Forum Post: Attorney General Eric Holder's Constitution SHREADING speech: Obama can KILL US CITIZENS
Posted 12 years ago on March 8, 2012, 11:20 a.m. EST by SparkyJP
(1646)
from Westminster, MD
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Attorney General Eric Holder's Constitution SHREADING speech: Obama can KILL US CITIZENS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8NmED4Xrk8
Why US Gov't 'CAN' Kill Americans -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eum130DpWIY
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that the decision to kill a U.S. citizen living abroad who poses a terrorist threat "is among the gravest that government leaders can face," but justified lethal action as legal and sometimes necessary in the war on terror.
Holder's comments broke the administration's silence on the legal justifications for its decision to kill American-born al-Qaida operative Anwar al-Awlaki five months ago in Yemen. In a speech at Northwestern University law school in Chicago, he described al-Awlaki as concocting plans to kill Americans but he never explicitly acknowledged the administration responded by targeting the cleric for death.
Instead the attorney general outlined a three-part test for determining when a targeted killing against a U.S. citizen is legal. He said the government must determine after careful review that the citizen poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the U.S., capture is not feasible and the killing would be consistent with laws of war.
The Obama administration has refused to release the Justice Department legal opinion on al-Awlaki's killing under the Freedom of Information Act and is in court opposing efforts to have it made public.
Responding to criticism from civil libertarians, Holder flatly rejected the suggestion that the Constitution's due process protections require the president to get permission from a federal court before taking lethal action.
"The unfortunate reality is that our nation will likely continue to face terrorist threats that at times originate with our own citizens," Holder told a packed Thorne Auditorium, where all 700 seats were filled with law students, who were taking notes on their laptops, were joined by Chicago-based federal prosecutors and other observers.
"When such individuals take up arms against this country and join al-Qaida in plotting attacks designed to kill their fellow Americans there may be only one realistic and appropriate response," the attorney general continued. "We must take steps to stop them in full accordance with the Constitution. In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out – and we will not."
Al-Awlaki's killing in a joint CIA-U.S. military drone strike on a convoy in Yemen sparked a public debate over whether the president should have the authority to kill an American without a conviction and despite an executive order banning assassinations – which Holder called a "loaded term" that doesn't apply in this case. Until now the Obama administration has said very little about it publicly as administration officials have debated how much to reveal in response to the criticism.
The day that al-Awlaki was killed, President Barack Obama said his death was "a major blow to al-Qaida's most active operational affiliate" and "another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al-Qaida." But he did not acknowledge publicly that the United States was responsible for the drone attack, which was confirmed by counterterrorism officials.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/us-targeted-killings-eric-holder_n_1320515.html
This is setting the stage for a police state in America. Maybe it's too late, and it already exists. But consider this.
About 2800 people died on 9/11. At least 10 times that amount or more die in traffic accidents every year. Yes, the first is murder and the second is accidental. But death is death no matter how it happens. Must we give up our precious freedoms for the whole nation because some people might die by terrorism?
Let the government do everything it can to prevent terrorism at home and abroad. But let it also stop short of curtailing the Bill of Rights to do so.
Let us as a people help to crush terrorism by outing terrorists.
We as a People Will Move FORWARD. TOGETHER.
Whatever you believe the necessary course to be Depends on who you trust to identify the enemy
This is very true. It takes observation and investigation. Take nothing at face value. Look for the truth. A lead can be false. But the source of a false lead may yield truth.
This is community action for those who know each other. This is why it is good to have a strong community. This is why it is good to know your neighbors. To recognize when evil moves in.
Communities that are strong know who is out of place.
Correction. Its not just Obama. Any man who holds the office of the president of the United States of America, along with a pretty much self appointed secret panel of 'advisers' can sentence any person they feel like to death.
Call me crazy, but this death sentence by President and panel of 'advisers' sounds more akin to a medieval king and his court deciding which dissidents they want silenced.
Its ominous that laws to allow privately operated drones in US Airspace came into effect at about the same time as this pronouncement from Holder.
Heck, Awlaki was only in the news because he was prominent and because they took him out with a drone. Who is even going to know when they kill someone less prominent in an 'accident'? They wont even need to offer a justification then.
I stand corrected and you are right. This will set a precedent and will open a whole new can of worms. All future presidents will have this hit squad power. I share your concerns.
