When Obama Can Kill You, Explained

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/eric-holder-drone-speech-7124146

We can help President Obama today by explaining as LOUDLY as we can that he shouldn't lead this country so far into the quagmire of extrajudicial killing that it never finds its way out again.

Attorney General Eric Holder's appearance at Northwestern on Monday, during which he explained the exact circumstances under which the president can order the killing of just about anyone the president wants to kill, was not promising. The criteria for when a president can unilaterally decide to kill somebody is completely full of holes, regardless of what the government's pet lawyers say. And this...

"This is an indicator of our times," Holder said, "not a departure from our laws and our values."

...is a monumental pile of crap that should embarrass every Democrat who ever said an unkind word about John Yoo. This policy is a vast departure from our laws and an interplanetary probe away from our values. The president should not have this power because the Constitution, which was written by smarter people than, say, Benjamin Wittes, knew full and ******* well why the president shouldn't have this power. If you give the president the power to kill without due process, or without demonstrable probable cause, he inevitably will do so. And, as a lot of us asked during the Bush years, if you give this power to President George Bush, will you also give it to President Hillary Clinton and, if you give this power to President Barack Obama, will you also give it to President Rick Santorum? To continue:

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

Well, I'm reasssured.

And who will allegedly "restrain" the president in the exercise of this incredible usurpation of executive power? A bunch of unelected Cabinet officers? Some wise men brought over from Congress? This would be the same Congress that has fought so very hard to maintain its constitutionally delegated war powers over the past 60 years? I don't mean to get all Ron Paul with you here, but he's right about one thing: The Congress has an undeniable and irrevocable constitutional mandate over the war powers of the government, and that mandate is exactly the same in 2012 as it was in 1789, and as it was in 1941, which was the last time the Executive branch condescended to ask for a constitutionally proper declaration of war. Why we should believe that a Congress that has so thoroughly abdicated that profound constitutional obligation ever would, through the delegation of authority to a few of its members, enforce it against an Executive branch thoroughly set on killing someone is not for small minds to ponder. And why would the Executive ever bother to listen anyway? No Congress is ever going to impeach a president over the improper use of military force; in 1972, Congressman Robert Drinan, S.J. tried to do that to Richard Nixon over the blatantly impeachable offense of bombing Cambodia in secret, only to have the sainted Tip O'Neill squash the whole business until they could do it properly over a conspiracy to cover up a cheap-ass burglary. This ingrained cowardice was why the Congress of the time did not assert its constitutional authority and impeach Ronald Reagan over the crimes of Iran-Contra, wherein the administration made war unconstitutionally in Central America. Oh, but don't get the Congress started about blowjobs because, wow, will they get all noble then.

You want some help, Mr. President? Keep the country from sinking further into this lawless abyss.

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http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/eric-holder-targeted-killing

On Monday, the Obama administration explained when it's allowed to kill you.

Speaking to students and faculty at Northwestern University law school, Attorney General Eric Holder laid out in greater detail than ever before the legal theory behind the administration's belief that it can kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without charge or trial. In the 5,000-word speech, the nation's top law enforcement official directly confronted critics who allege that the targeted killing of American citizens violates the Constitution.

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

Who decides when an American citizen has had enough due process and the Hellfire missile fairy pays them a visit? Presumably the group of top national security officials—that, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, decides who is targetable and forwards its findings to the president, who gives final approval.

There won't be any drone strikes in Denver anytime soon. But you might want to be careful when traveling abroad, because Holder made it clear that there are no geographical limits in the fight against Al Qaeda. "Neither Congress nor our federal courts has limited the geographic scope of our ability to use force to the current conflict in Afghanistan," Holder said. "We are at war with a stateless enemy, prone to shifting operations from country to country."

Holder's speech did outline some concrete limits to when the US government is allowed to target its own citizens. The target has to pose an "imminent threat of violent attack" to the US and be beyond the ability of American authorities to capture, and the strike can't violate international standards governing the use of force by killing too many civilians or noncombatants.

But don't assume that when Holder says "imminent threat of violent attack," he means that you're actually part of a specific plot threatening American lives. "The Constitution does not require the president to delay action until some theoretical end stage of planning when the precise time, place, and manner of an attack become clear," Holder said. That would introduce an "unacceptably high risk of failure." When he refers to "failure," Holder presumably means failing to kill the target before the attack or plan for an attack materializes, not the possibility that the government might accidentally kill an innocent person.

If the standards for when the government can send a deadly flying robot to vaporize you sound a bit subjective, that's because they are. Holder made clear that decisions about which citizens the government can kill are the exclusive province of the executive branch, because only the executive branch possess the "expertise and immediate access to information" to make these life-and-death judgments.

Holder argues that "robust oversight" is provided by Congress, but that "oversight" actually amounts to members of the relevant congressional committees being briefed. Press reports suggest this can simply amount to a curt fax to intelligence committees notifying them after the fact that an American has been added to a "kill list." It also seems like it would be difficult for Congress to provide "robust oversight" of the targeted killing program when intelligence committee members like Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are still demanding to see the actual legal memo justifying the policy.

Both supporters and opponents of the administration's targeted killing policy offered praise for the decision to give the speech. They diverged, however, when it came to the legal substance. "It's essential that if we’re going to be doing these things, our top national security and legal officials explain why it's legal under international and constitutional law," said Benjamin Wittes, a legal scholar with the Brookings Institution, who said he thought the speech fulfilled that obligation. "I think [the administration] is right as a matter of law."

In a statement, Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's national security project, called the authority described in the speech "chilling." She urged the administration to release the Justice Department legal memo justifying the targeted killing program—a document that the ACLU and the New York Times are currently suing the US government to acquire. "Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust the next president with that dangerous power."

The question is no longer an abstract one. In September, radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen alongside fellow American Samir Khan. Awlaki and Khan produced the English-language extremist publication Inspire, but until the sentencing of underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab, the US government provided little evidence they were much more than propagandists. Awlaki's son, Abdul Rahman al-Awlaki, also an American citizen, was killed about a month later.

These deaths and those to come, Holder insisted Monday, do not represent a violation of America's founding principles. "This is an indicator of our times," Holder said, "not a departure from our laws and our values."

Maybe it's both.