"The President Says He Can Kill You" a message from Demand Progress

I came across an email the other day from Demand Progress noting what Obama has recently told CNN regarding his right to assasinate anyone without due process. I thought I'd share the message with my fellow ATSers. What are you opinions regarding this issue? How do you feel about it? Thanks much!

Mick

We're teaming up with our firends at RootsAction to call President Obama to account:

It's astonishing, but he claims that he has the power to assassinate people all over the globe -- including Americans -- with no due process.

Please read on for more information and to take action.

-Demand Progress

GRAPHIC: Roots Action logo header

"Due process" can be a trial, or a missile through your roof.




President Obama told CNN this week that he can kill Americans or non-Americans, the difference being that with Americans their killing amounts to their Constitutionally guaranteed due process.


CNN asked Obama how he chooses names for his kill list, but he declined to say. Obama claimed that there are checks on his power, pointing only to checks by his own subordinates, not by courts, not by Congress, and not by the public -- which he reassures with vague statements that amount to "trust me."

Obama claimed that his preference is to capture people rather than to kill them. This does not fit with cases like that of Tariq Khan, a 16-year-old killed by drone strike following his participation in a conference at which he could have easily been captured. It does not fit with the lack of criminal charges against virtually any of the people killed.

Obama claimed that he avoids killing civilians, yet careful research has documented large numbers of civilians killed, including this week in Yemen.

Tell President Obama to live up to his own rhetorical support for the rule of law and due process.

Tell him that a drone strike or a bullet to the head does not constitute due process, for Americans or anyone else.

Due process is not, as comedian Stephen Colbert pointed out, just some process that you do.

Click to see a video of President Obama's comments.

Please forward this email widely to like-minded friends.

-- The RootsAction.org team

P.S. Our small staff is supported by contributions from people like you; your donations are greatly appreciated.

P.P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, and many others.

God bless America.

i very much doubt it was obamas big brain that thought this up..this left/right sh%t doesnt make a damn bit of difference..i believe this would be regardless of what puppet is pretending to run the show

Coming from a Constitutional Law Professor to boot...

The president can't kill me. He might be able to order me killed, but him? That's a joke, he couldn't kill me if he tried his hardest. I don't think he would have the guts even if he was presented the opportunity, he's a coward.

Obama is ....wrong. (working on being less combative. )

However, it's real REAL important to note that replacing Obama won't solve a single thing here. He didn't invent the concept of Hunter-Killer teams or the flying equivalent for tracking and ending problems caused by U.S. Citizens. George Bush's administration came up with that little brainstorm and to be real specific, Dick Cheney polished the edges and rounded the corners of American Death Squad tactics. Most of which the public has never even heard the names of the places the things happened in....let alone any true concept of how far over the lines of Constitutional it's already gone.

Obama has simply continued and expanded upon a nightmare of '1984' style thinking which fist was explained gently then simply dictated to us as a whole, starting of Sept 12, 2001. It makes Obama NO better in this way, indeed...but it means the problem now carries deeper and he's only a part of it. So much to do if we ever want to get back to a way of thinking that doesn't include the assassination of American citizens on the whims of it's leaders. What did happen to us??

reply to post by lr7gmx


Here is a journalist that has some stones -- I will give the president credit for the masterful talking point that ignored the question though.



Oh and I give it 10 minutes before the partisan hacks point out the obvious in regards to the video.

you can take your tripe....as to keep my status...i will stop here

but stories like this is why parts of america are broken....stop inhaling i say

WELL - it's about time the President gets some justice.
The President now has the right to kill citizens and non-citizens alike.
The Citizens have two centuries of proving that right regarding Presidents.
/SARCASM OFF

One wonders on what constitutional grounds the President claims this authority - or what statutory authority - or what authority by treaty - or what authority by the UN, the cartoonists guild, the NFL, the Pope - just where does this authority come from? My initial impression was that he had been speaking through his vertical smile.

I've got to see this video to see exactly what was asked and said.

i watched the video - basically the Prez just didn't address the issue and constitutionality didn't really make it into his replies. So please disregard that last comment about the vertical smile: I think we all know where the claimed authority comes from now.

ganjoa

It's been tried before...I'm still here...they ain't.

Originally posted by lr7gmx
I came across an email the other day from Demand Progress noting what Obama has recently told CNN regarding his right to assassinate anyone without due process. I thought I'd share the message with my fellow ATSers. What are you opinions regarding this issue? How do you feel about it?

