The List of US Citizens Targeted for Killing (or Capture)

/in , /by

This Dana Priest article is interesting for the way it fleshes out the way the US is working in Yemen (primarily), Pakistan, and Somalia. But note this line, which she kind of buries in there.

As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said. [my emphasis]

That is, somewhere there’s a list of Americans who, the President has determined, can be killed with no due process.

Priest goes on much later in the article.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose “a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests,” said one former intelligence official.

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, “it doesn’t really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them,” a senior administration official said. “They are then part of the enemy.”

Both the CIA and the JSOC maintain lists of individuals, called “High Value Targets” and “High Value Individuals,” whom they seek to kill or capture. The JSOC list includes three Americans, including Aulaqi, whose name was added late last year. As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi’s name has now been added. [Update, February 17, 2010: WaPo has since retracted the report that CIA had US citizens on its kill list.]

Of course, they said Jose Padilla had close ties to al Qaeda, but those turned out to be more tenuous than originally claimed. Likewise the case against John Walker Lindh. And there are any number of “aspirational” terrorists whom officials have claimed had joined al Qaeda.

But I guess the tenuousness of those ties don’t really matter, when the President can dial up the assassination of an American citizen.

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    • lawordisorder says:

      Lets just say others than yanks can go about killing people in a war without actualy being at war …. And last time i checked if was the goverment running the show down there who did the actual killing/ or tried to that is (ol’ sneaky contemplates drone attacks in pakistan)

      But hey thats what u get by yelling WAR ON TERROR right?

      Last time i looked that little op was run by people who also think they have brothers in arms down fort hood way

      But get off the bleddin fear waggon here boys and girls. the way to win this “war” is “surge” and “COIN”….and when the nasty ones stick there head out we wack’em or snatch em to bring em home to stand trial…depends

      ANYWAY MARCY TAKE A LITTLE PRIDE IN KNOWING THAT WITHOUT YOU A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN SUFFERING DOWN IN HAITI… u rock girl

      Just my five cents worth

      • bobschacht says:

        What’s your point? That its OK for us to do Bad Stuff because other people do Bad Stuff? That’s not good enough for me. It puts us on the same moral plane as the worst people in the world. That way lies anarchy and chaos.

        Or did I misunderstand your fragmented, jumbled, hard to follow scribblings loaded with spelling errors? If so, please accept my apologies.

        Bob in AZ

        • lawordisorder says:

          a. What do you mean by bad stuff? b. never said i spell good did i? c. What moral plane are you on?… I did’nt come up with this, the USA did after 9/11. And no im no killing sprey go “nuke” the SOB either…i like to use my brain and do what i can so its not going to end up in a shooting match, that is also why im a big fan of taking care of Yemen now as we still have the oppotunity to do it mostly with “soft power” aka Local goverment and relief/development….both cheaper and more cost effective…in the end this is a game were we as a western world have to drive a wedge between the moderates muslims and the OBL fanclub

          http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2010_01_27_un_report

  3. Jeff Kaye says:

    With Aulaqi, sounds like the list is up to four.

    I have a observations. There’s this from the Priest article:

    The far-reaching U.S. role could prove politically challenging for Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who must balance his desire for American support against the possibility of a backlash by tribal, political and religious groups whose members resent what they see as U.S. interference in Yemen….

    Saleh has faced pressure not only from the United States but also his country’s main financial backers, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to gain better control over its lawless northern border. In August, Saleh asked U.S. officials to begin a more in-depth conversation over how the two countries might work together, according to administration officials. The current operation evolved from those talks.

    First, it appears Dana is disappearing or conflating the Yemeni conflict with the Houthis in the “lawless” northern reaches of Yemen. Just yesterday, the Houthis announced a unilateral cease fire with Saudi Arabia.

    Members of al-Houthi group, known as Houthis, have been battling the Yemeni government forces since mid-2004 in Saada located on the border with Saudi Arabia.

    They say they are fighting against the Yemeni government’s corruption and its alliance with the United States.

    The Sana’a government accuses the Houthis of trying to reinstall the rule of Shiite imams who were toppled by a republican revolution in northern Yemen in 1962.

    In November, the rebels carried out a cross-border raid, killing a Saudi border guard, and drawing Saudi forces into the conflict.

