U.S. asserts unilateral terrorist capture or kill doctrine

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Associated Pres

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will keep targeting al-Qaida anywhere in the world, including in countries unable or unwilling to do it themselves, the top U.S. counter terror official said Friday.

White House counter terror chief John Brennan laid out what could be called the Osama bin Laden raid doctrine, in remarks at Harvard Law School. He says under international law, the U.S. can protect itself with pre-emptive action against suspects the U.S. believes present an imminent threat, wherever they are.

That amounts to a legal defense of the unilateral Navy SEAL raid into Pakistan that killed al-Qaida mastermind bin Laden in May, angering Pakistan. It also explains the thinking behind other covert counterterrorist action, like the CIA’s armed drone campaign that only this week killed a top al-Qaida operative in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The Obama administration has quadrupled drone strikes against al-Qaida targets since taking office.

The Obama administration has more recently expanded drone strikes and the occasional special-operations raid into areas like Somalia, where the weak government may be willing to fight al-Qaida but lacks the resources. Navy SEALs targeted al-Qaida operative Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in Somalia in 2009, by helicopter. The SEALs then landed to pick up his body and bury it at sea, just as bin Laden was later interred.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/17/2411507/us-asserts-unilateral-terrorist.html

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. The Obama Doctrine...

[newfie11]

2. So does this mean we are going to invade other countries?

"countries unable or unwilling to do it themselves" sounds like a threat.

What would we do if this was another country saying this?

[Ian David]

3. Not invade. Just bomb and raid. n/t

[boppers]

21. Same as it ever was.

Targeted killing has been part of human history since history was written, and probably even before that.

[ronnie624]

31. Whether that's true or not,

it doesn't translate into a moral and legal right to do it. The U.S. government executes it militarist policies simply because it can. But anyone who swallows the official justifications for the "war on terror" is not equipped for a rational discussion of U.S. foreign policy, anyway.

[boppers]

33. Agreed on all points.

[No Elephants]

43. Really? Then quite a few of your other posts on this thread are incomplete, to put it in the very

nicest possibly way I can think of just now.

[No Elephants]

38. How about some examples of one nation making targeted killings within

the borders of another nation being the official policy of a government since history was written?

And what is supposed to be the point of that statement anyway? That, if everybody else violates the most basic international law, it must be okay if Obama not only does it, but makes it the policy of the U.S.?

[Synicus Maximus]

56. Leon Trotsky comes to mind.

[JackRiddler]

60. Is that supposed to be a justification? It applies equally well to rape, murder, robbery...

child abuse, even genocide.

[No Elephants]

35. I'm assuming you deemed that so obviously false that the sarcasm emote would

be unnecessary.

[Ian David]

59. An invasion implies occupation. n/t

[Cool Logic]

54. If the US was allowing radicals to train for and plan attacks against another nation...

that nation would have the legal right to do the very same thing.

Just as an individual has the right of self-defense, so has a free country if attacked.

[ronnie624]

55. What if those radicals are the actual political leaders of a country?

The Bush administration, for example, which we "allowed" to plot and conspire to invade a country which they knew was not a threat to the U.S.? Does the "legal right" you cite, apply under those circumstances, or is the U.S. exempt because Iraq was not "free"?

Just curious.

[Cool Logic]

62. Although a free state has the legal right to attack a totalitarian state; however...

it is not obligated to do so. Nor is it obligated to sacrifice its People's lives and assets to the random whims of appointed United Nations committees. Still, it is in the best interest of free People to bring about freedom in totalitarian states.

I believe the power to declare war was vested in the Congress to ensure a rational contemplation of the grievances, as well as the projected cost of lives and resources of the People. However, Congress has hidden behind the War Powers Resolution for nearly 40 years. It allows them to put one foot in the water and if things get too hot, they can elude the blame and leave the President standing alone.

...which we "allowed"

I commend you for acknowledging that which many others deny. For that is the crux of the matter. You, me and anyone who casts a vote for an elected official is responsible for the decisions made by those we choose to represent us. Many Americans do not want to confront reality, but "we the People" have no one else to blame for the empty strategies and mindless wars we find ourselves engaged in.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. I don't like how the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions are invaldiated

as soon as the subject is "terrorists".

[RC]

12. You mean those WE decide are terrorists.

How many 'terrorists' are just trying to defend their own country from invaders?

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Yes, exactly.

[No Elephants]

39. Maybe not "the" terrorists, but also terrorists.

[msanthrope]

30. What part of the Constiution or the Geneva Conventions are invalidated?

For example, can you name the violation that will happen when we eventually take out Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen?

[No Elephants]

40. Have you read the Geneva Conventions? BTW, the Geneva Conventions are not

the be all and end all of international law.

