Thread: In Constitutional Republics, Presidents Don’t Have ‘Kill Lists’

In Constitutional Republics, Presidents Don’t Have ‘Kill Lists’

By Doug Bandow

June 07, 2012 “Information Clearing House” – Washington routinely criticizes despotic regimes where officials exercise the power of life and death without restraint. President Barack Obama is such an official.

The U.S. has been fighting the “war on terrorism” for more than a decade. Washington has turned targeted killing — or assassination — into routine practice. The military deploys SEALs when the job needs to be close and personal, like killing Osama bin Laden. But drones are the preferred tool of choice. The administration claims to have recently used one to kill al-Qaida’s number two man, Abu Yahya al-Libi, in Pakistan.

This new form of warfare raises fundamental questions for a constitutional republic. International law bars arbitrary killing. Domestic law further restricts the execution of U.S. citizens. Moreover, promiscuous assassinations move foreign policy into the shadows, reducing public debate over basic issues of war and peace.

The issue ended up in federal court in August 2010 when Nasser al-Awlaki filed suit seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the Obama administration from executing his son, Anwar al-Awlaki. The latter had been added to the federal “kill list” for his activities in Yemen with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The judge dismissed the lawsuit on procedural grounds and Anwar was later killed by a Predator drone.

Limits on government are necessary to preserve a liberal democratic order and protect individual liberty. The potential for abuse is greatest where state power is most extreme. There is no more extreme power than the power to kill.

After 9/11, one could view terrorism as a form of war, but the authorization of force passed in response more than a decade ago targeted people who since have been mostly killed or captured — those who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 9/11 attacks. To legitimize presidential action today, Congress should vote for a declaration of war directed against present threats to America.

Moreover, if the U.S. is fighting a war, it should be conducted by the military under the president as commander-in-chief. The CIA should develop intelligence for use by the Pentagon in targeting its weapons, in this case drones. But the military should do the shooting. Of course, civilians at the agency are as capable as uniformed personnel at the Department of Defense at directing drones. However, giving responsibility to the CIA strips the process out of its war-related context, making it easier to deploy drones in less justifiable circumstances.

Some claim that Congress has secretly given the agency authority to kill. However, while operational matters are appropriately kept secret, legal authority to conduct lethal operations is not. Americans should know who is doing what in their name.

Those killed must be combatants. A leader, like al-Libi, of a hostile, violent terrorist group engaged in an ongoing campaign to harm Americans may be treated as the functional equivalent of a commander of a foreign military fighting against the U.S. Membership could count too, at least if someone is trying to kill Americans and has some potential of succeeding. But most terrorists don’t make videos confirming their status. And intelligence is imperfect: In the aftermath of 9/11, many non-terrorists were arrested at home and detained overseas. Some were imprisoned and tortured.

According to a recent New York Times report, which relied on information that was likely leaked to enhance the president’s national security credentials, the administration has established a regular inter-agency meeting at which administration officials debate who to kill. It is presented as rigorous and demanding, yet the president’s chief political adviser, David Axelrod, reportedly attends (though he claims he does not). Supposedly members freely challenge targeting proposals, but there is no independent person to question administration priorities or review administration actions. The article presents the president as a wise, judicious, and principled arbiter, but even if so, he should be held accountable for his decisions.

The U.S. must minimize the deaths of noncombatants. Admittedly, this is especially difficult where there is no traditional battlefield upon which most of the fighting occurs. The irregular nature of terrorism means members of threatening organizations often live and operate in the midst of civilian communities. Mistakes are easy to make.

However, concern for noncombatants should be an obvious moral imperative. Terrorism is outrageous because it targets those who have done nothing wrong. What if counter-terrorism kills the innocent, even if inadvertently? The Times story notes the possibility of “explicit intelligence posthumously proving” people to be innocent, but there is no medical procedure to posthumously unkill people — at least not yet.
The other reason to kill only real terrorists targeting Americans is prudential: Mistakes create terrorists. It doesn’t take an investigative journalist to recognize that hostility toward the U.S. continues to rise in both Pakistan and Yemen along with the number of drone strikes. And that should surprise no one: Americans would react badly if another power, say China, was routinely lobbing missiles into American neighborhoods, killing people, even if it was doing so in the name of fighting terrorism. The enemies created are not limited to the nations targeted. Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen, cited drone attacks as justification for attempting to set off a bomb in New York City’s Times Square.

