Traditional Outline - The US Gov's Kill List of US Citizens

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Click here for the Non-Traditional Discussion Outline = A Proposal For A Counter-Weight To The Tea Party Movement = The Eye-On-The-Ball Movement which was approved at our 12/15/2010 meeting.

[There is also a Traditional Discussion Outline which was discussed from 7:30 pm > 8:30 pm, with the discussion of The Eye-On-The-Ball Movement and its approval taking place from 8:30 pm > 8:45 pm.]
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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Traditional Outline - The US Gov's Kill List of US Citizens

Post by johnkarls »

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The US Gov’s “Kill List” To Assassinate US Citizens in Yemen
Traditional Discussion Outline = Q&A Points

I. First Short Quiz

I-A. President Obama believes in –

I-A-1. capital punishment for American citizens,
I-A-2. without trial (decision based on intelligence with unknown safeguards, if any),
I-A-3. by “cruel and unusual” punishment (death by drone aircraft which can be “cruel” – especially if it results in maiming rather than death).

I-B. Background =

I-B-1. Osama bin Laden’s Fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans (the number of Arabs he calculates have been killed by America and its allies),
I-B-2. The Founding Dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government wrote a book on how to deal with Osama's Fatwa by controlling nuclear material,
I-B-3. It has often been pointed out that this approach is wishful thinking because, for example, the old Soviet Union's missing 178 suitcase-size nuclear weapons contained a considerable amount of recycle-able nuclear material and have long since been universally agreed by experts to be in the hands of terrorists, and
I-B-4. This issue has been the subject of intense concern for every recent Chair of the Sen Fgn Rel or Sen Armed Services Committees with, indeed, Sen Fgn Rel Chair Joe Biden writing an Op Ed piece for the Wall St. Journal during the 2008 Presidential campaign arguing that all nuclear material has "DNA" indicating where it was produced and the U.S. should announce to the world that if it is ever subject to a nuclear attack from terrorists, the U.S. will annihilate with nuclear weapons the country of origin of the nuclear material used against the U.S. (causing some wags to point out that if the U.S. itself is the country of origin, the Biden Doctrine would obligate us to commit nuclear suicide!!!).
I-B-5. If there is a nuclear attack and President Obama is not seen to have done everything possible to prevent it, that will probably be the end of the Democratic Party.

I-C. Comparison of Death by Drone vs. Treatment If Captured Instead of Killed

I-C-1. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights decided that the following interrogation methods did not involve "torture" in litigation between the Irish Republican Army and Britain (the court has jurisdiction over 45 signatory European nations) –
I-C-1-i. Wall Standing = The prisoner stands spread eagle against the wall, with fingers high above his head, and feet back so that he is standing on his toes such that all of his weight falls on his fingers.
I-C-1-ii. Hooding = black or navy hood is placed over the prisoner's head and kept there except during the interrogation.
I-C-1-iii. Subjection to Noise = Pending interrogation, the prisoner is kept in a room with a loud and continuous hissing noise.
I-C-1-iv. Sleep Deprivation = Prisoners are deprived of sleep pending interrogation which outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden advised incoming President Barack Obama had never failed to get a prisoner to talk after several days.
I-C-1-v. Deprivation of Food and Drink = Prisoners receive a reduced diet during detention and pending interrogation.
The decision of the European Court of Human Rights also held that all five of these methods could be employed simultaneously without comprising “torture.”

I-C-2. Water boarding has never been addressed by the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court at the Hague, or the U.S. Supreme Court.
I-C-2-i. However, at the 9/26/2007 Presidential Debate at Dartmouth College - Hanover NH, Debate Moderator Tim Russert informed Hillary Clinton that President Bill Clinton had officially approved water boarding to obtain intelligence quickly if lives were at risk (“The Ticking Time Bomb” Policy) after Hillary had stated she opposed it.
I-C-2.ii. Richard Posner (for the last 30 years a Judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and its Chief Judge 1993-2000) wrote in his review of Alan Dershowitz’ book urging the legalization of torture - “If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square, torture should be used - and will be used - to obtain the information. ... no one who doubts that this is the case should be in a position of responsibility.”

I-C-3. Nevertheless, President Obama has issued an Executive Order banning, inter alia, both sleep deprivation and water boarding – has he jeopardized the future existence of the Democratic Party when Senator Ted Kennedy shunned taking responsibility for banning water boarding (confining his actions to brow beating Bush nominees such as Michael Mukasy)???

II. Second Short Quiz

II-A. The 2009 Christmas-Day Bomber, the Times Square Bomber last May and the Shoe Bomber in 2002 were all considered successful by the US intelligence services because they were not detected beforehand and disaster was averted solely because their bombs failed to detonate.

II-B. Relationship of the 2009 Christmas-Day Bomber to the US Gov’s “kill list” in Yemen.

II-C. Relationship of the 2009 Christmas-Day Bomber to President Obama’s inability to close the terrorist-detention facility at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

II-D. The 9/10/2010 Report of the 9/11 Commission Co-Chairs warning that Al Qaeda is recruiting Americans and Western European citizens.

II-E. The relationship (or lack thereof) between President Obama’s Executive Order banning water boarding and sleep deprivation and the acquittal last month of Ahmed Ghailani on 284 out of 285 criminal counts stemming from the 8/7/1998 bombing of the US embassy in Tanzania.

II-F. NB: Both the US District Court Judge in the Ghailani trial and Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press the Sunday after the conclusion of the trial – Ghailani would never have been released even if he had been acquitted on all 285 criminal charges but would have continued to be held has an “enemy combatant” for the duration of the “War on Terror”

II-G. The US justice system was already the laughing stock of the Muslim world because Attorney General Eric Holder had “guaranteed” the conviction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in defending his thwarted-by-Congress attempt to stage a trial of KSM in NYC.

II-H. NB: There are at least 43 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba that the Obama Administration has decided will be held as “enemy combatants” without trial because the evidence against them will compromise intelligence “sources and methods” – Ghailani was NOT among the 43 because the Obama Administration thought they had sufficient admissible evidence for his “show trial.”

TheChancellors
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Re Point I-C - Death By Drone Vs. Wire-Tapping The Target

Post by TheChancellors »

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Point 1-C in the Discussion Outline notes the anomoly that the President alone can authorize an American citizen to be killed without trial, and by cruel & unusual punishment -- but if s/he is captured instead of killed, then under President Obama's Executive Order s/he can NOT be water-boarded which was standard procedure under President Bill Clinton and s/he can NOT be subjected to other enhanced interrogation techniques that were held NOT to be torture in 1978 by the European Court of Human Rights (which has jurisdiction over 45 signatory European nations) in litigation between the Irish Republican Army and the United Kingdom.

In connection with our discussion of this point at our 12/15/2010 meeting, I noted the further anomoly that although the President alone can authorize an American to be killed without trial and by cruel & unusual means -- if s/he is captured instead, then the US Government is NOT permitted to wiretap the target's conversations without a special warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA") Court!!!

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