    The Saudis aren’t buying it, and in this war of words, are saying, per Reuters, that the Shi’a Houthis are actually in league with Sunni Al Qaeda, even though they “not noticed it on the battlefield.”

    As Rami G. Kouri wrote over at middle-east-online.com:

    Yemen has transformed itself into a place where three different political or military contests are underway: the government vs. the Houthis, some secessionists in the south, and a growing Al-Qaeda network. Meanwhile the Saudi Arabian and American armed forces are directly engaged in warfare against two of them — Houthis and Al-Qaeda — and the Iranian government is increasingly weighing in on the side of the Houthis.

    Here in one package, at the end of this year we have all the major tension points of the contemporary Middle East converging in a single time and place — Al-Qaeda vs. everyone in the world, Iran vs. Arabs, the United States vs. Al-Qaeda, Shiites vs. Sunnis, rich Arabs vs. poor Arabs, and the failing centralized modern Arab security state vs. it indigenous tendency to disintegrate into tribal or regional units.

    So Dana doesn’t manage to draw the real complexity of the situation. How large Al Qaeda is in Yemen is arguable. In any case, I think the big brass is there because the Saudis see a big threat on their southern border.

    As for the targeted Americans, I’m just cynical enough to think they want this publicized to show the disgruntled Yemeni opposition that the U.S. is not anti-Arab, but mainly anti-Al Qaeda, and will kill their own to prove it. From a U.S. standpoint, it is of course, for reasons you mention, an outrage, because mere assertion of dangerousness is far less than proving it, and once you put the government in charge of setting itself up for targeted killings without any judicial determination, you have set up the precedent for them to kill basically anyone they want.

    America had better watch out. We are not getting the truth on Yemen.

    • emptywheel says:

      Actually, I think there are technically two lists, one for JSOC, and one for CIA, and CIA’s now has four, whereas JSOC’s has three. And we of course don’t know about the overlap between the two.

      • lawordisorder says:

        Ask girl ask girl…….but are u ready to here the answer!, we got it all under control and in a good spiral as in declining all the hotheads and namecalling ….but the machine dosent run on fumes alone does it? And Facebook closed the op LOOOL becouse we used profouned language..WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT do i care…as i said before…. u work it out cuz i got my own problems as the dark lords move in on me…ROTFL

        Just my five cents worth

      • Jeff Kaye says:

        Thanks for reminding me. It amplifies my thoughts about the meta meaning of this story, i.e., why the al-Aulaqi story is linked. His associations with Hasan and Captain Underpants is quite weak, as even the story admits. The leak comes from military sources, hence associated with JSOC itself.

        I don’t think it’s necessarily about a “turf war.” My reading of operations and personnel show a great deal of overlap and cooperation, Certainly there are organizational loyalties, and a perception that the CIA answers to a different, and more Washington-Beltway oriented bureaucracy. Certainly, the sources were not worried re backlash by reporting the CIA had such a list. If I had a secret document and reported that, I’d be under a shit storm.

        No, this is a calculated leak, meant, I believe to do a couple of things. One, as I noted, to lead one’s shaky Yemeni allies to believe that the intervention in Yemen is all about Al Qaeda, and we even kill out own if we get the chance. It’s not an anti-Arab operation. The tribal leaders get this kind of thing, where loyalty to one’s own is very important.

        But I think it’s also to give cred to the “war on terror” propaganda at home. Al-Aulaqi is the latest in a series of purported masterminds, and is the best the U.S. can do to whip up fear at home about a new Al Qaeda “surge”, directed from Yemen.

        What I’ve tried to note above is that all this sudden Al Qaeda offensive in Yemen — their soldiers in the U.S. amount, supposedly, to a deranged military psychiatrist who spent a good deal of time trying to get out of the military, and a 20-something young man with an identity problem, who apparently needed an awful lot of help getting on a plane to do a job he couldn’t or didn’t really know how to do — this offensive masks a U.S. intervention in the north of Yemen against Saudi opponents in the Houthi uprising, and likely, though I don’t have specifics, against opponents in the southern part of the country (old South Yemen).

        From the U.S. standpoint, Yemen’s governmental weakness is an opportunity to intervene, as long-term, I don’t suppose the U.S. finds the Saudis that stable of a regime, in its current configuration, and despite all their money. It’s another chance to secure America’s supposed over-whelming advantage in every part of the world they think they can.