Unfortunately, the administration has yielded to temptation and expanded the kill list to include people like Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistan Taliban. The Times notes that the U.S. killed Mehsud in 2009 even though his group “mainly targeted the Pakistan government.” The administration rationalized “that he represented a threat, if not to the homeland, to American personnel in Pakistan.”

U.S. officials also admit that they were played by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen: “There were times when we were intentionally misled, presumably by Saleh, to get rid of people he wanted to get rid of,” one unnamed official told The Washington Post. Yet the U.S. campaign in Yemen recently has been broadened to operatives who supposedly pose a threat not to Americans in America, but Americans in Yemen. Reported The Post: “A growing number of attacks have been aimed at lower-level figures who are suspected of having links to terrorism operatives but are seen mainly as leaders of factions focused on gaining territory in Yemen’s internal struggle.”

No provision of the U.S. Constitution or law — at least, that is publicly known — authorizes the president to kill as a favor for other governments. Moreover, treating others as enemies naturally turns them into enemies.

There are lots of bad people in the world, but even if they don’t like America they might not plan on doing Americans ill. However, if the U.S. starts dropping drones on them, they likely will change their plans to include the U.S. Which in turn will be used by Washington to justify dropping even more drones on them. The administration claims to operate on narrow criteria, but if so, the rising use of drones suggests that the administration is doing something very wrong to generate so many new terrorists. Shahzad approached the Pakistan Taliban rather than al-Qaida for assistance — and it obliged. As my Cato Institute colleague Malou Innocent has pointed out, the estimated number of members of AQAP has more than doubled over the last three years — despite supposedly killing many of them through drone strikes. Notes The Times: “Drones have replaced Guantanamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.”

In short, Washington intervenes and creates enemies in other nations, which it uses to intervene again to kill those new enemies in other nations. And so the process continues, in a potentially infinite cycle.

Worse, though, from both a moral and practical standpoint, is the killing of noncombatants. The administration has variously claimed that none recently have been killed or that the number is very low. But as The Times reports, “In Pakistan, Mr. Obama had approved not only personality strikes aimed at named, high-value terrorists, but signature strikes that targeted training camps and suspicious compounds in areas controlled by militants.” It seems that the administration equates living in a “suspicious compound” with planning an attack on America.

Analysts with the New America Foundation and the London-based Bureau for Investigative Journalism figure that hundreds of innocents have died. Even administration officials admit that earlier strikes have gone awry, but they argue that such inaccuracies are a thing of the past. While it is widely agreed that fewer civilians are being killed now than were a few years ago, residents of targeted areas respond with incredulity to the administration’s claim of immaculate assassination.

In fact, Washington’s asserted accuracy appears to be by definition. According to The Times, the administration “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: People in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top al-Qaida operative, are probably up to no good.” So living next to or talking with a possible terrorist now is a death sentence?

Drones can be highly effective, as reflected in al-Libi’s killing, and may be the best among bad alternatives. Certainly launching drones is better than launching invasions. However, law, morality, and prudence all require that drone use be strictly limited and controlled.

The problem with executive execution is even greater when those targeted are American citizens. The U.S. government can kill Americans — the police do so every day. However, officers must act under lawful authority against an imminent threat and kill as a last resort. Such actions must be subject to “strict scrutiny,” as the courts put it. Similar criteria should apply when dealing with Americans overseas. The president has no authority to kill his fellow citizens for the convenience of foreign leaders or because they are criticizing Washington rather than threatening Americans.

Anwar al-Awlaki is the most celebrated case. But The Times reports that several Americans, including teenagers, also are on the U.S. kill list.

The administration apparently produced a 50-page memo on al-Awlaki’s alleged terrorist role, but refused to release the document even after his death. Allowing the president and his aides to compile kill lists in secret with no charges filed, no outside review of evidence, and no oversight of decisions should concern every American. Unreviewable and unaccountable power is inconsistent with a constitutional republic.

At the very least the administration should create a formal process with internal checks and balances. However honest such an internal review might be, it still would not be enough.

The nation’s founders created a system to constrain government irrespective of who was in office. Electronic surveillance of foreign powers and their agents, which could include Americans, posed a similar challenge, causing Congress to approve the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA allows surveillance of foreign parties without a court order, but requires a warrant, granted by a special court, for Americans.

