[PAA-Discuss] Glenn Greenwald: How many Americans are targeted for assassination?

[C. Lee Taylor]

Another sobering article by brother Glenn. Silver lining: maybe since this
assassination program now targets US citizens, we will examine our
government's use of war/death as its foreign policy tool. L

How many Americans are targeted for
assassination?<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/25/assassinations/index.html>
By Glenn Greenwald

When *The Washington Post*'s Dana Priest first revealed (in passing) back in
January<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012604239_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010012700394>that
the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens
targeted for assassination, she wrote that "as of several months ago, the
CIA list included three U.S. citizens."  In April, both *the Post* and the *
NYT* confirmed<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations>that
the administration had specifically authorized the assassination
of Anwar al-Awlaki.  Today, *The Washington Times*' Eli Lake has an
interview<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/24/dozens-from-us-on-list-of-targets-as-terrorists/?page=1>with
Obama's top Terrorism adviser John Brennan in which Brennan strongly
suggests that the number of U.S. citizens targeted for assassination could
actually be "dozens":

 Dozens of Americans have joined terrorist groups and are posing a threat to
the United States and its interests abroad, the president's most senior
adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security said Thursday. . . .
"There are, in my mind, *dozens of U.S. persons who are in different parts
of the world*, and they are very concerning to us," said John O. Brennan,
deputy White House national security adviser for homeland security and
counterterrorism. . . .

"If a person is a U.S. citizen, and he is on the battlefield in Afghanistan
or Iraq trying to attack our troops, he will face the full brunt of the U.S.
military response," Mr. Brennan said. "If an American person or citizen is
in a Yemen or in a Pakistan or in Somalia *or another place*, and they are
trying to carry out attacks against U.S. interests, *they also will face the
full brunt of a U.S. response*. And it can take many forms."


   - Continue reading<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/25/assassinations/index.html>

 Nobody -- or at least not me -- disputes the right of the U.S. or any other
country to kill someone *on an actual battlefield during war* without due
process.  That's just obvious, but that's not remotely what Brennan is
talking about, and it's not remotely what this assassination program is
about.  Indeed, Brennan explicitly identified two indistinguishable groups
of American citizens who "will face the full brunt of a U.S. response":  *
(1)* those "on the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq"; and *(2)* those "in
a Yemen or in a Pakistan or in Somalia or *another place*."  In other words,
the entire world is a "battlefield" -- countries where there is a war and
countries where there isn't -- and the President's "battlefield" powers,
which are unlimited, extend everywhere.  That theory -- *the whole world is
a battlefield, even the U.S.* -- was the core premise that spawned 8 years
of Bush/Cheney radicalism<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-greenwald/the-nsa-fight-begins-stra_b_15295.html>,
and it has been adopted in full by the Obama administration (indeed, it was
that "whole-world-is-a-battlefield" theory which Elena Kagan explicitly
endorsed during her confirmation hearing for Solicitor
General<http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/opinion/959-jack-kenny/3286-elena-kagan-the-worldwide-qbattlefieldq>
).

Anyone who doubts that the Obama administration has adopted the core
Terrorism policies of Bush/Cheney should listen to the concession -- or
boast -- which Brennan himself made in his interview with Lake:

 Mr. Brennan toward the end of the interview acknowledged that, despite some
differences, there is *considerable continuity between the counterterrorism
policies of President Bush and President Obama.*

 "There has been *a lot of continuity of effort* here from the previous
administration to this one," he said. "There are some important
distinctions, but sometimes there is *too much made of those distinctions.
We are building upon some of the good foundational work that has been done."
*

I would really like never to hear again the complaint that comparing Bush
and Obama's Terrorism and civil liberties policies is unfair, invalid or
hyperbolic given that *Obama's top Terrorism adviser himself touts that
comparison*.  And that's anything but a surprise, given that Brennan was a
Bush-era CIA official who defended many of the most controversial
Bush/Cheney Terrorism
policies<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2008/11/16/brennan>
.

