Obama authorizes killing of cleric

[Mr. Coffee]

He already forfeited his rights as an American citizen when he decided to betray his people. The intel is already there showing that he has done so.

Wait, you mean you've seen this intelligence first hand or can provide a source other than "government insider" to verify this? Oh, wait, why bother with evidence to show this guy is actuall a terrorist or anything, not like we're going to grant him his right to fucking trail or anything.

He doesn't even rate status as a human being. Kill it like an animal and be done with it.

No, I don't have either of those. However, even if I did, both come in under Freedom Of Speech last time I checked. The creature this discussion is about has actively joined with an enemy force that wages a war on this country, has planned operations with the sole intent to kill American Citizens and has taken part in those actions.

This is fucking hilarious... First you drag out your First Amendment rights about antigovernment liturature and such, and then immediately follow it right up by saying it's perfectly fine to violate someone's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. You're a fucking idiot, get the hell off the board.

Those actions are not covered by the Constitution. It does not with to have the protections being an American Citizen provides and declared itself to be an enemy of the US. Treat it as one would any other dangerous enemy. Kill on sight.

Wait, you're saying that the US Constitution and Bill of Rights don't specifically provide for things like due process, trail by jury, innocence until guilt is proven, ect?

What fucking nation's Constitution were you studying, because it sure as fuck wasn't the United States.

[Napoleon the Clown]

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The vague use of "person" doesn't explicitly state this is reserved for US citizens. Unless someone has a Supreme Court ruling and citation for it?

I'd like to also point out that by saying that a person who does not have US citizenship lacks the right to a trial by jury and can just be assassinated is just as likely to end up meaning the US can just kill people from outside the US for having the wrong political views as this situation is to lead to the US killing US citizens who hold the wrong political views.

Capture the fucker if there's a reasonable chance of doing so without taking casualties. If a sniper happens to see him or he's among armed combatants, shoot him. The first has no reasonable chance of the capture, the second he's liable to pick up a gun and start shooting back. He's an enemy combatant.

[Garibaldi]

[quote]I believe we are discussing the hypothetical that this information is accurate. I don't think it has been verified. Though I suppose such a claim would be impossible to verify to you.[/quote

That's the crux of the issue, far more than any moral objections about "sinking to their level" or whatever.

Who collects this information? Who confirms its accuracy? The same people that carry out the hit! The issue is not, "Is this particular cleric a terrorist", the issue is that now the President is empowered to literally be the judge, jury, and executioner of any American citizen, based on secret knowledge which is impossible to independently verify.

You don't see a problem with this?

[LMSx]

Just to be clear, this authorization would be pointless if it were merely addressing any sort of battlefield situation, or where this cleric fellow has access to weaponry. No one needs, or needed Obama's permission to shoot back.

This is for when the guy is sleeping at home, or taking a walk, or doing ordinary boring harmless activities.

I do not want "trust" to be the only reason why the candidate I elected President cannot simply order me (or anyone) killed.

[Captain Seafort]

Shouldn't we just use this amazingly simple tactic for all terrorists?

Preferably, yes. I'm not trying to downplay the difficulty involved, but to try and get into people's heads that terrorism is another form of criminality, not a war in the traditional sense.

And yet it's bypassed all the time when criminals are deemed an imminent threat and shot. Would you insist on due process for a criminal shooting at you? Or would you prefer the police just take him out?

If an arrest operation turns into a firefight then fine. My objection is to the approach of shoot first and make no attempt to arrest him.

A local farm house doesn't pose nearly the logistical problem that apprehending someone in a foreign country does. You just can't reverse the situation and necessitate the same response.

So he's a criminal who's difficult to get to. That does not excuse resorting to killing him when he isn't an imminent threat.

Why does anyone give a fuck if he was an American citizen? Would anyone object to a Predator shoving a Hellfire up his ass if he was born in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia?

I would. I don't give a damn where this bloke was born - I object to treating criminals as though they're soldiers.

You said any other criminal which means shoplifters, drug users, etc. That's why it doesn't work. However, someone planning and carrying out mass murder is a whole different bag.

