Holder-u.s. can kill its own

[Danzig]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...1547#c63101547

Holder: US can legally kill Americans in terror groupsBy Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent
The U.S. government is legally justified in killing its own citizens overseas if they are involved in plotting terror attacks against America, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday, offering the Obama administration's most detailed explanation so far of its controversial targeted killing program.

"In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out, and we will not," he said in remarks prepared for a speech at Northwestern University's law school in Chicago.

An American-born Islamic cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen in late September. Some civil liberties groups condemned the attack. Others, including members of Congress, called for a more complete explanation of how such a targeted killing of an American civilian was consistent with the U.S. Constitution.

The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be "deprived of life" without due process of law. But that due process, Holder said, doesn't necessarily come from a court.

"Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process," the attorney general said.




thoughts?

i completely disagree with his stance on this. i am appalled that the AG of the USA would take such a stance as this.



the aclu:

The ACLU called Holder's explanation "a defense of the government’s chillingly broad claimed authority to conduct targeted killings of civilians, including American citizens, far from any battlefield without judicial review or public scrutiny."

"Few things are as dangerous to American liberty as the proposition that the government should be able to kill citizens anywhere in the world on the basis of legal standards and evidence that are never submitted to a court, either before or after the fact," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project.

[bigrun]

War is hell....should we send a team in, capture and bring back here for trial?
Maybe lose team members in pursuit...or just don't bother with them?...i dunno..

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by bigrun

War is hell....should we send a team in, capture and bring back here for trial?
Maybe lose team members in pursuit...or just don't bother with them?...i dunno..

that's another thing...they say it's a war. and yet, when 9-11 happened, it wasn't an act of war. don't believe me? go ask all the insurance companies. policies don't pay out in an act of war, but the govt. didn't want to have to be on the hook. so that was declared not an act of war. no one has their cake and eats it too like the govt does.

as for americans on foreign soil? holder's right- you don't wait for them to commit the act-but the only alternative is execution? no trial, no jury of your peers-just some members of the govt. deciding that someone is guilty....yeah, i don't like that one bit. talk about a slippery slope!

Originally Posted by Danzig

that's another thing...they say it's a war. and yet, when 9-11 happened, it wasn't an act of war. don't believe me? go ask all the insurance companies. policies don't pay out in an act of war, but the govt. didn't want to have to be on the hook. so that was declared not an act of war. no one has their cake and eats it too like the govt does.

Just think that there are military widows who have been reduced to prostitution to keep their families fed and it could have been prevented if our leaders had the balls to actually declare war. But no, they have to sh.it all over the founding fathers and constitution.

Yeah...we support our troops alright.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by bigrun

War is hell....should we send a team in, capture and bring back here for trial?
Maybe lose team members in pursuit...or just don't bother with them?...i dunno..

Ah, you bring up the "official" word, the word that is avoided in much of this. If you haven't had war declared against an enemy as our law requires, what can the executive and military legally do?

[DaTruth]

I'm also waiting on an explanation for why it was okay for the United States to kill another U.S. citizen in Yemen, al Awaki's 16 year old son.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by DaTruth

I'm also waiting on an explanation for why it was okay for the United States to kill another U.S. citizen in Yemen, al Awaki's 16 year old son.

i have no doubt that holder could come up with an explanation for that.

this is yet another example of how the current admin. is no better than the previous. we heard from the opposition how bush was leading us down a bad path-but what is this? worse. a member of our presidents administration is attempting to weaken the constitution, in this case to kill the united states' own. who would have thought it would come to this?
wonder why the name robespierre suddenly came to mind? you know, that guy was against the death penalty in the days before the terror. look where that got a lot of france's citizens.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

this is yet another example of how the current admin. is no better than the previous. we heard from the opposition how bush was leading us down a bad path-but what is this? worse. a member of our presidents administration is attempting to weaken the constitution, in this case to kill the united states' own.

The enabling legislation you are referring to was passed during Bush as a result of 9-11. It is no "attempt to weaken", it is continuing what already exists due to Bush. It "came to this" 10 years ago. The silence at that time was deafening - actually, it was purposely tamped down - as any objection was "anti-American in a time of war". And yes, the current administration continuing it is wrong.

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Riot

Ah, you bring up the "official" word, the word that is avoided in much of this. If you haven't had war declared against an enemy as our law requires, what can the executive and military legally do?

Double Secret UN probation? Or in the case of Obama, throwing cash at the rebels, a la Ollie North except this time the rebels are groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and groups who believe Israel should be wiped out

You must find it amazing that Al Qaeda is coming back to Iraq when in your mind, they were never there in the first place.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

Double Secret UN probation? Or in the case of Obama, throwing cash at the rebels, a la Ollie North except this time the rebels are groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and groups who believe Israel should be wiped out

You must find it amazing that Al Qaeda is coming back to Iraq when in your mind, they were never there in the first place.

You're such a shallow and stupid person. Making up baseless false crap you invent in your feebled mind. You can't even seen I'm agreeing with everyone else in the thread.