I've written at
length<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations>about
the
reasons <http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen>why
targeting American citizens for assassination who are far away from a
"battlefield" is so odious and
tyrannical<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/04/assassinations>,
and I won't repeat those arguments here.  Suffice to say -- and I'm asking
this literally -- if you're someone who believes, or are at least willing to
acquiesce to the claim, that the U.S. President has the power to target your
fellow citizens for assassination without a whiff of due process, what
unchecked presidential powers wouldn't you support or acquiesce to?  I'd
really like to hear an answer to that.  That's the question Al Gore asked
about George Bush in a 2006
speech<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/16/AR2006011600779.html>condemning
Bush's claimed powers merely to
*eavesdrop on and imprison* American citizens without charges, let alone
assassinate them:  "If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which
these acts are committed, *are there any acts that can on their face be
prohibited*? . . . If the president has th[is] inherent authority. . . . *then
what can't he do*?"  Can anyone defending this Obama policy answer that
question?

One other thing that is truly amazing:  the U.S. tried to import this same
due-process-free policy to Afghanistan.  There, the U.S. last year compiled
a "hit list" of 50 Afghan citizens whose assassination it authorized on the
alleged ground (never charged or convicted) that they were drug "kingpins"
or funding the Talbian.  You know what happened?
This<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102303709.html>
:

 A U.S. military hit list of about 50 suspected drug kingpins is *drawing
fierce opposition from Afghan officials*, who say it could undermine their
fragile justice system and trigger a backlash against foreign troops. . . .

Gen. Mohammad Daud Daud, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister for
counternarcotics efforts . . . said he worried that foreign troops would now
act on their own to kill suspected drug lords, *based on secret evidence,
instead of handing them over for trial* . . . "They should respect our law,
our constitution and our legal codes," Daud . "We have a commitment to
arrest these people on our own" . . . .

The U.S. military and NATO officials have authorized their forces to kill or
capture individuals on the list, which was drafted within the past year as
part of NATO's new strategy to combat drug operations that finance the
Taliban.. . . . "*There is a constitutional problem here. A person is
innocent unless proven guilty," [Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former Afghan interior
minister] said. "If you go off to kill or capture them, how do you prove
that they are really guilty in terms of legal process?"*

In other words, Afghans -- the people we're occupying in order to teach
about Freedom and Democracy -- are far more protective of due process and
the rule of law for their own citizens than Americans are who meekly submit
to Obama's identical policy of assassination for their fellow citizens.  It
might make more sense for Afghanistan to invade and occupy the U.S. in order
to spread the rule of law and constitutional values here.

What makes all this most remarkable is the level of screeching protests
Democrats engaged in when Bush merely wanted to eavesdrop on and detain
Americans without any judicial oversight or due process.  Remember all that?
 Click here<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?pagewanted=print>and
here<http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/11/true-tyranny-defined-bush-admin-v-jose.html>for
a quick refresher.  Yet here is Barack Obama doing far worse to them
than that without any due process or judicial oversight -- he's targeting
them for assassination -- and there is barely a peep of protest from the
same Party that spent years depicting "mere" warrantless eavesdropping and
due-process-free detention to be the acts of a savage, lawless tyrant.  And,
of course, Obama himself back then joined in those orgies of condemnation,
as reflected by this December, 2008, answer he gave to Charlie Savage, then
of *The Boston*
*Globe*<http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/>,
regarding his views of executive power:

 5. Does the Constitution permit a president to *detain* US citizens without
charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

[Obama]: *No*. I reject the Bush Administration's claim that the President
has plenary authority under the Constitution *to detain U.S. citizens
without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.*

So back then, Obama said the President lacks the power merely to detain U.S.
citizens without charges; indeed, when asked if "the Constitution permit[s]"
that, he responded:  "no."  Yet now, as President, he claims the power to
assassinate them without charges.  Could even his hardest-core loyalists try
to reconcile that with a straight face?  As Spencer Ackerman documented in
April<http://washingtonindependent.com/81550/why-is-it-legal-to-kill-anwar-al-awlaki?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter>,
not even John Yoo claimed that the President possessed the power Obama is
claiming here.  Given Brennan's strong suggestion that there are not merely
three but "dozens" of Americans who are being targeted or at least could
be ("they also will face the full brunt of a U.S. response") -- and given the
huge number of times the Government has falsely accused individuals of
Terrorism<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/28/guantanamo>and
its demonstrated willingness
to imprison knowingly innocent
detainees<http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/21/pundits/index.html>--
is it time yet to have a debate about whether we think the President
should be able to exercise a power like this?
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