I'm so glad to think that the Republican Party has never engaged in the shredding of the Constitution, or the unauthorized instigation of foreign wars! So glad to know that if they are given even further power we will finally see a return to government of the people and not the international elite! Yeah, vote against Obama and usher in a new day! While you're at it, just forget which party pushed this agenda down our throats in the first place.
First we elect the most progressive Democrats we can, then we form a new party and shove the lot of those corrupted and compromized out.
Any other aparoach in the current political sphere between now and November is just a vailed attempt to further Republican control of the political process.
Voting D's & R's will get you more of the same. Both sides are paid by the same people. If the agenda you speak of is the wars; then the bush doctrine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Doctrine ) and the R's, AND the 'bipartisan' vote in congress, took us to perpetual war to fight 'terrorism'. Obama has doubled down on the bush doctrine by killing American citizens without charging them, a hearing, trial or conviction. He simply has to wave his hand, declare 'you're a terrorist', and you die. Shredding the Constitution!
Same song, over, and over, and over, and over . . .
I've responded to this falacy so many times that I will simply ask you to look up one of the dozens of posts I've made refuting it. You are apparently professionally obtuse.
[Removed]
The most progressive? Then the destruction of the Constitution would be complete.
Nice, a complete reversal of the logical process. I like it when you guys attempt that, instead of beating around the Bush with it.
How can your communist, sorry, progressive, agenda be Constitutional?
Easy. Because unlike the Constitutional fundamentalists, who read the Constitution like a bible thumper reads the bible, The Founders were not perfectionists and knew they were not, so they devised an ambiguous document that could be re interpreted by future generations. Read the works of Madison, and you'll see that I'm right. Progressives are not Communists, which is a foreign doctrine. They are modern day Federalists, which is as American as apple pie.
So in other words interpretation is subject to whatever fad or trend is worming its way through the legal community. Great way to do it. Yeah, that'll make everything better..
I was reading a NY Times article about this, and here's an excerpt I found striking:
Nor does the killing of Mr. Awlaki mean, as Glenn Greenwald charged in Salon, that “due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality.” An attack on an enemy soldier during war is not an assassination. During World War II, the United States targeted and killed Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Moreover, the United States knew there were many American citizens in the German Army during World War II, but it did not alter its bombing practices as a result.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/opinion/a-just-act-of-war.html
Certainly, US citizens fighting in an enemy army (under the circumstances that existed in WWII) is distinguishable from a targeted assassination (the comparison is just nonsensical). Moreover, although Adm. Yamamoto did attend Harvard for I think two years, I couldn't find any information suggesting he was an American citizen.
Okay, in all honesty, it's hard for me to feel sorry for al-Awlaki, he was a terrorist, he was linked to the Fort Hood shootings (among many other things), but I am concerned about the precedent this sets.
This and NDAA has the potential to set legal precedents and release a malevolent genie that we'll never get back in the bottle.
I'm not necessarily saying al-Awlaki wasn't a terrorist; we just don't know because we only heard one side of the story and the media reports & spins the story as it's told to. I trust them not. The "terrorist" label, in the future, could be made to apply to many people - perhaps even to the point that people who openly speak out against government corruption, could be considered a "terrorist". I don't know where all of this is going - but it doesn't reflect the values I thought this county had.
Yeah, really scary stuff there by Holder . . . not! You want to know what's scary - Blackwater, that's scary - and brought to you by the POTUS that lied us into Iraq. By the way, what's with the stupid dog puppet that tells us how to interpret what we watched there?
Do right-wingers need puppets to tell them what to think, or puppetmasters? Either way it ain't very reassuring.
Hey - If you have to label me; a socialist would be more appropriate. I'm left of the D's & R's and never voted for a Rethug. Additionally, I'm not running with blinders on either, and I'm not afraid to question the motivations of power, even if it's a party or person that I support.
Do you understand the concept of being charged, hearing, trial, before conviction or execution? What the administration is doing is bypassing that process and killing American citizens by labeling them a terrorist. These are the same people that brought you NDAA ( allows for unlimited detention of US citizens without charge or trial). This isn't a right or left issue. This is a civil rights issue. Maybe you don't care whether your rights are being plucked from us in a methodical fashion - but I do! Allowing this sets a precedent and has a high risk for future abuse. Government "intelligence" has been wrong in the past. You may be singing a different tune, when the accusing terrorist - finger gets pointed your way.