Congress could create a similar process for targeted killings. Legislators should establish special national security courts to grant formal assassination warrants. The government would have to demonstrate that a serious threat to life was imminent and there was no reasonable alternative to execution. Judges would be trained to assess intelligence claims. A warrant would allow the government to place a name on an official kill list for a set period of time; renewal would require a return trip to court. Such a process would be an ugly second best, but far better than today’s system of unfettered executive discretion.


More fundamentally, Americans should reconsider Washington’s promiscuous military intervention abroad. Constantly meddling in foreign conflicts costs American lives, wealth, and liberty. This interventionist foreign policy also inevitably creates hostility and encourages terrorism. Indeed, Washington’s “war on terrorism” has left Americans less secure and free.

Osama bin Laden and terrorists like him long ago lost the military aspect of the war on terrorism. But they succeeded in transforming the U.S. Amazingly, most Americans view as unexceptional the president’s claim to unilateral power to kill anyone anywhere in the world. If we forget that we are securing a constitutional republic, we risk losing the freedoms which make America unique and worth defending. Then the terrorists truly will have won.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire (Xulon). A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

This this article was first published at The Daily Caller

In Constitutional Republics, Presidents Don’t Have ‘Kill Lists’ : Information Clearing House.

The Progressive Mind » ** In Constitutional Republics, Presidents Don

Related: How to spot a sociopath - 10 red flags that could save you from being swept under the influence of a charismatic nut job

Related: Characteristics of Psychopaths: Watch Out For These Red Flags -- Science of the Spirit -- Sott.net

THE WHITE HOUSE SECRET KILL LIST

By Chuck Baldwin
June 7, 2012
NewsWithViews.com


In a recent column posted on LewRockwell.com, Judge Andrew Napolitano highlighted a recent New York Times investigative report that reveals how President Barack Obama is engaging in secret assassinations worldwide. Judge Napolitano begins, "The leader of the government regularly sits down with his senior generals and spies and advisers and reviews a list of the people they want him to authorize their agents to kill. They do this every Tuesday morning when the leader is in town. The leader once condemned any practice even close to this, but now relishes the killing because he has convinced himself that it is a sane and sterile way to keep his country safe and himself in power. The leader, who is running for re-election, even invited his campaign manager to join the group that decides whom to kill.


"This is not from a work of fiction, and it is not describing a series of events in the Kremlin or Beijing or Pyongyang. It is a fair summary of a 6,000-word investigative report in The New York Times earlier this week about the White House of Barack Obama. Two Times journalists, Jo Becker and Scott Shane, painstakingly and chillingly reported that the former lecturer in constitutional law and liberal senator who railed against torture and Gitmo now weekly reviews a secret kill list, personally decides who should be killed and then dispatches killers all over the world--and some of his killers have killed Americans.


"We have known for some time that President Obama is waging a private war. By that I mean he is using the CIA on his own--and not the military after congressional authorization--to fire drones at thousands of persons in foreign lands, usually while they are riding in a car or a truck. He has done this both with the consent and over the objection of the governments of the countries in which he has killed. He doesn't want to talk about this, but he doesn't deny it. How chilling is it that David Axelrod--the president's campaign manager--has periodically seen the secret kill list? Might this be to keep the killings politically correct?"


The judge concludes, "Since 9/11, the United States government has set up national security systems that function not under the Constitution, not under the Geneva Conventions, not under the rule of law, not under the rules of war, not under federal law, but under a new secret system crafted by the Bush administration and personally directed by Obama, the same Obama who condemned these rules as senator and then extended them as president. In the name of fighting demons in pick-up trucks and wars that Congress has never declared, the government shreds our rights, taps our cellphones, reads our emails, kills innocents abroad, strip searches 87-year-old grandmothers in wheelchairs and 3-year-old babies in their mothers' arms, and offers secrecy when the law requires accountability.


"Obama has argued that his careful consideration of each person he orders killed and the narrow use of deadly force are an adequate and constitutional substitute for due process. The Constitution provides for no such thing. He has also argued that the use of drones to do his killing is humane since they are 'surgical' and only kill their targets. We know that is incorrect. And he has argued that these killings are consistent with our values. What is he talking about? The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents."
See Judge Napolitano's column.