The sovereignty of a ruler or government within its own borders may well be the very first principle ever of international common law.

[msanthrope]

44. Yes. I am of the quaint belief that if one asserts that a law is broken, one should be able to cite

it.

Otherwise, one comes off sounding much like Bush, who constantly mentioned 'evildoers' without telling us what evil they were doing.

[No Elephants]

45. Huh? None of that is the least bit responsive to my post.

I did not ask you why you had asked another poster about a provision of the Geneva Conventions.

You did not answer my question at all. And, for my part, I did cite law, without being asked so do.

On the other hand, certain basic things should not require citation. If someone posts, for example, that stealing is against the law, asking for a cite is not reasonable.

In terms of international law, what you asked is about that basic.

[No Elephants]

37. Terra! Terra! Terra! More than one President has used that to jusfity the unjustifiable.

Even the much-beloved and liberal FDR.

Poor guy never had DU apologists rationalizing internment of the Japanese, a racially segregated military and heaven knows what all though.

On the other hand, the SCOTUS did uphold internment, so it must have been Constitutional, right?

[stuckinarut]

5. I can't wait til the apologists get here...

This is the exact thing that Democrats were screaming about when George W. was in the seat.

Now that our boy is in there, it gets worse...And those that make noise are quickly attacked and denounced as "fire baggers" or pseudo-posters, lurking in the dark to nit pick the President.

There is nothing nit-picky about justifiably criticizing this doctrine which makes us look like tyrants to the world at large and which creates blow-back for the next generations to come.

War is the ONLY issue. And it also is a racket.

Continual war is not sustainable, and will only lead to more atrocities, bloodshed and fiscal insolvency.

This issue is bigger than party, or politics. I will be consistent in opposing actions like this NO MATTER WHO THE POLITICIAN IS who endorses it.

[pasto76]

8. WOA, hold the fuck on there a minute bub

"This is the exact thing that Democrats were screaming about when George W. was in the seat."

WRONG. This is the exact thing the LIBERALS were screaming about when GW had the stick.

*THIS* _DEMOCRAT_ actually supported GW on this front. I wish he had done more of it. Maybe then I wouldnt have been sent to Iraq for 16 months.

There little coincidence that a DEMOCRAT was in charge when OBL was killed. According to the record, it was his first directive to then CIA director Panetta. Huge change from GW isnt it, who shuttered the OBL group in 2006.

It is _astounding_ to me that anyone is objecting to the killing (or much less frequent, capture) of AQ persons. I mean dude, they are self proclaimed terrorists (jihadists, whatever. It's semantics) who will in fact, given the opportunity, plan, orchestrate and execute more attacks against civilian populations. The US being the apple of their eye #1 target.

How is that a good thing for anyone?

Lemme tell you something else amigo - you know nothing about war if you havent been there. Have you been? AQ is a very real, very complex and very large organization. They will kill more civilians if they are given the chance. You know that to be true, because they are not shy about telling the world that.

I spent 16 months in iraq chasing ghosts ( Chasing Ghosts, written by LT Paul Riekhoff, CEO of IAVA, available anywhere books are sold). I woudl trade every singel day there, plus 3 times as long, away from my family, if I had actually been chasing badguys. Hounding AQ is absolutely, in this combat veterans' eyes, worth the trouble.

So, to be nice, when you say "War is the ONLY issue", thats a load of shit. It is BARELY an issue to Americans. It BARELY rates any time from the media. Its one of the primary reasons I still read DU, because they post articles MSM does not. And look around DU bubba - most of the screaming about this or that, is NOT about the war, or military issues. By and large, people just dont want to be bothered with us. It just is.

[redixdoragon]

9. Amazing, that here of all places

Liberal would be put in all caps as some form of dirty word.

That we violate borders, throwing our power around to hunt those we call our enemies, with or without the consent of soverign governments. How can we say "This is ok. This is what we stand for."

How can we have fallen so far as to embrace imperialist attitudes and say "This is moral. This is just."

[boppers]

22. Name me one president who has not sent troops on capture/kill missions without declaring war.

Just one, that's all I ask.

I'll wait.

Obama did it.
* did it.
Clinton did it.
GHWB did it.
Reagan did it.
Carter did it.
...
(etc. etc. etc.)

Claiming that this is new under * and Obama, or even new at all, is woefully ignorant.

[No Elephants]

34. Don't know about all that, but which laws allowed this? And do you have a link to where those guys

made this the official policy of the United States of America?

"He isn't the first to do it" is a really defective and cynical defense of any deed.

Clinton engaged in extraordinary rendition, too. Didn't make it right.

[StarsInHerHair]

28. yeah, those who think this is fine DONT expect it to come back at them,

& they're short-sighted. Those that say others have done it too(How well does that work for your kids?)failed to point out it was done in secret, not loudly trumpeted all over the place.