I used the serial killer example because the threat is similar - they've both been responsible for large numbers of deaths and will probably continue to be so. However, fundamentally there shouldn't be a difference between terrorists and shoplifters. They don't magically become exempt from due process simply because they're more dangerous.

Again, the difference in logistics and threat to friendly forces is significant when comparing the US to a foreign country.

Which I've never disputed.

Yeah, that's work great so far terrorist VIPs. Oh wait...the only action getting results is deadly force.

Then what about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or Mullah Berader. Arresting these characters is difficult, but it's been done.

Trying suspected criminals is a vital part, and I agree. However, this is not that simple. The subject isn't just a criminal, but he's a soldier fighting in a war against the US and operating from unfriendly territory.

He's not a soldier by any description. He doesn't represent any state, recognised or otherwise, he doesn't wear identifying marks or symbols, he doesn't carry arms openly.

Capturing is extremely different. Things have to be in the right place at the right time. It's much easier to just eliminate them, and it makes more sense from a war fighting perspective.

Which is exactly the same as trying to catch any other criminal albeit, as I've said many time, catching this particular bunch is exceptionally difficult.

I also don't believe that is what the order is stating. Deadly force has been authorized against this individual, but that doesn't mean that they won't try to capture him if a reasonable opportunity to do so exists. You, and others, have made this assumption.

A reasonable assumption, in my opinion. The authorisation implies that the preferred solution is shoot on sight, even if he isn't posing an immediate threat.

This is probably the most accurate scenario. He is holed up with a bunch of other terrorists or in a location where assets aren't available and/or they were in such a position that an attack would lead to high friendly casualties and it was reasonable to believe apprehension could be defeated by escape then yeah blow it up

This is probably a national difference of approach. Over here, the police are only permitted to open fire if the individual poses an immediate threat. Running away doesn't cut it.

[Edi]

Know why Awlaki has been determined to be a terrorist? Because he has advocated that Muslims in US occupied countries should attack the American military to drive them out and that they are justified in killing American soldiers in that situation. That's more or less the gist of it, but I can dig up references if need be.

It happens to be so that that particular kind of rhetoric still falls under free speech according to the first amendment to the US constitution. But Obama has ordered his assassination of an American citizen by executive fiat without any kind of trial or review or even investigation into the situation, never mind publishing any such for review by any kind of body. Even Bush and fucking Cheney did not go that far.

Now, if he actually took up arms himself, then he's fair game.

In any case, this is some really fucking bad precedent, because using the exact same reasoning, you could justify ordering the assassination of e.g. the Tea Party movement (violent anti-government rhetoric) and even Congressmen who have engaged in similar speech. Because they're obviously terrorists and it is necessary to wipe them out without due process to ensure the safety of American citizens (and since they're terrorists, they obviously don't count...).



It's a huge, stinking load of bullshit, but they will probably get away with it because not enough people in the US care about the issue and even fewer actually understand the legal issues involved.

[Kuroji]

I see nothing wrong with stooping lower than our enemies in order to get an advantage over them.

Okay, so is it justifiable to kill an innocent child to prevent a terrorist attack that would destroy a city?

How about her whole family?

How about we destroy a city full of innocent people, but it's in the country the terrorists are from, and it spares your city?

What if that only saves one person from the attack?

No matter how low you stoop, someone else can always be lower.

[Shroom Man 777]

Looks like the Teabaggers were somewhat right after all -Obama really does have a death panel.

And if I read the story correctly: its for actual terrorists.

Still not encouraging. As an American Terrorist, he still has rights. Now, if there is a huge firefight and he doesn't survive the battle that would have captured him, that's one thing. Saying that the government can claim someone is a terrorist and kill them without a trial is, well not good.

And what if he was a non-American terrorist, would he still have rights? What makes this guy different from all those other guys, who are citizens of all other not-America countries, that the US has whacked? Or is the government claiming someone is a terrorist, irregardless of nationality, and killing them without a trial, not good?