        But the U.S. cannot control the southern flank of the world’s largest continent, and will be destroyed trying. Nothing so dramatic as the will of Allah, or the bravery of an Islamic rebellion. It’s something more pedestrian, and yet inevitably fatal: financial ruin (that’s if the moral rot from proceeding with this dirty war and accompanying torture doesn’t destroy the country first).

  4. lawordisorder says:

    Before u send BMAZ like another misisl up my 6, note the following marcy:

    A. the actual Killing is not done by Us citizen, nigther is the targeting as far as i know, and if u dont whan another afganistan on your hands thats exatly what u need to avoid it…BTW much cheaper too…also makes much more freinds around those neck off the woods…Do u know what COIN is?

    Just my five cents worth

  5. lawordisorder says:

    Starting to get smal FFS…or HMMM im wondering……..us redcoats just go kick a big stone without safety shoes on LOOOOOL

  7. lawordisorder says:

    Remember i told you u just got your sorry behind drafted…..u did..and a little luck for most part for things you all would die for any day off the week and twice on a sunday.

    Were talking start agreements, Nato pfp, increased coorporation with china, going green, deacceleration off tension in middleeast etc…thats right girl u been a small but important peace in something big..i think u.r CINC regarded it to B+

    But anyway around our shop thats a job bloody welldone..so u go find a bottle of vine slamdunk BMAZ and mr EW and u go see state of the union

    Just my five cents worth

  8. lawordisorder says:

    Btw another david kelly..he took 3½ years in prison on that account…

    http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:XIi864gCf2oJ:www.sociology.ku.dk/kursfil/1129196110922.doc+frank+grevil+sagen&cd=1&hl=da&ct=clnk&gl=dk

    and who knows i might be the next LOOOOOL…but u know what…this time were ready for them He he

    This time Papadick and his cronnies get to fly F5…as im the guy on offence and this time they are the ones on the run…LOOOO

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8rZWw9HE7o&feature=related

    as MI 5/6 sing this song
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLu_UK_MpfA

    BND, FSB and some chepi wearing sods know this tune
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1FaflUn4Co

  9. skdadl says:

    This cannot end well. I hope I don’t get y’all into trouble by saying that I disapprove of all these interventions and fear that they can only make things worse. I know the situation in Somalia a bit better, and to me, the adventures of the CIA there have simply been disastrous.

    From Priest’s article:

    … foreign partners, including those that have feeble democracies, shoddy human rights records and weak accountability over the vast sums of money Washington is giving them to win their continued participation in these efforts.

    To me, it takes a tin ear for humanity to write that sentence. I’m guessing that Priest was not thinking of, eg, Israel, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia. (Sorry: I’ll stop the snark there.)

    • emptywheel says:

      One thing she doesn’t consider–but as the author of the very good “The Mission,” I presume she’s given some thought to–is that we’ve got the same kind of gig set up in Colombia. The second-hand assassination squad working hand in hand with our NSA guys is just what they did in a FARC strike a while back.

      • skdadl says:

        I still can’t get my head around the duplication — that the CIA and JSOC would both have such squads. I can see why that happened when Cheney was in power and wanted to exercise direct control, but why does it continue?

        • BoxTurtle says:

          That’s easy. Turf war. Those two agencies frequently (continously?) fight over missions and resources. The easy way out (Obama’s favorite way) is to just give them each their own and duplicate effort. I’d bet even money that there are other lists, since I don’t see lists for the NSA, DIA, ATF, or Rahm.

          Boxturtle (And we probably helped the Israelis with their lists as well)

        • bobschacht says:

          I still can’t get my head around the duplication — that the CIA and JSOC would both have such squads. I can see why that happened when Cheney was in power and wanted to exercise direct control, but why does it continue?

          Ah. I suspect your answer lies in Gary Wills’ new book. It continues because hundreds of Cheney ops like this continue on autopilot until they are stopped. And if someone tries to stop them, they will be confronted with umbrage and sneers about “this is the way we have to work to survive in this unique post 9/11 world, you ninny!”

          Remember, the Bush administration brainwashed everyone to replace “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” as the prime directive with “protect and defend the American people at all costs”. The coup was successful.

          Bob in AZ

        • DWBartoo says:

          Your last paragraph defines America today … and “Going Forward” …

          One notes heavy “static” at the site this morning, bobschacht.

          Restraint is appreciated.