[No Elephants]

41. Yes, the rule of law is so fucking inconvenient and so fucking liberal.

Do we have your permission to enter you home at will and do whatever we feel we can rationalize?

Thanks.

[EFerrari]

52. Well, it were wrong then and it's wrong now.

The most conservative numbers say that a quarter of those"terrorists" Obama is blowing up with drones are civilians, which is a violation of Geneva at a minimum. I know observing Geneva is an extreme LIBERAL position, but there it is.

Civilians don't become terrorists just because you've killed them.

And you know as well as anyone here that Bush the Lesser was going into Iraq Al Qaida or no Al Qaida.

[truth2power]

10. I am convinced that if Obama were to randomly select 20 people off the street

every day, line them up on the WH lawn and shoot them in the head, there are those on DU who would find some excuse as to why this is a good thing. It's ludicrous.

There is not one person alive on this earth who deserves absolute and uncritical support for their actions, no matter what.

[boppers]

23. Yes, because people who have declared war on the US are "random"?

I understand your point about those who defend Obama, and no person being about critique, but it isn't the case.

[No Elephants]

42. What isn't the case? That some DUers will defend anything that Obama has done?

Or that this instance is not another violation of the rule of law?

The first one is patently the case and the point truth2power was making.

The second, that this policy violated international law and is also being rationalized and defended at DU, including by you, is also the case.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Thought Criminals Beware

Uncle Sam has got your number.

[Arctic Dave]

7. Wellthen, by that logic Iraq and Afghanistan can start ot bomb and kill our guys too.

It becomes a feedloop of stupidity and killing. Does this mean every soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan deserved to be killed because they were agressive toward them?

Fucking stupid beyond words. This is the reason why Obama will be a one termer. He is bush in a different suit.

[RC]

13. Correct. How long before some country decides since we can do it, they can also.

And start doing it here in this country.

[Maine_Nurse]

20. Hmm, are you saying it has not happened here? Heard of the Mossad? KGB perhaps?

Different scale perhaps, and this may be the first time for being declared in public as policy, but targeted killings in a foreign country certainly aren't anything new in this world.

I do worry about who gets to pick the targets and based on what criteria, but in general the idea of exterminating members of groups that have declared their intent to attack our home country and citizens doesn't trouble me in the least. When it is us or them, they need to die.

[boppers]

24. They always have done so.

Did you think the KGB, the Mossad, the ISI, existed to give out flowers and candy to people?

This is as old as mankind.

[No Elephants]

47. And we thought them criminal. Did you have a point?

[bemildred]

11. Morons. Buffoons. Fools.

:puke:

[saras]

15. Fucking stupid. It's NOT unilateral just because WE say so.

Yeah, I'm going to unilaterally beat up all my neighgors, even the martial arts expert with the gun collection, the guy who's an officer in the Hell's Angels, and the Homeland Security worker. Woo hoo!!

[boppers]

25. It's not even unilateral.

Every nation large enough to have security and intelligence forces capable of such does this.

Every. Single. One.

[No Elephants]

48. Having forces capable of this does not mean every nation is doing it.

They aren't.

And even if every nation were doing it, that would mean only that all nations are ignoring international law.

Is that a result anyone should support?

[Odin2005]

16. The difference between Shrubby and Obama on foreign policy is very little.

[boppers]

26. Israel disagrees.

So does Egypt, France, Britan, Germany, Mexico, Iraq, (etc.)

[No Elephants]

49. Not so sure you're even colorably correct about that.

[JackRiddler]

61. Certainly what "Israel" (hardliners) thinks is all that counts.

[indepat]

17. When other nations assert their right to make pre-emptive strikes against targets in the

US who pose an imminent treat to them, I surely hope they take care to minimize the collateral damage so as to kill and injure as few of our citizens as practical and hold damage to infrastructure at a minimum. :patriot:

[saras]

18. Exactly. Like the Weather Underground, who were careful to only bomb empty buildings...

http://upstatefilms.org/weather/torontostar.html">The Toronto Star interviews Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, 2003

What the hell kind of a way is THAT to win a war? If your goal is controlling populations through fear, slaughtering innocents can't help but help your cause. Only some wimpy pinko would think otherwise.

If you see yourselves as an oppressed minority, religious, political, or whatever, and some enemy vows to hunt you down and kill you anywhere on the planet, well, what are you SUPPOSED to do? The only tool you have is the ability to kill a few hundred people at a time. How do you best fight a war with this tool? Are you going to go after the enemy's most hardened high-tech war machinery, or are you going to look for a weak point? And if you find weak points, are you going to attack the enemy directly, or are you going to try and turn public opinion against the enemy continuing the battle?