BTW - Obama requested the language in the bill, that allows for unlimited detention of US citizens without charge or trial when the senate committee wanted to omit that language -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmDe3FrOXfc
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. Thomas Jefferson
I agree completely. Now we must atriculate a plan to achieve the goal of restoring our democracy.
Not only restoring our democracy - But preventing this BS from ever happening again! You may have noticed in some of my other posts, that I am an advocate for a Direct Democracy. I think it's the only way for the people to keep our government in check. See what you think, and if you like the idea - help spread the word. Cheers !
http://osixs.org/Rev2_menu_commonsense.aspx
I am if very definate agreement on the goals here, and that the final objective should be a system as close to direct democracy as possible. Yet I would like also to preserve the openness of representitive democracy. There is something very valuable about the process being open, in the physical world, to public scrutiny. The ways to rig elections are getting more sophisticated all the time. And yet I agree with the essential goal.
But there is another point here, and that is that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. I think OWS really has essential agreement on goals, but you can't just establish direct democracy, the reason being that the existing power structure is still there and isn't going to go away just because we ask them to. The focus must then become, how do we get them to do so?
This becomes a very complicated and nuanced problem. They must be pressured to do so. Wanting something is not the same as achieveing it.
So I would ask you to say, in a simple and practical way (because straightforward ways are the only ones that work) how you think we can go about doing this:)
In my mind, there is only one way. The majority of Americans have to want it. It's the basis of a DD. It's all about the majority. Yes, I know that sounds like a tall order, but with congress approval ratings at 9%; the wars; corrupt fed; unfair tax system; unaccountable white collar crime, obvious corruption, reduction of civil rights, attacking of women's rights, etc., more and more people are starting to realize that this system is about to implode. What they don't realize, is that they have a choice. I think that's what drags everyone down, because they feel powerless ................. because under the present system, they are. They have never been offered a DD. I consider it my job to bring this info to as many people as I can; explain it as best I can; let the individual decide, and move on.
It's also about belief. You have to believe that the goal is obtainable. You have to imagine what it would be like in your minds eye and convey that to everyone. You have to offer them a choice because right now, they don't understand that they have one. You also have to educate yourself about DD so you can spread your knowledge.
Also, at the end of this page, there's a section called " What to do Next" (but you must read and understand the WHOLE page or even the whole site.)
http://osixs.org/Rev2_menu_commonsense.aspx
Another thought might be to run for the Delegate Candidate in your district for the 99% Declaration. - http://www.the99declaration.org/
During the week of July 4, 2012, 878 delegates will meet in Philadelphia for a National General Assembly where you could bring your suggestions for a DD.
Vote in the online petition to Declare Dissolution and Termination (This petition is the trigger for a real door to door and state to state grass roots petition for an orderly assembly process to Ratify DDT and EDT in all 50 states.) -
http://osixs.org/Vote.aspx
You can distribute these fliers (I leave them in grocery stores, subway, elevators, doctor offices, anywhere someone might read them :
http://lab.osixs.org/Resources/Flyers.aspx
Remind people of this document (excerpt) -
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
It's hard to make progress in the world and our nation because the people don’t know what is possible; and much worse, they don’t know they have a choice. Education is the key. It is the only way to move beyond the rhetoric and political squabbling. It’s plain to see we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. Thomas Jefferson
Thanks for this well thought out response. I agree with you about 50% . . . so hard to address all the complexities here!
In your essential vision, I think in order for it to work, you will have to get about 40% of the people actually out on the streets. I don't think less than that could actually transform the existing system. For one thing you are simply up against both people's habits, and the necessary actions they must take on a daily basis to go on with life. Typically people won't do this until their actual survival is at stake, and I hope we never have to arrive at that situation.
On the other hand protest, education and all the other things you recommend are a huge components of what needs to be done. My point is that I don't think either the course you suggest, or the course of action through the existing political system can work alone. There are great numbers who want to support this movement but simply can't tear themselves away from the grind they are bound to in order to sustain their lives These people need to become empowered and through the mechanisms of petitions, supporting candidates with their dollars, funding and volunteering occuprycandidates, forming pledges for candidates to sign, etc., etc., they can help powerfully by putting a lot of pressure on the establishment.
