Ron Paul blasts Obama for killing Americans

Source: RT

Presidential hopeful Ron Paul has publically attacked the Obama administration’s abolishment of due process in a new editorial, calling the move a turning point in American history.

Responding to Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent justification for the extrajudicial killings of three American citizens on foreign soil, Republican Party candidate Ron Paul has penned a scathing op-ed condemning the White House for circumventing the US Constitution. Earlier this month Holder spoke at Chicago’s Northwestern Law School to discuss last year’s execution of alleged terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki and two other US-born clerics in Yemen, a decision he says the White House still defends despite criticism from citizens and lawmakers alike. 

Although both US President Barack Obama and the CIA signed off on the airstrike that killed the American citizens, Washington has been relatively quiet on the matter until Holder spoke earlier this month. 

After Attorney General Holder justified the assassination of Americans, a congressional inquiry revealed that Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wasn’t certain that the same laws could be applied to killing Americans on US soil. With the FBI and Oval Office both hiding behind vague verbiage to allow the assassination of their own citizens, Ron Paul is critiquing what he calls a complete disregard of the Constitution.

“It is particularly bizarre to hear the logic of the administration claiming the right to target its citizens according to some secret selection process, when we justified our attacks against Iraq and Libya because their leaders supposedly were targeting their own citizens,” writes Rep. Paul. “We also now plan a covert war against Syria for the same reason.”

Holder: Executive Branch Reviews Of Targeted Killings Count As ‘Due Process’

Source: TPM
Ryan J. Reilly

The Obama administration believes that executive branch reviews of evidence against suspected al-Qaeda leaders before they are targeted for killing meet the constitution’s “due process” requirement and that American citizenship alone doesn’t protect individuals from being killed, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech Monday. 

“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.”

Broadly outlining the guidelines the Obama administration has used to conduct lethal drone stikes overseas, Holder said the U.S. government could legally target a senior operational al Qaeda leader who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans if the individual (1) posed an imminent threat of violence; (2) could not feasibly be captured; and (3) if the operation was conducted in line with war principles. 

Such a use of lethal force against that type of individual, Holder said, wouldn’t violate the executive order banning assassinations or criminal statues because such an act would be in “self defense.” In remarks delivered at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, Holder also said that targeted killings are not “assassinations,” adding that the “use of that loaded term is misplaced” because assassinations are “unlawful killings” while targeted strikes are conducted lawfully.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has so far refused to release a copy of a legal memorandum justifying the targeted killing of the U.S. born Anwar al-Awlaki, who allegedly inspired several attacks or attempted attacks on the U.S. 

While not mentioning Anwar al-Awlaki by name — Holder said he “cannot discuss or confirm any particular program or operation” — he arguably referenced his killing by using the example of a U.S. born al Qaeda leader. Holder said that “citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from being targeted.”

America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time

Source: AlterNet.org
Nick Turse

A ground-breaking investigation examines the most secret aspect of America's shadowy drone wars and maps out a world of hidden bases dotting the globe.

They increasingly dot the planet.  There’s a facility outside Las Vegas where “pilots” work in climate-controlled trailers, another at a dusty camp in Africa formerly used by the French Foreign Legion, a third at a big air base in Afghanistan where Air Force personnel sit in front of multiple computer screens, and a fourth that almost no one talks about at an air base in the United Arab Emirates. 
 

And that leaves at least 56 more such facilities to mention in an expanding American empire of unmanned drone bases being set up worldwide.  Despite frequent news reports on the drone assassination campaign launched in support of America’s ever-widening undeclared wars and a spate of stories on drone bases in Africa and the Middle East, most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably anonymous -- until now.  

US Judges Rule Government is Above the Law

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:  GRTV.ca and Corbett Report

The Shocking Truth of America's Secret, Unaccountable, Unlegislated Death Panels

From: End The Lie

Madison Ruppert

The killing of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, suspected of having links to al Qaeda but never charged with any crime, signaled a new era in the U.S.’s “war on terror” in which even American citizens were fair game for extrajudicial executions.

This execution, carried out by a CIA controlled drone in Yemen without any due process whatsoever, pales in comparison to a revelation so significant, even the mainstream media was forced to cover it.

What was this revelation? Only the fact that a secret group of U.S. officials has the power, without any laws giving them said power, to sentence anyone on earth to death without any semblance of due process or justice.

As evidenced by the killing of al-Awlaki and another American Samir Khan (the editor of the English-language al Qaeda magazine, Inspire), this includes American citizens who have never been so much as charged, let alone convicted of any crime whatsoever. I don’t know about you, but I find it a bit frightening that you or I could be on a literal kill list for any reason or no reason at all.

However, I must implore you to fight against the instinctual fears raised by such knowledge as it is clear that these types of moves on behalf of the American government serve to stifle dissent and criticism and we cannot allow that to happen. Let us also not fall for the ridiculous politicized rhetoric that attributes the death panel solely to Obama, who has proven himself to be nothing more than a puppet serving those who put him in power.

Obama's Very Real Death Panel: The CIA's Assassination Program

From: LewRockwell.com and Global Research.ca

Anthony Gregory

It’s official. The American dystopia is here. Obama administration officials admit that the CIA assassination program that snuffed out Anwar al-Awlaki last Friday is guided by a secret panel that decides who lives and dies. According to Reuters:

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

Let that sink in. The U.S. presidency, supposed leader of the free world, has a clandestine committee that chooses American citizens to assassinate. This from the administration that promised unprecedented transparency and a ratcheting back of Bush-era civil liberties abuses. This from the president who vowed to restore habeas corpus and subject executive war powers to judicial scrutiny. This from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

New World Next Week - 10/06/11

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