          It will eventually go away or “clear up” … or not.

          DW

        • R.H. Green says:

          During extinction, unrewarded behavior tends to exhibit an increase in strength before sharply declining, in frequency, vigor, and irrationality. (FWIW).

        • skdadl says:

          I will get Wills’s book — thanks for writing about it here. I like reading him (usually in essays in the NYRB); something about the way he thinks makes my brain feel good.

          So I guess you’re telling me that Rahm didn’t run breathlessly into the Oval Office at the crack of dawn today and say, “Boss, we’re in trouble. There’s a li’l old lady on the north shore of Lake Ontario who disapproves of JSOC.” Right?

        • bobschacht says:

          This COIN document you reference is a typical RAND corp document for DOD that basically recommends military solutions for everything. Of their eight recommendations, only one offers a brief glance at civilian issues, and there is no mention of the 40% unemployment rate among civilians. Their approach to civilian issues is jarringly discordant with the “Three Cups of Tea” approach, which is far superior. Nor did I see any reference to microloans, which, like the “Three Cups of Tea” approach, is more congruent with local culture.

          Bob in AZ

        • lawordisorder says:

          Yeaah but i actually tried to find the danish version…but anyway…so u need ampup the civilian side bigtime…

  10. melior says:

    Y’see, it all depends what the meaning of “assassination” is. After 9/11 of course. Why, there’s probably an OLC memo created just to clarify it helpfully that’s just too “sensitive” or they’d share it with us.

  11. Rayne says:

    emptywheel (17) – she may have received pointed info which suggests something other than a gig like Colombia. I’ll poke around.

    skdadl (18) – think oversight. There’s no duplication — at least there wasn’t until the now-fuzzy Obama administration — because anything in CIA was subject to oversight. As warfare conducted by the JSOC under the AUMF against terrorism, no oversight except budget and that can be hidden quite handily. This is why there was a steady hollowing out of the CIA, moving more intel resources to DIA and other functions under DOD purview.

    BoxTurtle (19) – there is some turf war, but it’s not necessarily what you think it is. There are shops which have large concentrations of left-behinds which are continuing their ideological and specific missions, which are often at odds with other factions within shops.

    • BoxTurtle says:

      Don’t think it’s that kind of infighting, as ObamaCo has clearly approved the hit lists, apparently even adding to it. So even if it is BushCo leftovers, ObamaCo is in full agreement.

      Boxturtle (That ought to suprise me, but it doesn’t)

      • Rayne says:

        I don’t know that ObamaCo knows everything. Seriously.

        Remember there are still SAPs running around.

        And I’ve been told the left-behinds are definitely contributing to the problems.

        [edit: in other words, watch for any signs of surprise today on the part of White House, Panetta or State Department. If no surprise apparent, then they knew about it and expected heat eventually – or they are getting used to being pants’d by leaks, or they really didn’t know. Figuring out what the nature might be of any surprise shown will be the tricky part.]

      • Mary says:

        It may be logistics as much as anything. Some who are thought to be in areas where JSOC can get in and out quickly or use drones/bombings with ez pull backs, vs someont thought to be in country(s) where there might be significant sovereignty issues and where we don’t have the nearby military resources to make the military option workable, but where falls from high places might still be an option. Maybe even someone who would be an assassination in America. Maybe not – but logistics issues would be one option to have different lists.

        BTW – ever since the stories of the CIA openly threatening Obama that he bettter shut down the torture investigation or else, the CIA wouldn’t do illegal things for him, this has pretty much been the kind of thing that was on the burner. FOr that matter, all the drone strikes that have killed civilians are murder up the chain. I’ll never vote for Obama again, I don’t care if he’s running against Satan. Better the devil you know.

  13. lawordisorder says:

    LOOOOL Come on guys uncle sam is not the only one doing INTEL is he? How many in NATO alone? how many thinks PAPADICK and torture was ok? that it generated good intel? Probably a handfull the rest was court with there pants down no? AND THATS BASICALLY whats hampering the intel community to this wery day that no one is willing to take another fall for political reasons no? Isnt that what the David kelly, ploume and the rest is all about…?