It is like this. If you make a hole in the dike they can plug it - if you make a thousand holes in the dike, and then find new, creative ways of making more holes in the dike, they will finally just surrender. They will be forced to.
And so again I say, why limit out tactics? It only plays to their advantage.
The whole point of direct democracy is not that it "keeps elected officials in check" but theoretically at least it completely negates the whole purpose and need of elected officials at all. The assumption of direct democracy is, after all, that no one can "represent" anyone, that we can only "represent" ourselves, so the whole logic of direct democracy is that if it is comprehensive there would be no elected "representatives" to hold accountable. That, it seems to me, is what the call on the home page of this web site is all about when it calls for a general assembly in every back yard.
You are right, but there are several different forms of DD. Some forms have reps - some don't. To see a diagram of the one that I advocate, scroll down to Government 2.0 on this page:
http://osixs.org/Rev2_menu_commonsense.aspx
Other forms of DD -
Direct democracy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
Participatory democracy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy
Deliberative democracy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_democracy
Our DD could be any one of these or a combination. It's our government - We can make it however we like. I believe the people at the link above have a plan that will be the least disruption during transition. Cheers
From my personal experience at several different occupations, most of the OWS activists I have encountered tend to eschew "representation" of any kind regardless of any other theoretical construction of direct democracy. And most of the OWS activists I've encountered would certainly dispute the notion that the Imperial American state is in any sense "ours." Anarchists and people influenced by the anarchist intellectual tradition are clearly a minority within OWS, but they remain the most coherent political tendency within the movement and as such there influence is far greater than their actual numbers would suggest.
Thanks SparkJP!
"I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it." - Thomas Jefferson
Should not those Federal Prosecuters apply for a warrent for Mr Holders and Mr Obamas Arrent under US 18 229? Conspericy against rights and Homicide in the first degree?
Sounds like something the Bush administration would do. Can someone tell me how Obama is better than Bush? Anyone?
When it comes down to the meat of it .................... NO. Both are puppets.
criticism could shut up a child from their potential to express themselves
No violations of the Constitution should go un-protested, nor permitted to continue. Thanks for the two videos. These videos make the issues very clear, and again demonstrate why absolute power must not be placed in the hands of one branch of the government.
Generally, due process guarantees the following (this list is not exhaustive):
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_duep.html
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. Thomas Jefferson
"Laws must be written so that a reasonable person can understand what is criminal behavior"
Like hell you say! here we are today and the masses feel the Constitution is vague and ambivalent! What is a "reasonable person"?
Is a person that cannot understand the Constitution, and therefore has no business voting, holding any citizen paid job or elected position... reasonable?
He's not lying or wrong to reject the due process issue....
they go by the other one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxYDnYgQ5MQ
Thanx for the video. Obama says in it, that the Constitution is imperfect. This is his way of re-writing it. Cheers
You missed the part when he asked "which one" and then specified "the original one", meaning not the corporate held bankruptcy agreement.
one is of, the other is for........ ;-)
He swore to uphold and protect the constitution... so regardless of his opinion of it he has no right changing anything.
The betrayal of the document that this country was founded on is high treason. He is overthrowing the very basic principles that this country was founded on....
which one?
You are speaking Greek to America-haters, bro. When a wormy socialist says they consider the Constitution a "malleable document", you know you're dealing with the enemy. CIVIL WAR II, NOW! Let's get this over with, already!
Hand to hand, you sniveling shit, anytime. I'd fucking love it. I'll hang you from the nearest tree with your confederate flag tie and watch your little rarely used dick flap in the breeze.
Thank you! The fact of the matter is, the founders left no way to amend the constitution as times change! So we need to just start ignoring it completely!
You mean the founders that lived more than 200 years ago? Yes, we should definitely remain steadfast to the notions of men who would have fainted at the ringing of a telephone, thinking it to be the voice of a demon. Men who owned slaves and treated women like they were slaves.
Yeah! That's what I said, ignore the constitution!
Oh my goodness! SO much ego! Take you on anytime Marxist pusbag. "..push into the Red scum. feelin'n pretty good...."
