CBS: Was Saddam Sons' Killing 'Legal'?

[diamond14]

-snips-

CBS) In theory, pursuing with intent to kill violates a long-standing policy banning political assassination....

Earlier this week, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, stated in unusually candid terms the administration's disregard for the assassination ban. Appearing on NBC, Bremer said U.S. officials presumed that Saddam was still alive and that American forces were trying to kill him. "The sooner we can either kill him or capture him, the better," Bremer said. Often in the past, officials resorted to winks and nods or other circumlocutions when asked about U.S. actions that gave the appearance of homicidal intent.

However, the ban on assassinations, spelled out in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 and reinforced by Presidents Carter and Reagan, made no distinction between wartime and peacetime. "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination," reads the order, number 11905, signed Feb. 18, 1976.

There are no loop holes; no matter how awful the leader, he could not be a U.S. target either directly or by a hired hand.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/23/iraq/main564717.shtml


so, the pResident AGAIN violates the laws of OUR country, by ordering assassinations....everytime I feel that these reTHUGlicans cannot possibly get any lower...they come with something even more reprehensible...

[mjb4]

1. RESPECT CBS! theirs is the only

true independent democratic MEDIA around! CBS FOR TRUTH and Honesty and professionalism. Great move Joi Chen!

[Muddleoftheroad]

2. One of them

Held military rank and is a viable combat target. Once they resisted, all were viable targets.

[dobak]

3. but....

Wouldn't they only be legal targets if we had declared war?

[lfairban]

4. Not only that, didn't Bush declare that the war was over?

n/t

[Pallas180]

6. I thought dimson changed that law by executive order.

.

[diamond14]

9. no, shrub never changed the order....that's what CBS says

from the same article.....

"There's an executive order that prohibits the assassination of foreign leaders, and that remains in place," a White House spokesman said just as the Iraq hostilities were about to begin.

-------------------------

remember when shrub was making his lying case for war....it would certainly have created a crisis if he decided to officially declare "open season" on political assassinations....some of us here are old enough to remember all the hard work that put that ban in place...

and if shrub had declared "open season" on polical assassinations, why would we need a war ? afterall, newsreporters were interviewing saddam on TV, and if you can get that close, then you could kill him...an 18 year old from Marin, California even got to visit with Osama...so if all that is possibly, why have destructive wars??....why?, mostly because shrub has NO BRAINS...

[librechik]

5. welcome to DU, dobak

excellent point. Bushies prefer to operate off the books whenever possible, and ignoring the laws of the land secure in the thought that no one will stop them is their major character flaw.

[Pallas180]

7. Just announced MSNBC: Qday & Osay committed suicide-im not kidding

they really announced that.

Maybe WH was listening to CBS.

[diamond14]

10. takes away the taint of "assassination"...got to say something

as people demanded to look at the bodies, and there were only single shots to the back of the head...

there are so many stories swirling around...first I read that the bodies were charred beyond recognition, then, that they were recognizable, then multiple gunshot wounds, then rockets ripped them up, then fire....who knows what the case it....I just know that it makes me sick to hear Americans screaming for KILLING foreign leaders and their children, and gloating over people's deaths...shrub has certainly turned OUR country into a horrible vicious KILLING machine, where nobody seems able to speak out about it...and American leaders gloat over the KILLING and encourage others to do the same...it's very sick and dark...we took a wrong turn a while back...and it's time now to get OUR country BACK...


BOOT BUSH in 2004

Re-Defeat bush*

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. Combat

You don't need a declared war to have enemy combatants.

[leanings]

8. Exactly

Details haven't emerged, but I'm inclined to doubt they were willing to give up. I wouldn't characterize these two as "political" targets, either; while they certainly had a political importance, they also had a military one. One having military rank is icing, but it's a righteous shoot either way.

[moondust]

12. If they were going to use assassination anyway

they should have done it months ago before war broke out and cost a lot of lives. I thought they had dismissed this option *before* the war for some reason. (Because that wouldn't necessitate the troops going in and seizing the oil fields?)

Use of unmanned drones to assassinate would obviously be illegal as well.

[Q]

13. The Bushies also broke international law...

...and the Geneva convention when they intentionally bombed civilian buildings in Iraq trying to Get Saddam.

- Law means nothing to this corrupt executive branch.

[newyawker99]

14. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=30277&mesg_id=30277


I am locking this one.


NYer99
DU Moderator