Thinking about it, I wonder how all these assassinations or whatevers will look like, retrospectively. And how many collateral casualties will these secret killings have? How many mistaken targets, etc? We'll probably never know, since this stuff is all hush-hush. Man.

[Knife]

And what if he was a non-American terrorist, would he still have rights? What makes this guy different from all those other guys, who are citizens of all other not-America countries, that the US has whacked? Or is the government claiming someone is a terrorist, irregardless of nationality, and killing them without a trial, not good?

Crawl off your America-fuck-yeah horse for a second Shroom. What I'm arguing is basic law that a government should not put out a hit on it's own citizens. I'm not interested in making it a 'evil 'Merica killing brown people' thread so you can get your rocks off and type silly 36 character words that make no sense.

Short of action movies, assassinations don't help much in the long run in any tactical sense. Look at the shit storm Israel is having with their Jason Borne shit in the hotel at Dubai. Yeah, they killed a guy and now the world is condemning them again, the UK is royally pissed at forged passports, and even the US shunned them a bit. It is also a bit like letting the genie out of the bottle, if you James Bond it up and kill a guy, then they're going to do the same. Though I don't think that in a tactical sense, killing a general or something in the field military-James Bond style isn't necessarily a bad thing; rather, a disruption of the chain of command. Anyway, that's war and against the enemy.

The problem here, is the enemy is one of ours, so reasonable effort to bring him home and put him on trial should be made because it is our citizen and our laws he broke.

[Flagg]

Know why Awlaki has been determined to be a terrorist? Because he has advocated that Muslims in US occupied countries should attack the American military to drive them out and that they are justified in killing American soldiers in that situation. That's more or less the gist of it, but I can dig up references if need be.

I'd like to see those. Because according to Wikipedia the guy had sermons attended by 3 of the 9/11 hijackers, had correspondence with Hassan before the Fort Hood attack (and later praised his actions), is a high level Al Quaeda recruiter (though he denies this) in Yemen who recruited and trained the Christmas Day Dick Vaporizer.

But it's Wikipedia so if you have like notes scribbled on a napkin I'd take that as a more reliable source.

[Sarevok]

Well shrooms does raise an interesting point. Why should terrorists with American citizenships deserve actual trials instead of sentenced to death behind closed doors with evidence the public will never see ? If this were an actual war between nation states this would be a moot point. But its not and American leaders are essentially ordering killings of individual persons. Normally in America even the worst criminals get some rights. You cant sentence even the most heinious criminals to death without proper process. But this is exactly what is happening today. If you are non american you can be killed anywhere in the world without any reason shown. Meanwhile you can go shoot up a school in america and there will be years of legal battles before the state decides what is to be done. This disconnect is astonishing:

[Yogi]

It's kind of funny that we can still say the word "Terrorist" and people will line up like obedient sheep to bleat their approval on whatever the government is doing now. I suppose they've never learned why trials are important and why they should happen before you kill someone. That or they're just confused on the subject, since half the hypothetical scenarios aren't applicable in this situation. "He was endangering Americans, so he's fair game." Now where did I hear justification like that before?

FYI, just in case you didn't know, the idea of a Deadly Terrorist Threat is a crock of shit. The OMG!!9/11!! attacks killed 2,973 people, while 37,862 died in car accidents in that year ALONE in the United States.

[Havok]

FYI, just in case you didn't know, the idea of a Deadly Terrorist Threat is a crock of shit. The OMG!!9/11!! attacks killed 2,973 people, while 37,862 died in car accidents in that year ALONE in the United States.

So car crashes... therefore no deadly terrorist attacks? What?

P.S. does a single car crash kill 3,000 people at once? Shut up idiot.

[Shroom Man 777]

And what if he was a non-American terrorist, would he still have rights? What makes this guy different from all those other guys, who are citizens of all other not-America countries, that the US has whacked? Or is the government claiming someone is a terrorist, irregardless of nationality, and killing them without a trial, not good?

Crawl off your America-fuck-yeah horse for a second Shroom. What I'm arguing is basic law that a government should not put out a hit on it's own citizens. I'm not interested in making it a 'evil 'Merica killing brown people' thread so you can get your rocks off and type silly 36 character words that make no sense.

But wouldn't it be easier for a government to kill its own people, than to kill people that isn't its own? In that killing a person who's a citizen of your country, and preferrably killing him in your own country too, would violate less international laws or protocols or diplomatic things that might alienate other countries if that person you're killing belonged to another country?

If you ask me, I do think it's less troublesome and more convenient for America to kill its own people, preferably in its own country, than to do so to another country's people. If this makes the job easier, and if it is done in concurrence with reliable intelligence provided by trustworthy intelligence agencies, then I support America doing it more often.

Short of action movies, assassinations don't help much in the long run in any tactical sense. Look at the shit storm Israel is having with their Jason Borne shit in the hotel at Dubai. Yeah, they killed a guy and now the world is condemning them again, the UK is royally pissed at forged passports, and even the US shunned them a bit. It is also a bit like letting the genie out of the bottle, if you James Bond it up and kill a guy, then they're going to do the same. Though I don't think that in a tactical sense, killing a general or something in the field military-James Bond style isn't necessarily a bad thing; rather, a disruption of the chain of command. Anyway, that's war and against the enemy.

Which is why it's far easier to do it on your own people. It has less risk of diplomatic incidents, at least.

The problem here, is the enemy is one of ours, so reasonable effort to bring him home and put him on trial should be made because it is our citizen and our laws he broke.

Why? It's inconvenient, wastes resources, and might cause a potential media frenzy and makes a mess out of public opinion. A JDAM or a car bomb is far cheaper, and far more convenient than any effort to bring him in alive for the purposes of trialing him. The only reason I can think of that makes it worthwhile to bring him in alive is if the intention is to process him using highly effective enhanced interrogation techniques in America's reliable outsourced blacksites.

[Yogi]

So car crashes... therefore no deadly terrorist attacks? What? .

FYI, just in case you didn't know, the idea of a Deadly Terrorist Threat is a crock of shit. The OMG!!9/11!! attacks killed 2,973 people, while 37,862 died in car accidents in that year ALONE in the United States.

I find it funny and sad that you quoted the opposite of what you said I said.

But for the logic impaired I will clarify. We have car accidents every year that far exceed the number of terrorist attacks, but somehow think that terrorism is the greater threat, and spend billions of dollars fighting this "threat" and cheerfully justify violating constitutional rights as a price against this "threat." It's overblown by several orders of magnitude.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think you're using shit logic, Yogi. Sorry.

[Yogi]

I think you're using shit logic, Yogi. Sorry.

And I think you [Generic SD.NET Style Insult Here] are obligated to explain WHY you disagree with me, as is customary on this board.

[Shroom Man 777]

Car crashes are, by their nature, accidents. While shit like 9/11 constitute a hostile act by outside parties with malicious intent. Those outside parties can, and do, do more hostile acts and they can act more hostile - which is why stopping them is necessary. And how can you stop them? Simple, by killing them. It's a problem that can be solved. Compared to car accidents, which are far harder to solve. How can you stop car accidents? And are car accidents even purposely carried out by hostile parties to inflict damage on the nation? No, they aren't.

That's like arguing that you shouldn't defend yourself from a knife-wielding maniac, because more people die from car accidents or bee stings or some shit.

[Bakustra]

I think you're using shit logic, Yogi. Sorry.

And I think you [Generic SD.NET Style Insult Here] are obligated to explain WHY you disagree with me, as is customary on this board.

Because you're making a false equation. The two are causes of death, but one is much easier to reduce than the other. Significantly reducing people dying in automobile accidents would probably require a major restructuring of the country's infrastructure to reduce the amount of people driving, requiring years of work and probably billions of dollars. Now, is terrorism quite as hard to reduce the amount of deaths from? Frankly, you're also trying to pull this off-target by changing the discussion from "Is this justified?" to "should we even bother defending against violent political attacks (since 'terrorism' is a loaded word)?" You're also very, very, snide. Really, why be so hostile?

When it comes to the actual topic, then I would say that this is probably illegal under US law. Even in the case of non-Americans, it would probably still be illegal, as the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and later amendments make no distinction between American citizens and non-citizens when it comes to the matter of due process of law. Granted, I doubt that the Supreme Court would necessarily agree with me, but unless there have been rulings interpreting citizen to be an implied distinction in the Constitution (note that this would either remove any protections for tourists or make them unprosecutable) and amendments, then it still stands that this is illegal.

[Yogi]

Car crashes are, by their nature, accidents. While shit like 9/11 constitute a hostile act by outside parties with malicious intent. Those outside parties can, and do, do more hostile acts and they can act more hostile - which is why stopping them is necessary. And how can you stop them? Simple, by killing them. It's a problem that can be solved.

I suppose they've never learned why trials are important and why they should happen before you kill someone.

A LOT of the argument simply assumes "he's guilty, so therefore kill him. And, just to get things out of the way, yes if he was trying to attack Americans at that time, he should be shot. If we recognize Al-Quaida not as a criminal organization but as an actual army, and he's wearing that army's uniform, he should be shot. But since that's not the case, we actually should follow the law here.

Compared to car accidents, which are far harder to solve. How can you stop car accidents?

Let's look at some lovely statistics. Around 21% fatalities occur each year that involve a driver with a high Blood Alcohol Content. How do you stop drunk drivers? Simple, by killing them imposing harsh penalties (such as jail time). Also, 24% of all car accidents happen with drivers under age 24, a disproportionately large amount. Bumping the driving age to 24 would solve that issue. Neither solutions involves billions of dollars, military invasion, or violation of constitutional rights.

And are car accidents even purposely carried out by hostile parties to inflict damage on the nation? No, they aren't.

Has nothing to do with how severe the problem is or how easy it is to solve.

That's like arguing that you shouldn't defend yourself from a knife-wielding maniac, because more people die from car accidents or bee stings or some shit.

Analogy needs work. You're confusing a nation deciding weather to spend money defensing against car accidents, bee stings, or knife-wielding maniacs, as opposed to an individual deciding what to defend herself against AND the maniac is already within stabbing distance. Obviously you don't think car accidents are as important as terrorism, but if a car is about to run YOU PERSONALLY over, you'd worry about the car accident first, and terrorists later if you survive. Actually, assuming you drive, you probably do worry about traffic safety than about terrorists throughout the course of your day,

[Yogi]

Because you're making a false equation. The two are causes of death, but one is much easier to reduce than the other. Significantly reducing people dying in automobile accidents would probably require a major restructuring of the country's infrastructure to reduce the amount of people driving, requiring years of work and probably billions of dollars.

Ask Israel. Also, we've already spent years of work and Billions of dollars against Terrorism. Yes there are no attacks now (on Americans on American soil at least, for the troops it's a different story) but it's not like there were 10 9/11s happening every year before we decided to get serious against Terrorists.

Frankly, you're also trying to pull this off-target by changing the discussion from "Is this justified?" to "should we even bother defending against violent political attacks (since 'terrorism' is a loaded word)?"

I'm trying to attack the idea that the threat of Terrorism is Soooooooooo great, that it justifies the "Get out of Obeying the Constitution Free" card.

You're also very, very, snide. Really, why be so hostile?

I'm actually much more polite that most of the regular debaters. For many of them, once they get started you can see the insults flow like a mighty river. The freedom (for some, it seems like an obligation) to insult one's opponents is a very deep part of the board culture.

[Bakustra]

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Your solution to the problem of car accidents is to ensure people have less experience driving? While 24% of all accidents occur with the under-25 group, is that because young adults are inherently horrible drivers (and they don't have any respect for their elders either), or because they are still novice drivers? Or is it both? In two of these three situations, you have not done anything to solve the problem, but have merely shifted it so that said 24% becomes part of the 24-32 age range. You also ignore logistics. What of young adults who are gainfully employed and need to drive to their place of work? They would have to be carpooled by parents or older relatives, which is a strain on the family, in particular if the hours of work don't coincide well. The US is simply not laid out in a way that would allow most of the population to go carless, which is my point. Reducing the amount of people who drive essentially makes them unemployable in most of the US, or else dependent on carpools. In short, your methods are, hilariously, about as effective as "kill 'em all" approaches to terrorism; you create as many problems as you solve.

