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FirmhandKY -> RE: Obama authorizes killing of US citizen (4/10/2010 2:26:31 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Politesub53
Both have given the go ahead to kill members af Al Qaida. The only thing you are doing is making a point that they are different nationalities. Talking of willful blindness, you quote Olbermann as having kudos, only when he agrees with your point. No doubt if Bush had done this, and not Obama, you would be defending him.
Well, you're not an American, so I guess it's legal for Obama to order your termination. [:D]
On the serious side ... I am certainly making a distinction between protected American citizens, and people of any other nationality. As far as I am concerned, only Americans are covered by the American Constitution and laws.
If you wish to make a moral argument about there being no difference between an American life, and another nationalities life, have at it in another thread. Morally, I'd not disagree with you.
However, legally, in the American legal system, there is a vast difference.
You also seem to be saying "Bush did it - although it was illegal - and therefore Obama can do it, and worse." (although Bush did not do it).
The possibility of killing an American without due process, outside the battlefield seemed to be inherent in the Bush policy, and that garnered a lot of liberal opposition, and similar restrictions on "American rights" less than the right to life even generated lawsuits. One American was killed in a strike in Yemen, when a group of AQ terrorists were attacked. He was not specifically targeted.
Bush never specifically gave an order to terminate a specific American's life without regard to their location outside of a battlefield, without due process, and regardless of what the American citizen was doing at the time.
An American in arms supporting AQ, or actively fighting American forces anywhere, can legally be shot and/or killed because they are actively in combat with the US government at the time, and normal legal issues do not apply. As I mentioned, many Americans are currently killed without due process while in the commission of felonies within the US by our law enforcement personnel.
This is worlds away from calmly sitting down and ordering the death of an American citizen anywhere in the world - even if he is asleep in his bed, even if he is eating dinner with his family - without due process as required by our Consititution for .
From what I understand of your thinking, if Obama decided in a Presidential finding that Joe Liebermann was "a threat to the US and a member of AQ", then he could order him terminated as he was leaving the Senate. Because, after all ... Bush could have done it?
Firm
PS. Here is some material concerning "due process" in the US system.
Basically, the 5th and 14th admendments of our Constitution specifically say that no citizen shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
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