The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Breaking News => Topic started by: BlueStateSaint on February 05, 2013, 04:03:38 AM
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Ain't this interesting?
(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130204-drones-hmed-512p.photoblog600.jpg)
EXCLUSIVE: Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
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 “an associated force†-- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
The secrecy surrounding such strikes is fast emerging as a central issue in this week’s hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, to be CIA director. Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.†In a separate talk at the Northwestern University Law School in March, Attorney General Eric Holder specifically endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans, saying they could be justified if government officials determine the target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack.â€
But the confidential Justice Department “white paper†introduces a more expansive definition of self-defense or imminent attack than described by Brennan or Holder in their public speeches. It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence†than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,†the memo states.
IMO, this lays out the legal justification for attacking anyone that the government doesn't like. Anywhere.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite
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I know we say this so often, but can you imagine if this happened under Bush? No charges filed, no jury, no defense. The justice department just decides that someone is a threat and they do away with them with a drone strike? Drone strikes don't just kill one, don't they kill anyone else who might be in the vicinity?
JFC, this is unbelievable. What's more unbelievable is the DUmmies and other democrats will justify it.
:banghead: :banghead:
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By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
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 a member of the NRA -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
edited for accuracy
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That is kinda scarey!!!
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That is a slippery slope we are heading.
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That is a slippery slope we are heading.
There is nothing in their wording that prevents them from killing murdering a US citizen on American soil.
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There is nothing in their wording that prevents them from killing murdering a US citizen on American soil.
They'd just ignore it anyway.
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Drone strikes are A - OK but Advanced Interrogation Techniques are bad ! Some kind of disconnect there.
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Drone strikes are A - OK but Advanced Interrogation Techniques are bad ! Some kind of disconnect there.
Drone strikes are Obama's answer to putting prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. You don't have to put the dead bodies in prison anywhere.
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NOW does it look like another civil war is coming to the United States?
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Drone strikes are A - OK but Advanced Interrogation Techniques are bad ! Some kind of disconnect there.
Drone strikes against Americans citizens are A-OK, but saving the taxpayers a pisspot full of heartache and just putting a bullet through Jihad Johnny's brain stem - as the Geneva Convention allows for - instead of dragging his sorry back to the states for trial and a cushy life in a nice soft federal prison isn't? :confused: