Before It’s News – by Deborah Dupre
Barack Obama’s administration is examining a so-called “legal basis” for its targeted killing program second generation that would officially extend assassinations to “militant groups” with little or no connection to the organization the government holds responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to the Washington Post on Thursday.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force, a joint resolution passed by Congress three days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, has served the government as legal foundation for U.S. counterterrorism operations over the past decade. This has resulted in the U.S. kidnapping, torturing and killing thousands of people, most of whom were innocent of any wrong-doing, according to human rights groups such as Reprieve.
The actual torture and kill list is still unknown. To no avail, targeted individuals on Obama’s high-tech kill-list in his “war on terror” have hoped and pressured groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and now, the United Nations, to challenge government’s asserted authority for “targeted killings” of citizens far from armed conflict zones. These TIs want this issue paramount to their survival to have light shed directly on them.
Obama’s administration, that expanded these human rights violations and codified martial law in the United States through his National Defense Authorization Act, claims the United States has killed 4,700 people in its “war on terror” operations outside declared war zones.
Innocent American Targeted Individuals (TIs) and TIs in other countries, each struggling to survive what they believe to be Obama’s covert second generation killing spree, have thus far been voiceless, faceless targets, either dying or have been covertly killed, according to TI support group communications, including emails to this author and Facebook messages.
“That the government adds people to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and leaves them on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the Constitution and international law,” Vince Warren, Executive Director of CCR has stated. (CCR, Rights Groups File Challenge To Targeted Killing By U.S., Sept. 1, 2010)
During the Bush era, by 2005, according to the Pentagon’s own admission, as many as 80,000 victims of the U.S. brutal regime had been through its “render” program, many have tortured on ghost ships.
That kidnap, torture and kill list is not long enough for the Obama administration, reported the Washington Post regarding the government now pushing for its second generation kill list that is to include “associates of associates.”
The Washington Post reports, “The authorization law has already been expanded by federal courts beyond its original scope to apply to ‘associated forces’ of al-Qaeda. But officials said legal advisers at the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies are now weighing whether the law can be stretched to cover what one former official called “associates of associates.”
Officials have not ruled out seeking an updated authorization from Congress or relying on the president’s constitutional powers to protect the country, but said those are unappealing alternatives, according to the Post.
“The debate comes as the administration seeks to turn counterterrorism policies adopted as emergency measures after the 2001 attacks into more permanent procedures that can sustain the campaign against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, as well as other current and future threats.”
“You can’t end the war if you keep adding people to the enemy who are not actually part of the original enemy,” said a person participating in the administration’s deliberations on the issue.
“Indeed, endless war is a feature, not a bug, of government policy,” asserted Washington’s Blog Friday.
No need for dictators to link wrong-doing to their targeted kill list names
The “participant” said extending AUMF to groups more loosely tied to al-Qaeda would be ‘a major interpretive leap’ that could eliminate the need for a link between the targeted organization and core al-Qaeda.
“Still, the administration has taken recent steps — including building a drone base in the African country of Niger — that have moved the United States closer to being able to launch lethal strikes if regional allies are unable to contain emerging threats.”
Washington’s Blog says, “In other words, the government wants to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with our life and liberty.”
As highlighted in the video above, the U.S. government already claims its has the power to assassinate, indefinitely detain or torture anyone in Al Qaeda or “associated forces”:
Washington’s Blog reminds the reader that Barack Obama has authorized the worst human rights violations through his National Defense Authorization Act that has placed unwitting Americans under what a leading human rights expert has called martial law.
See:
- Martial law provision secretly passed in Congress Committee
- Generals confront Obama’s NDAA, say it’s a ‘victory for bin Laden’
- Obama could sign NDAA Martial Law Wed., Impeach supporters say rights defenders
- Obama strips Americans’ rights in NDAA bill, proclaims human rights week
“In the name of ‘fighting Al Qaeda or associated forces’ or those who ‘support’ those bad guys, the U.S. government has authorized:
- Assassinating people anywhere in the world without due process or even a legal charge
- Including U.S. citizens
- Indefinitely detaining any American – without trial (and see this)
- Torturing people“
Under the Obama administration, however, the ten steps for fascism, have not only been taken, but have also been codified.
Predictably, the results of Obama’s regime will negatively impact more and more Americans.
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU has already asserted, “A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American.”
Under martial law, however, dictators are above all law.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.