    Boxturttle do u fight a war with ballons and cake for dinner? no ones u have a confirmed taget u take him out pure and simpel, u try to se if u can get hom in to a courtroom but if thats not an option u kill him…and if his and US citizen stirring up truble in yemen….others do it…this is a nasty biznes never fool yourself…but we try to be gents on the good guys team…as geneva conventions etc. and we try to leave party politics outside the room, but if they play politics on us …they get it strait in the face….and we do it a hell of a lot better….cuz we know how to bang the “hammer” ring a bell…………

  15. Jim White says:

    Just another reason Dawn Johnsen will never be confirmed. Can you imagine her signing off on the star chamber proceedings that put people on the lists?

    • lawordisorder says:

      whell jim if you should ask me i would deff approve off her..not for the reson you would think but exatly and only for that reason…i whant someone holding the power of life and death to be as lefty, antiwar, totally non violent… cuz when she gives a green light i know this a really bad guy and the evidence is not bogus….do i make sence?

  16. Leen says:

    “The person, for instance, has to pose “a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests,” said one former intelligence official

    And just who determines “continuing and imminent?”

    If that is still the definition of a threat. I would not be leaving the country anytime soon if my name were Cheney, Lieberman, Bush, Feith, Wolfowitz, etc. Many in the Bush administration have done great harm to Americans and our interest.

    • klynn says:

      With Cass Sunstein’s latest suggested policy, could anyone exercising free speech through a blog be a continuing threat?

      • Leen says:

        A statement or an article by Sunstein a while back really threw me for a loop. It was all about the “moving forward, next chaper, move on, turn the page, don’t be about retribution or revenge” hocus pocus.

        It is really frightneing to live in a coutnry where your leaders hold a President accountable for lying under oath about blow jobs and then they let the folks who created, cherry picked and dessiminated a pack of WMD lies skate.

        Lies about blowjobs = impeachment
        Intelligence snwojob = a day in the park

        Great message for the peasants and the rest of the world

      • DWBartoo says:

        If they (said exercised bloggers) are considered to be a pajama-clad, basement-dwelling “unprivileged belligerents”, who do not respect and subscribe to the Official History (there can be no other “versions”) then … well, who knows, it’ll be up to the Prez to decide whether to “take ’em out” … or not.

        (Might Sunstein be considered an intellectual thug? Or is he above such mundane categorization. I wonder)

        DW

      • Jeff Kaye says:

        Theoretically, yes. Practically, that’s what’s being determined based on the configuration of forces among those who fight political battles.

  17. alinaustex says:

    lawdisorder@24

    Since you mentioned David Kelly -do you have an opinion on whether since he was trying to help derail the illegal occuppation of Irak -that he may have been murdered ?

    • lawordisorder says:

      I can only form an educated guees as i myself have been exposed to the methods these guys are ussing

      A he killed himself after they drove him to it pure and simpel, but i havent spend time trying to understand what he went trough as i have enough holding off my ow so to speak…1 is a fluke 2 is a HMMM. 3. is a pattern does that answer your question?

  20. TarheelDem says:

    Question: Does the President have to approve on a case-by-case base, or is the CIA and military on autopilot based on The List?

  21. bmaz says:

    So, the US can put Awlaki on a list for death by assassination, but couldn’t, and apparently still cannot, form the basis to prosecute him criminally?? That seems a little fucked up.

      • bmaz says:

        Is there not a lawful warrant? Irrespective of the answer, I would argue that you do not get to assassinate an American citizen, and I don’t care who it is, just because you screwed up his investigation.

        • Rayne says:

          See EW at (17).

          We don’t do it. The US has an advisory capacity to another country, which is dealing with terrorism in a fashion it deems appropriate. To another country, the names on the list are targets, not citizens.

          And if the US advisors put a nice spin on targets being al Qaeda, well, how do you say “bang-bang” in Arabic?

      • Mary says:

        I don’t think they would have a prosecution problem based on taps. What I’d wonder about more specifically is if the Ft. Hood nutcase was allowed so much rope bc he was being used to to help get some surveillance and intel info on aulaqi. With Hasan in the military, as I understand it his calls/emails were pretty much free game. I can see some “op” that involved letting the crazy guy stay in place while he keeps contacting aulaqi, in hopes of getting intel that would help them with an assassination of aulaqi – and then the guy they thought was just a handy dandy tool ends up going much further than they ever expected. What do you do when the reason soldiers are killed at Ft. Hood is bc of an op to collect enough info to assassinate an American overseas goes bad?