The reason we (not TPTB, us) object to them in the first place is that they are carrying a local conflict to a larger scale and involving innocents. A response of "same to you, but more of it" - well, it will work as well as it ever has.

[boppers]

27. The Unabomber agrees with you.

[No Elephants]

50. They have no such right to assert. Neither does Obama.

[EFerrari]

53. Not to mention, dumping bodies into the ocean is not a burial

and also violates Geneva.

Our government acts more like the Mafia every day.

[indepat]

57. Exactly the issue at hand: such right is reserved only to a superpower willing to use its vast

arsenal of lethal weaponry why, when, and where only he sees fit to use it. Hopefully control of such a superpower would never be seized by a group rogues. :) :patriot:

[BetsysGhost]

19. Funny that

they use international law when it suits their purpose and not so funny when they defy international law when it suits their purpose.

Having your cake and eating it too.

[msanthrope]

29. What international law is broken under this policy?

When we eventually take out Anwar al-Awalki, in Yemen, with this policy, which international law will we have broken?

[No Elephants]

32. Starting with the most basic, each nation is sovereign over what goes on within its own borders.

BTW, how many international law experts do you suppose post on DU?

[msanthrope]

36. Right--which means that the international community should butt out of human rights abuses

in other countries, since they are sovereign?

I mean, I get what you are saying, but let's face it---it's not like Pakistan was gonna hand over Bin Laden.

Yemen's in no position to hand over al-Awlaki.

Somalia? How much sovereignty do you think they exercise right now?

Terrorists don't tend to go to places where warrants are enforced. And when people advocate targeted assassination, I don't care if they are targeted.

As for international law expertise, perhaps one ought to refrain from declaring that laws are broken if one cannot name the law?

[No Elephants]

46. What you seem to be implying is that we should ignore international law that

has been in place for millenia whenever it seems unlikely that we can get another country's permission to let us do what we want whenever we want to do it.

"As for international law expertise, perhaps one ought to refrain from declaring that laws are broken if one cannot name the law?"

My point was that you seem to imply that, if a DUer cannot cite you to a specific international law, that means there is no violation of international law. If so, that implication is bullshit because people who post are usually not experts in state or federal law, let alone international law.

As for me, I've cited international common law to you. If you don't know what common law is, you should find out. Not only does international common law apply all over the world, but the U.S. is a common law nation as to both state and federal law, meaning all of our law is not embodied in Constitutions and statutes.

Your questions involve things so fundamental as to make asking for cites silly anyway, as follows:

If I ignore your property lines and your property rights, enter your home to try to take out someone I ALLEGE has hurt me (no trial) whenever I feel like it, and pershaps damage some other folks and property as I do that, what laws will I have broken?

Nations have counterparts to to your property lines. They are called borders. They also have counterparts to your property rights, and so on.

And executing people without proof or a trial of any kind is a bit troublesome, no matter where you do it.

All those things should be able to be said without citation. You don't ask for a cite when someone says a foreign national who enters the U.S. without persmission is violating the law, do you?

Would someone be entitled to invade the U.S. and kill Cheney and Bush and the Secret Service people protecting them, and perhaps some other innocent bystanders, because Cheney and Bush violated international law and we won't turn them over to anyone?

Or is it only the U.S. that has a pass to ignore international law? Or only Obama?



"which means that the international community should butt out of human rights abuses
in other countries, since they are sovereign?"

Wow. What a massive false equivalency that is.

You, whether "you" refers to a tourist or a head of state, are either inside a foreign nation's borders lawfully, by permission of that nation, as when you have a visa or one is not required, or you are there illegally, or you are invading that nation, perhaps legally, perhaps illegally.

If you are a nation invading another nation that has not attacked you lately, or done something else that justifies your invading that nation, there is at least a presumption that you are invading illegally. And, by "illegally," I mean in terms of international law. There may be laws of your own nation that you are violating as well, such as a Constitutional provision that gives someone other than yourself the power to declare war.

None of that should be rocket science for posters on a political board.

[Nihil]

63. Interesting response ...

> And when people advocate targeted assassination, I don't care if they are targeted.

You seem to be saying that you support the targeted assassination of people
who, in turn, are advocating targeted assassination.

That, in conjunction with the OP declaration, has put a big target on every
member of the US administration - from the top to the bottom - and all of their
gung-ho supporters.

Just remember that when it happens.

[hack89]

58. What happens when they can't exercise sovereignty inside their borders?

there are parts of the world that are literally lawless. What if a terrorist group sets up camp in such territory and the nominal government is powerless to do anything about them?

And in the case of Pakistan and Sudan, what about when there is clear evidence that parts of the host government is actually helping the terrorist?

[No Elephants]

51. Self delete