Obama Authorizes Assassination of American Citizens

by Dave Blount | April 8, 2010 2:36 pm

Remember when liberals screeched themselves hoarse in righteous indignation because Bush had authorized listening in on the overseas phone calls of Al Qaeda operatives? Good thing W didn’t try implementing something like this — from Salon[1] yesterday:

In late January, I wrote about[2] the Obama administration’s “presidential assassination program,” whereby American citizens are targeted for killings far away from any battlefield, based exclusively on unchecked accusations by the Executive Branch that they’re involved in Terrorism. At the time, The Washington Post‘s Dana Priest had noted deep in a long article[3] that Obama had continued Bush’s policy (which Bush never actually implemented) of having the Joint Chiefs of Staff compile “hit lists” of Americans, and Priest suggested that the American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was on that list. The following week, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, acknowledged in Congressional testimony[4] that the administration reserves the “right” to carry out such assassinations.

Today, both The New York Times[5] and The Washington Post[6] confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield. I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they’re sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind. I won’t repeat those arguments — they’re here[7] and here[8] — but I do want to highlight how unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical this is in light of these new articles today.

It’s strange to hear a Salon lib complaining about this. They don’t want the poor guy forced to play soccer at Club Gitmo, do they? Besides, Al-Alwaki deserves to die at least as much as the survivors of botched abortions — who have also been sentenced to death without trial[9] by Comrade Obama.

That this story isn’t plastered across the front of every liberal newspaper is testimony to the magic of the Moonbat Messiah. More testimony is his amazing ability to erode our civil liberties while simultaneously playing to lose in the “contingency operation against man-caused disasters” that we must not call the War on Terror.

On a tip from Kevin M. Cross-posted at Moonbattery[10].

Endnotes:
  1. Salon: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations
  2. I wrote about: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen
  3. deep in a long article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012604239_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010012700394
  4. acknowledged in Congressional testimony: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012604239_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010012700394
  5. The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.html?hp
  6. The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040604121.html?hpid=topnews
  7. here: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen
  8. here: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/04/assassinations
  9. sentenced to death without trial: http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/the-obamessiah-patron-saint-of-botched-abortions/
  10. Moonbattery: http://www.moonbattery.com/

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/war-on-terrorism/obama-authorizes-assassination-of-american-citizens/