        • bmaz says:

          Yeah, as you may recall back when there was speculation Awlak (however his name is spelled) was killed in the drone strike, I can envision all kinds of ways he is not convenient as a live witness in the Hasan mess. No clue what the real story is, but the potential for all kinds of FUBAR is all over the place.

    • lawordisorder says:

      Well thats whats the basic FU in “war on terror” right…
      Lets just say US guverment was not the only one he pissed off .-)

      remember you told me that we couldent prosecute anymore?..damn u got me in a MF horsetrade on that one…but end off the day we think we got it covered now…also testimony HIGH UP no?..anyway BMAZ shitload off this in redtape but you would approve on US/USSR SPACE coop, cuts in nukes, Mcrystal given a real shot at finish the war i Afganistan with minimum casualty, the Haiti deal, teletron, and cyber warfare defense, yemen before we have to put boots on the ground…just to mention a few off the inbox messages here at the coffemaker AKA too4r. ups before i forget the horsetrading should be finished on moving and closing guantanamo, anyway feel free to ask?

      NOT bad FOR EW, and BMAZ what do you all say guys and girls?

      • lawordisorder says:

        Id say TD…and cut myself another nudge in the handle ,-)

        Holbrooke said he was encouraged by recent polls in Afghanistan indicating that a majority now blames the Taliban, not Western forces, for the country’s violence.

        On Tuesday German Chancellor Angela Merkel put the total cost of the program at $500 million over five years, but Holbrooke said it was too early to put a price tag to the fund.

        “We don’t know enough about the plan,” he said.

        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35098937/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

    • Leen says:

      to replace or augment the deception spit out by the Office of Special Plans, Office of Net Assessments and the WHIG (White Hourse Iraq Group)

    • Jeff Kaye says:

      This is classic psyops, and the only thing new, perhaps, is to centralize psyops, which currently is divided between the services and CIA, into one department. The beneficiary, if they maintain control, will be JSOC. In 2006, the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC) was folded into U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). The other services mostly help the latter in an adjunctive fashion. The CIA has long had a psychological operations division or group.

      An interesting quote from the article:

      “Deception cannot succeed in wartime without developing theory and doctrine in peacetime,” the DSB [Defense Science Board] report reads. “In order to mitigate or impart surprise, the United States should [initiate] deception planning and action prior to the need for military operations.”

      And such attempts at strategic trickery must occur at virtually every stage in the United States’ dealings with other nations, the Pentagon’s science board says….

      Late last year, Raw Story’s Brad Jacobson revealed evidence that directly tied the activities undertaken in the military analyst program under President George W. Bush — where analysts were briefed to promote the Iraq war — to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations. Such propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.

      The PDF for the DSB report.

      Thanks for the heads-up, fatster, and to EW, who tolerates these OT forays.

  24. Jim White says:

    Well, let’s just hope some contractor office temp at JSOC doesn’t switch the headings on the no-fly list and the kill list. Could get ugly really fast…

    • Leen says:

      still wondering why we are not hearing anything about those young Afghani boys who had their wrist tied and then were allegedly taken out and shot by U.S. forces. Silence

        • Leen says:

          Did I miss it? Has someone been held accountable for the long list of serious crimes committed during the last eight years? Niger documents, the rest of the false pre war intelligence, torture, underminig of the DOJ. The only bleeding hearts that I am aware of are the hundreds of thousands of lives lost and injured in Iraq and the 4500 American soldiers who died based on a “pack of lies”

          Somehow I missed the holding these thugs accountable “no one is above the law” scene.

      • Mary says:

        ?
        @50 – Ooops, sorry for the duplication fatster. I’ve been hitting this thread/comments in an hit and miss way. I think the disinfo is that they “want” one vs we’ve had one, doncha think?

        • fatster says:

          No problem whatsoever, Mary. This absurdity needs all the publicity we can give it. What blows my mind is that they are making it official, brazenly so. Seems it’s ok now to do most anything, including acknowledging it, thereby making it part and parcel of what’s acceptable. No pretense of shame any more. Nosiree. Goodbye to innocence (however feigned). Hello in-your-face depravity.

        • Hmmm says:

          It’s heartsickening to be sure. I do wonder whether this is new, vs. we’re merely more aware of it now, because of such factors as: FOIA + the occasional transparency law, reg, or EO + internet empowered citizen-journos and fora (such as this one).

