule of law has a limited value and as such the sacrifices made to ensure impartial application of rule of law must be limited. Awlaki would not have surrendered to the US government and agreed to stand trial in the US rather than continue his "sacred" work in the Middle East. He had numerous financial incentives to remain in the States as a prominent and sought-after Islamic lecturer. Instead, it would have taken squadrons of Special Forces/US Marines, with the likelihood of several becoming casualties, to extradite Awlaki forcefully to the US. Asking him to surrender and insisting on due process is a non-issue given the circumstances of the situation.

This point relates to both you and Joniemack: Military and operational intelligence can often not be used in the court of law. Intelligence is, for the majority:
- Unverified reports from agents in the field. Or "verified" by use of unverified reports from other agents.
- Often gathered in an, when it comes to the US legal system, illegal manner.
- Often extracted through highly secretive methods, which, for the sake of not informing other nations of those very methods, cannot be publicized in the civilian stage.
- Unsubstantiated by hard and concrete evidence.
- Information from insiders of the organisation targeted.

Take for example the classic scenario of "throwing bait", giving select members of an organisation different, and often contradictory, data. When the same information is then publicized the source is quickly found and taken out. It takes intelligence agencies a huge amount of effort to implant their agents within target organisations. Risking a leak of the information simply because it was used in court is a no-brainer; no matter if the presiding judge provides an injunction to impose confidentiality of the information the court was subject to, the information is still "out there". Information gathering is fluid and the fruits of which cannot be entrusted from specialized agents to untrained civilians to handle.

No matter how much you guys like to rile against the lack of publicized evidence and due process, sometimes you really have no choice but to accept the unsubstantiated claims.

I disagree on the methods involved just as much as any of you, but you all concern yourselves with the theoretical aspects only and not with the very real practical ramifications.

 

I guess it was lucky for us that he wasn't in the u.s. Since we obviously wanted him dead. He hasn't actually done anything that we could kill him for. Not even texas.

 

I'm talking from a German perspective here, but you guys have got to be familiar with the semantics of "treason".

What do you consider it when a US citizen actively aids a movement intent on attacking America, its armed forces and its civilians?

 

Those seriously interested may want to read the report by the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions here.. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=.../14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf&embedded=true

If it is too long to read, maybe just take the conclusions.

I have no doubt that the killing was expedient. I also have few doubts that other options were available (especially considering the Yemenis were working with, and trained by the US on this) or that the implications (legal and other) are considerable.

I rather hope that the USA will never be given permission to carry out such an attack in my country, even though some may find it useful for "taking out" rivals.

I appreciate that the US argues that it is facing some kind of unique threat. However, I don't see it as unique and I don't see any serious threat to the institution of the USA. While there is always the threat of a terrorist strike (and there has been in many countries for a long time), this approach could increase that threat rather than diminish it.

 

"while they're busy reaching conclusions, I'll be reaching for something else."

The uniqueness of the USA has been its patience. Some misidentify this as timidity, but given "our" armaments, I must agree. The flag has to both propel us & let us be. In this there are some contradictions. Nobody, Alistair, has ever been asked by the USA for permission for anything.

 

Are you serious? On what basis can you claim that? It was official US policy for a long time to provide swift and over-the top retaliation to anything. I think that policy continues. It is certainly effective as long as you have might on your side.

I do hope that isn't true. Well, truthfully, I know that it isn't true. If it was, we'd have a problem - and the problem would be the USA.

 

Yes...ask me again. Our history, not meaning only the USofNA's, has been what you said. I don't think that means hasty idiocy, mostly. Neither pointing fingers nor naming names, this country's greed can't be denied. This country became so comfortable, for awhile, that becoming a target was inevitable.

 

OK, back to my original question.....

Interesting article. I seems that my concern on due process has been resolved, in a sense. However, we have to take 'their' word that this is all legal. I'm not sure that I feel any better about this.....

In fact, I feel worse.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...explains-why-obama-can-kill-americans/246004/

 

That's the only thing that is clear. Transparency, anyone?

 

Seems clear to me.. "Trust me - I'm a Jedi".

OK. I have been assimilated.

 

All Hail the new King of Everything.

Unitary Executive privilege (theory), is most likely the basis for the legal justification.

As indefensible and as untouchable as ever.

 

I think that, despite the protestations to the contrary, the perpetrators of 9/11 have probably succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

In terms of TWAT (great acronym!) I don't know. Did anyone say what the objective was? Or was it just to give greater power to the President because "we are at war.. kinda.. but not really.. don't get clever with me, kid,.. this is all new, you know!"

Actually, it's probably too soon to say. I think many objectives exist. One (imo) was to give a more stable base for US forces in the strategically important location of the Middle East. Saudi was looking flaky.

 

it seemed to me this was an opportunistic move. hard not to be cynical about the timing. it's implications in yemen aren't yet clear, but this:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/40443?utm...=Feed:+bigthink/blogs/waq-al-waq+(Waq+al-Waq)

presents an interesting overview. it's hard for me anyway to comment on it, and this mostly a function of my language limitations, or the flip of them, which is the extent to which what i know is shaped by what gets into one of the languages i can read (arabic not being one of them, sadly).

i neither understood the grounds for this "war on terror" business nor supported it as a military game from jump. i thought--and still think---it would have been far more coherent as a criminal matter. but that's not how the bush people rolled, and, sadly, its also not how obama's administration has either. i think the downsides of a vaporous "war" on a concept have far outweighed the advantages and that among the worst of them is that, through this targeted killing program, the united states has (again) become what it claimed to be fighting. and there were two unjustified invasions---afghanistan being arguable, iraq clearly not. it's been a disaster for the american empire---especially iraq---and accelerated if not created the dynamic of collapse that we are now living through. it initiated a ridiculous climate of hysteria/paranoia with significant limitations on civil liberties---but more, it served as a pretext for a massive expansion of surveillance national and international, the consequences of which have been a joke insofar as their stated objectives have been concerned (circular arguments aside) but remain relatively unclear otherwise. i think the way the right reacted to 9/11/2001 has lead to fiasco. it's astonishing to me that anyone, at all, anywhere continues to take them seriously.

among the other problems is that just as there's no real definition of who the adversary really is---aq serves the purpose of giving an illusion of focus---so it is that there's no reason this ever has to end. this only benefits the military-industrial complex, to quote eisenhower. one thing i do think the obama administration has tried to do---operating within a foul and stupid context called gwot---is to adopt a relatively literal interpretation of the objective and to undertake actions that make ending it a viable possibility. but they haven't done it, and there's no indication that they either know how to or will. but at least it's a possibility. i don't have a clear idea of how the game will get played out from here.

great for defense contractors, though, this vagueness. it's kept the national-security state extant past the point that by any rational standard it should have been dismantled---it was established in 1948 as a mechanism for by-passing normal democratic processes because that bad man stalin didn't have to worry about it. it was the patronage network that grew up around the transformation of war into a permanent feature of being in america (cold war)...it became the central pork barrel for the right since the reagan period. emphasis on that permitted much of the other economic transformations the outcomes of which we have been treated to over the past few years. it rationalized spending over 40% of federal outlays on the military and ignoring other priorities.

so i don't know how it's going. looks to me like a giant farce. but i'm a little cynical about such things.