Let me begin by offering kudos to Judge Napolitano for his trenchant column, and kudos to New York Times reporters Jo Becker and Scott Shane for their blockbuster report.
Do readers not find it a little curious that hardly anyone in the national press corps--or even in the vast majority of the local media--has not picked up the Times report? After all, the New York Times is the unquestioned flagship newspaper of America. The vast majority of newspapers around the country rely on the NYT for much of their reporting. So, why didn't we see this report blasted on front pages all across the United States? Do newspaper publishers and editors really think that this report is not Page One worthy? Is not this the kind of story that the freedom of the press was directly designed for? And where were the three major network news shows or even the cable news shows on this report? This is an incredible report, and for all intents and purposes, the story is relegated to media oblivion.


Oh, yes! Maybe we also now know why so many drones are beginning to appear over the skies of America.


One would think that the supposed "anti-Obama" FOX News network would be all over this story. To help enlighten readers, let me quickly point out the sagacious point that Judge Napolitano made in his column, "Since 9/11, the United States government has set up national security systems that function not under the Constitution, not under the Geneva Conventions, not under the rule of law, not under the rules of war, not under federal law, but under a new secret system crafted by the Bush administration."


Ah! There it is! That's why FOX News ignores the story. G.W. Bush is just as culpable in this monstrous activity as is Barack Obama. In fact, Bush is the one who created this modern American version of Hitler's Brown Shirts. When it comes to ignoring the US Constitution and assuming dictatorial Hitlerian policies, Republican and Democrat Presidential administrations of late have been virtual Siamese Twins.


Now, please read this paragraph carefully (taken from HistoryLearningSite.com): "Germany became a nation of snoops. People were employed in each street, in each building complex, etc. with the sole purpose of keeping an eye on others in their 'area' and reporting them to the authorities if they believed that something was amiss. [Sounds like America's Department of Homeland Security, doesn't it?] The reputation of the Nazi police and the secret police lead by Himmler was such that no-one wished to cause offence. People kept their thoughts to themselves unless they wished to invite trouble. In this sense, Nazi Germany was a nation run on fear of the government. Hitler had created a one party state within months of being appointed chancellor."


See the report here.


And ladies and gentlemen, this is why electing Mitt Romney will change nothing! The same Orwellian, big-government internationalists who are manipulating Barack Obama, and who manipulated G.W. Bush (and Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush) are manipulating Mitt Romney. Ever since President Ronald Reagan, it hasn't mattered to a tinker's dam whether a Republican or Democrat has been in the White House. As Sonny and Cher sang, "The Beat Goes On." For all intents and purposes, America only has one party at the national level. Pat Buchanan was right when he said that the Elephants and Donkeys inside the Beltway were "two wings of the same bird of prey."

Of course, if the American electorate suddenly got a surge of constitutional electricity and would elect Congressman Ron Paul as President, the story would be much different. Things would change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue--not to mention in the United States and the entire world--dramatically. However, with the majority of Americans in the hip pockets of the mainstream media, a Romney/Obama showdown in November seems inevitable (although I am still privately cheering for a Ron Paul coup d'etat at the GOP national convention in Tampa).

So, how many people have been or are on this secret kill list--and who are they? With the vast majority of the mainstream media cowering in abject fear of the federal government, and with both major parties in Washington, D.C., walking in lockstep to the drumbeat of an emerging police state, who is left to even sound an alarm of protest? Well, two New York Times reporters did; Judge Andrew Napolitano did; Lew Rockwell did. And now I am, too.


Is this the kind of government that most Democrats want? Is this what they wanted when they elected Barack Obama? Is this the kind of government that most Republicans want? Is this what they wanted when they elected G.W. Bush?


Anyone who cannot see history being repeated is flat not paying attention! I cannot believe my country has turned into this!


Anyway, thank you Judge Napolitano for being a watchman on the wall!


• If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link.


And please visit my web site for past columns and much more.


© 2012 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

Chuck Baldwin is a syndicated columnist, radio broadcaster, author, and pastor dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America was founded. He was the 2008 Presidential candidate for the Constitution Party. He and his wife, Connie, have 3 children and 8 grandchildren. Chuck and his family reside in the Flathead Valley of Montana. See Chuck's complete bio here.

E-mail: chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com


Website: ChuckBaldwinLive.com

Chuck Baldwin -- The White House Secret Kill List

bttt

http://www.alipac.us/f9/first-2-obam...inated-270168/