      • Jeff Kaye says:

        WHO will go drive with Fergus now,
        And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,
        And dance upon the level shore?
        Young man, lift up your russet brow,
        And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
        And brood on hopes and fear no more.
        And no more turn aside and brood
        Upon love’s bitter mystery;
        For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
        And rules the shadows of the wood,
        And the white breast of the dim sea
        And all dishevelled wandering stars.

        Who will care? The dead gods are resurrected, and Nobodaddy is king.

  25. Cujo359 says:

    Read about this at Glenn Greenwald’s site this morning. Fricking unbelievable. At least, it would be if I hadn’t lived through the last nine years. That we’ve allowed a bunch of religious fanatics to bring us to the point where we think it’s OK for the government to murder its own citizens is another sign of how low we’ve sunk as a society.

  26. rmwarnick says:

    Under the terms of the Military Commissions Act (MCA), the President can declare anyone to be an enemy combatant, for any reason or no reason. Once you have been designated as an enemy, you have no rights at all, not even habeas corpus. The MCA does not explicitly authorize the President to have American citizens assassinated, but there are probably Justice Department lawyers working on how to stretch the language.

    • bmaz says:

      You are grossly over-reading the MCA and failing to take into account the limitations placed on the provisions it does have via court decision.

      • papau says:

        The court decisions I am aware of are easy to get around and indeed the point of the OP seems to still stand.

        If you have a way to force court involvement in a Military Combatant designation and subsequent denial of court rights, please state it. There is a path to court rights – but the question is can you force the gov to take that path. Until the USSC says otherwise I do not believe you can. Indeed the court cases are an accident of timing, having been filed before the MCA was passed. But I could be wrong – if so please give me a heads up so I’m better informed. Thanks. :-)

        • Mary says:

          *******************The court decisions I am aware of are easy to get around ***********************

          Do you mind if I ask which those are?

          If you have a way to force court involvement in a Military Combatant designation and subsequent denial of court rights, please state it.

          The Boumedienne case. It’s why we have the current habeas cases in that have been held, the vast majority of which (around 30 out of 35 or so? I think – I forget an exact number and can’t think of a ready link to use) have found the detainees to not be combatants.

          To date, we have about three or so definitions that the courts have been using on the combatant front, bc the S. Ct made it clear that the CSRT designations did not meet constitutional standards, despite the MCA language that they were dispositive, and yet also didn’t provide a standard. So the Dist Cts handling the habeas cases have been trying to come up with something – so far I think Walton’s definition has received the widest use.

          Indeed the court cases are an accident of timing, having been filed before the MCA was passed. But I could be wrong – if so please give me a heads up so I’m better informed.

          YOu are wrong on this point. What happened was that the DTA came along originally and attempted, under the guise of being “anti-torture” legislation, to disenfranchise all the then pending habeas cases (which had, themselves, gone through procedural nightmares to be filed at all – pick up The Guantanamo Lawyers for some background on that). It (the DTA) amended “statutory habeas” (the then existing statute on habeas that had been interpreted by the S. Ct in the Rasul case to grant habeas rights to GITMO detainees) so that the statute now specificially excluded GITMO from having habease access under the statute.

          Then the Hamdan decision went up to the S. Ct under the argument, among other things, that it had already been filed when the DTA was amended and the language in the DTA did not make it clear that pending habeas cases were affected. The S. Ct said that’s right – the DTA language doesn’t clearly disenfranchise pending habeas cases, so they can go forward.

          Congress, the Republicans getting a boost from Reid, responded with the MCA which, among many bad things, very clearly stated that, “we are disenfranchising pending habeas cases as well as unfiled cases” and also provided that it wasn’t just disenfranchising GITMO from coverage by the habeas statute, but was also requiring that habeas was suspended WORLDWIDE with respect to anyone the President called a “combatant” or for which there had been a CSRT that had found them to be a combatant and those CSRts were dispositive of the issue of whether or not someone was a combatant.

          Then the Boumedienne case went up – it’s really the most historic, but the one I have spent the least time with. Still Boumedienne resolved an isue that no one had been sure about – when Congress defined the habeas right by statute, as it had done in the habeas statute as amended by the MCA, was habeas in the S Ct concurrently restricted to the habeas as described in the legislation or was there a constitutional element that Congress could not disenfranchise. Boumedienne found that the MCA did no provide a sufficient remedy for the disenfranchisement of habeas in the manner set forth in the legislation and that there was a constitutional habease that could not be diminished by statute, at least, not a statute providing no mechanims with similar protections, so the habeas cases all restarted.