Indeed the Constitution is imperfect. Besides the problem of using an imprecise language, the Constitution has many holes. It is now time to fix some more of these holes.
I agree. Much of the Constitution is vague and it's meaning can be spun to support many interpretations. Clarity is imperative.
Try something very interesting, study the Constitution with a dictionary published no later than 1828.
You'll see it's quite succinct and very precise.
Most all of what has followed, especially in contemporary times, is so ambivalent, vague, intentionally weaseled worded (as to be open for great debate amongst modern scholars) and so complex/tedious/onerous as to make it even a battle for those voting on legislation to truly know what it may or may not mean.
Simple, direct and plain English is not too much to ask.
Government within the bounds of The Constitution and the comprehension of some reasonable benchmark is not too much to expect.
Well, not exactly. Dictionary or not, the second amendment isn't even grammatically correct. The sentence makes no sense. Similarly, the 10th amendment about unenumerated rights is intentionally vague.
The founders were no dummies. They knew that the world changes, that human needs change, and built flexibility into the founding documents so that they would not become an ever tightening noose around the neck of the nation as it grew and changed.
You're just plain stupid.
Really?, How's that?
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
That is NOT a proper sentence. Its meaning is vague and open to interpretation. Do you really suppose that the Founders were illiterate and didn't know how to write a sentence? It's meaning has been debated for a hundred years, and continues to be, by the courts.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
This is all about unenumerated rights. It leaves the door WIDE open for what those rights are or will be in the future, (which ones will be specified) and it's meaning and application have been debated by Supreme Court justices and scholars for a couple of centuries.
So, I guess my stupidity is shared with the all those judges who came to the same conclusion. Goodness knows they never opened a dictionary published before 1828. Surely they, in their trying to arrive at the meanings of the Constitution, never took the time to research, despite the fact that their entire lives are devoted to studying the meaning and interpretation of that document and its history. How dumb of them!
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
That's a sentence, preface it anyway you like, or not.
blah blah blah blah
Compare your stupidity to the likes of judges who, and a court system which, ruled in favor of Citizen's United.
That's appropriate.
The sentence is "A well regulated militia, ...... shall not be infringed." That is not a proper sentence. What's more there are dangling participles and comma placements that make no sense.
Do you understand grammar at all?
Was Citizens UNited decided unanimously? Or was there disagreement about what the constitution allowed?
And do you think all the justices arguing about this sentence for a hundred years have al agreed on its meaning? No, that's why they have been arguing. But of course YOU know so much more that the meaning, which has eluded certainty among those who spend their lives studying it, have gone to law school, have been attorneys and professors and judges: You know with more certainty.
Anybody ever call you arrogant?
Well, not exactly. Dictionary or not, the second amendment isn't even grammatically correct. The sentence makes no sense. Similarly, the 10th amendment about unenumerated rights is intentionally vague.
The founders were no dummies. They knew that the world changes, that human needs change, and built flexibility into the founding documents so that they would not become an ever tightening noose around the neck of the nation as it grew and changed.
Well blah blah blah blah blah.
You're just plain stupid.
The problem lies within that flexibility. It allows interpretations that the founders never intended. I think an ever tightening noose around the neck of congress, may be what's needed, in order to keep them under control. At present, an attempt to control us, through NDAA, SOPA, 30,000 drones over the US, patriot act, etc. We should control congress - not the other way around.
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress & the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." ~ Abraham Lincoln ~
Both the solutions to new problems AND the creation of new problems lies within that flexibility. It is a double edged sword. But I'm glad that the flexibility is there. Without it, expansions of rights in response to needs would not be possible. And abuses can still be resisted.
Imprecise language?
If you use today's dictionary, as opposed to one appropriate for the day when the English language had less than 70,000 words, you could, with careful application of backwards logic, come to that conclusion.
Forward logic concludes that much of the original intent has indeed be perverted and spun with the addition of many new words, colorful and artful language as well as once very clear words being assigned numerous meanings.
But again, which one?
got to give to Obama and Holder they are great terrorist killing machines. Give them credit where credit is due.
True. The only things they've done right.
Wow!!! REALLY? Nobody would have EVER thought Holder was a constitution shredder! Fast and Furious! His anti white DoJ. His support of the New Black Panther Party. Yeah. What a discovery...
It's SHREDDING, imbecile.