By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 8th, 2013
On Feb. 4th, eleven senators sent a letter to President Obama asking him to release to Congress “the secret legal opinions outlining your authority to authorize the killing of Americans in the course of counter-terrorism operations.”
The group of senators, which included both Democrats and Republicans, was straightforward in its request.
“It is vitally important… for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority, so that Congress and the public can decide whether this authority has been properly defined, and whether the President’s power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards,” declared the senators.
Later that day, NBC News released a confidential Justice Department White Paper entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or An Associated Force.”
The news service was quick to spell out why these legal opinions matter so much to senators.
“A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be ‘senior operational leaders’ of al-Qaida” or some allied force, “even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.,” stated NBC News.
Though it’s not an authorized document, the White House memo apparently reveals much of the Obama Administration’s legal argument behind its assassination of U.S. citizens. These killings include the Yemen strike in September 2011 which murdered Samir Khan and Anwar al-Awlaki, who Obama Administration officials believed to be al-Qaida operatives.
“Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes,” pointed out NBC News.
NBC stated that the memo had been “provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees in June by administration officials on the condition that it be kept confidential and not discussed publicly.”
This request for secrecy makes little sense if one considers the issue as a matter of ‘national security’. But it’s certainly seems to be a fine means of keeping such questionable claims of Executive power from the American people.
Our view? Obama Administration officials may genuinely believe they are performing a patriotic service by proclaiming themselves our unquestioned (and unaccountable) saviors. They probably have a genuine hope that their actions will save untold lives.
But it’s a common mistake of the powerful to confuse what they hope to do with what they actually are doing.
In the real world, what officials hope to do is irrelevant. It’s what they actually are doing to people that counts.
Obama Administration officials are killing Americans without trial, without an official charge being issued, without a judicial or legislative oversight of any kind – in short, without a hint of democratic governance or any attempt to uphold Americans’ most essential civil or human rights.
The simple truth? No one is safe where there is no respect for civil rights, where even the right to live depends on an official sanction.
Hopes, however well-meaning, can’t change that.
