By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 19th, 2014
President Obama may soon assassinate a U.S. citizen via drone strike because the administration thinks that person has turned to ‘terrorism’, officials quietly acknowledged last week.
Officials told the Associated Press (AP) that the administration feels this particular person is currently a member of al-Qaeda and is planning attacks on overseas Americans. The officials added that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is now employing drones to keep a watch on the individual.
Current Obama Administration policy states that the Pentagon may be authorized to kill an overseas American if the administration has made an assumption, without trial, that the person is a ‘terrorist’. The CIA has no such authority.
“But officials said the president could defy those guidelines and allow the CIA to use a drone strike,” because “the country where the man resides doesn’t allow U.S. military action within its borders.” stated AP.
Apparently some in the Obama Administration are not so eager to flaunt stated U.S. policy, the bedrock American right to a fair trial and the goodwill of a foreign nation all in one go: it seems that Pentagon leaders cannot agree on whether or not a strike should be carried out in this case, officials admitted to AP last week.
Last year, Obama claimed that his administration would only employ a drone strike to kill an American citizen “to prevent or stop attacks against U.S. persons, and even then, only when capture is not feasible and no other reasonable alternatives exist to address the threat effectively.”
That statement at first seems to insinuate a strong oversight of an exceedingly controversial program. The only problem is that in this case, Obama’s “Justice Department hasn’t finished building its legal case against [the American in question],” according to AP.
So it appears that the Obama administration is claiming not only the right to kill U.S. citizens without a trial, but also the right to kill them without a well-reasoned legal case.