          And now the Dis cts are stuck with the “combatant” issue and are making some questionable law as they bend over backwards to give the Executive the benefit of the doubt, but even in that posture, they aren’t able to find that many of the detainees whose cases they have reviewed qualify as combatants and have ordered releases. Obama has defied those court orders.

        • Mary says:

          Thanks – I’ve lost track of a lot over the last few weeks. I also think you’re right on the US citizen front vis a vis the DTA and MCA – they did try to carve around US citizens in the language. Not that it mattered for Padilla and the human experimentation that Bush indulged in with him.

        • bmaz says:

          As to US citizens, which is the point of the discussion as it started in this post, and as for detainees at Guantanamo, the Supremes have indeed stated that Habeas maintains; see for instance Hamdan, Boumediene, and Rasul. Quite frankly, I am not even sure that a reading of the DTA and MCA as so modified could support the contention that Habeas could be denied for a citizen.

        • bmaz says:

          Let me rephrase my response: Please see Mary @91…….

          She types a hell of a lot faster and better than I do. Ain’t as lazy as I am either.

  28. gnomedigest says:

    I guess on his way to becoming a “Constitutional Scholar” President Obama must have missed the 5th Amendment. Pretty remarkable miss for a “Constitutional Scholar”. I am not a “Constitutional Scholar”, and even I know that the 5th Amendment prohibits depriving a US citizen of “life” without “due process”. You know, from now on I think if the WH wants to claim Obama is a “Constitutional Scholar”, they should release his Harvard transcripts. At this point there is no proof that Obama has even read the US Constitution, let alone qualifies as a “Scholar” on the subject.

    5th Amendment:

    No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

  29. bobschacht says:

    OT?
    ACLU has a civil rights survey right now, with questions addressing many issues of interest here. Their email invitation:

    Tonight, President Obama will address the State of the Union.

    After one year of his presidency, we have reviewed the progress made on civil liberties. Of a set of 145 detailed recommendations the ACLU made to the new president upon his election, the administration has acted on just over one-third of them.

    We’d like to know what you think about the state of civil liberties. Where has our government moved forward? Where have things slipped backwards? And what should be the top priorities now?

    Your opinion helps strengthen our work when we meet with administration officials and members of Congress, in addition to helping the ACLU shape our agenda.

    Bob in AZ

  30. bobschacht says:

    So far the ACLU survey (my comment @ 82) has more than 3,300 responses. I can’t cut and paste from the results page, or I’d show you some results. But they essentially grade Obama as “poor” on most matters, and opine that it is for lack of trying hard enough, not that he’s been stymied by opposition.

    Bob in AZ

    • Mary says:

      To be fair, they didn’t ask for input on how Obama’s done re: protecting the right of terrorist extremist to buy and use guns, including in the national parks system.

      Or protecting the Executive’s right to use assassination and “extraordinary rendition” to torture.

      What’s odd is how he starts with an over 50% (when I looked) rating on protecting the Constitution but then on every specific question scores much less.

  31. belzu says:

    This government is going the way of Pinochet et al. Something to keep in mind with Chile’s experience is that there always was a sector that supported that murderous General and his allies. Here in the USA you see the same thing happening, with the law & order types, as well as with the so-called Teabagger movement.

  32. tomonthebay says:

    Uh, let’s see. We have American citizen in immediate proximity of Al-Queda operative in foreign country such as Somalia or Yemen. If it looks like a duck, etc. What’s the problem??????

  33. rafflaw says:

    What happened to Due Process for these citizens? Would the CIA be allowed to Kill an American on US soil? This policy needs to be revoked ASAP and an investigation needs to be done to see if any citizens have been killed without Due Process!

  34. chili says:

    I know it sounds radical when you read it. I do suspect, however, that the infamous mercenary hoods (among others)have been doing the same thing for a while – not at O’s behest but even before (and maybe O also I don’t know). To think that the alphabet agencies are involved in interference in other countries’ governments, but have not offed a u.s. citizen is, I think, naive.
    Or maybe, they’d have their buddies in another “agency” do the deed for the sake of plausible deniability.