1) he's a bona fide, state-sponsored terrorist
2) he's a war-monger, murderer that has never set foot in a war zone
3) he's a hypocrite for running initially as an anti-war candidate in '08 and then he turns out worse than Bush Jr.
4) he's a typical, blow-hard coward insulated from the effects of and responsibility for ... his criminal behavior
5) if there's any justice on this rock, maybe he'll encounter another blow-hard coward that is his polar opposite and thinks exactly like he does.

Originally posted by thePharaoh
you can take your tripe....as to keep my status...i will stop here

but stories like this is why parts of america are broken....stop inhaling i say

How in God's green earth is this "tripe"??
Murder is murder regardless of the position of the person ordering it.
Would it be alright if he decided to kill your parents, because he suspected they were terrorists.?
This is exactly what you are condoning,
Nor is this a partisan issue -
Bush and Cheney are just as guilty and should stand trial.

Blind defense of p artisan interests is what has split our country,
Instead of enforcing the law we have allowed our leaders to go farther and farther over the line until we're sitting here right now arguing how to get back to a position of sanity and lawful behavior.
thank God the people of this nation have more respect for the law than our government.
We must hold them accountable because the normal processes of government policing itself is long dead.

Originally posted by ganjoa
One wonders on what constitutional grounds the President claims this authority - or what statutory authority - or what authority by treaty - or what authority by the UN, the cartoonists guild, the NFL, the Pope - just where does this authority come from? My initial impression was that he had been speaking through his vertical smile.

Your expert level word 'smithing just caused my computer to take a bath -- it just got totally covered in a spew of white coffee. :-)

These few lines brought a smile to my face. More importantly, it made me *think*. Thank you.

At least today's "Obama's daily twist"is interesting. It's amazing I don't have to turn on a.m. radio any longer to feel the hate. Guess you haven't learned anything from election day

reply to post by Ikema


Please do add more to this thread. Please elucidate for us how this is hate?

Drones were not over American skies during the Bush administration.

To be perfectly clear there.

From the campaign of water boarding and rendition was evil to murder what do people expect it shouldn't be a partisan issue but it is.

For obvious reasoning.

Originally posted by neo96
Drones were not over American skies during the Bush administration.

To be perfectly clear there.

From the campaign of water boarding and rendition was evil to murder what do people expect it shouldn't be a partisan issue but it is.

For obvious reasoning.

Nope.. Drones weren't over American skies during the Bush years. You're absolutely right. Outside of training, they weren't patrolling American airspace with weapons on the wings.

What we did have were dedicated and very very specialized teams of men who did the work the drones are set up to do today. No...I'm afraid I don't have links and I won't elaborate more on my own source of feeling this way. Suffice it to say that I see the news occasionally talk about REALLY digging into the counter-terrorism operations of the Bush years and what has carried into the Obama years with both fear and anxiousness....as well as a sense of relief that maybe some of the worst evil I've ever had the burden to know about can see the light of day. Maybe..one of these times.

This B.S. of even suggesting as a theoretical idea that the murder of human beings without due process OUTSIDE an active battlefield is proper is vile. (Not your opinion, Neo, the policy as it's come to be accepted) I mean, it's what the U.S. stood AGAINST until 2001....now it's come to be what the U.S. not only embraces but gleefully shares the tech and training for OTHER Governments to do to their own people. Look at the drone "air force" being assembled at little bases across North Africa?

No no no. Obama is all about unity and togetherness and end the war and stop the killing.

You must be mistaken. Probably thinking of something Bush did.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well before there were drones there were cruise missiles unmanned death from above context and history is lacking in this conversation.

reply to post by neo96

You're right of course....it is a question of the use a tool is put to and not the tool itself. All things being equal, the "little" Hellfire's off the wings of a drone beat the heck out of a 1,000lb warhead from a Tomahawk which is what history has seen done before at times overseas.

The drones have their place I'd say and can serve as an invaluable means of support and intelligence to troops. It just shouldn't replace them and the human judgement of men who will be physically bloodied by the result of the decisions made. Something about a 19yr old finishing his Burger King Whopper right before dropping into his seat at Creech Air Force Base to send a Hellfire up the tailpipe of an American in Yemen doesn't set right with me.... (I know, it was likely a drone and control pilot out of Djibouti and not Nevada but still...just as detatched from action and consequence to the judgement used in go/no go to fire)