Because you're making a false equation. The two are causes of death, but one is much easier to reduce than the other. Significantly reducing people dying in automobile accidents would probably require a major restructuring of the country's infrastructure to reduce the amount of people driving, requiring years of work and probably billions of dollars.

Ask Israel. Also, we've already spent years of work and Billions of dollars against Terrorism. Yes there are no attacks now (on Americans on American soil at least, for the troops it's a different story) but it's not like there were 10 9/11s happening every year before we decided to get serious against Terrorists.

The U.S. is not Israel. We do not have a history, in the twentieth century, of violently annexing our neighbors' land and oppressing the native inhabitants, which is what precipitates anti-Israel terrorism. We can resolve the problem of terrorism far more easily than suburbification. Here's a suggestion: avoid making ourselves a target, make strategic use of propaganda campaigns, and treating anti-terrorism efforts as police work rather than military action. The suburbs cannot be so easily resolved, seeing as you would have to rebuild most of the US, which has a truly staggering host of problems associated with it, of which cost is possibly the least.

Frankly, you're also trying to pull this off-target by changing the discussion from "Is this justified?" to "should we even bother defending against violent political attacks (since 'terrorism' is a loaded word)?"

I'm trying to attack the idea that the threat of Terrorism is Soooooooooo great, that it justifies the "Get out of Obeying the Constitution Free" card.

Ah, so claiming that terrorism is a nonexistent, or at least practically so, threat is the best way to convince people that using assassinations is a bad idea. I don't know how I didn't take note of such an amazing thinker like you earlier!

You're also very, very, snide. Really, why be so hostile?

I'm actually much more polite that most of the regular debaters. For many of them, once they get started you can see the insults flow like a mighty river. The freedom (for some, it seems like an obligation) to insult one's opponents is a very deep part of the board culture.

Okay, you see, this was playing off your "insert random insult here" little bundle of love and happiness, since apparently "snide" is the wrong word to use. Your little comment there is something a number of people do, wherein they declare "lol stardestroyer.net am I right people?" in the middle of a thread where they disagree with what people are saying. I find that almost as annoying as anything else people complain about in fellow posters, frankly.

[Knife]

But wouldn't it be easier for a government to kill its own people, than to kill people that isn't its own? In that killing a person who's a citizen of your country, and preferrably killing him in your own country too, would violate less international laws or protocols or diplomatic things that might alienate other countries if that person you're killing belonged to another country?

Seriously? Besides sounding like your normal "America=bad" you want to go one further and say it's better to have a government kill it's own instead of a government killing people outside of its jurisdiction? How is anyone supposed to interpolate that as anything more than you getting a boner thinking of America just killing Americans and not anyone else? Seriously, your 'America Fuck Yeah' has it's place, smacking knee jerk nationalist down, but you're taking it too far into Troll zone now.

We are supposed to be a nation of laws, those laws say we as citizens has rights XYZ. You are damn skippy I think it should be harder for our own government, which exists solely for the purpose of defending our people and our laws, to whack Soprano style one of it's own citizens than a foreign enemy. And International laws are predicated on nations of laws continuing such with allies and neighbors, if you are not following your own nations laws, why would you follow laws you've established with other nations.

If you ask me, I do think it's less troublesome and more convenient for America to kill its own people, preferably in its own country, than to do so to another country's people. If this makes the job easier, and if it is done in concurrence with reliable intelligence provided by trustworthy intelligence agencies, then I support America doing it more often.

Yeah, smells like Troll bait. You'd rather have Americans kill Americans, gotcha. Never mind if we can get these asshole politicians to follow the actual laws, including not whacking US citizens, you'd stand a better chance of the USA not being in shitty illegal, untendable wars. But why worry about that, it's just easier to fap off to Americide.

Which is why it's far easier to do it on your own people. It has less risk of diplomatic incidents, at least.

You kill your own people you undermine your power base. Our laws say we have rights, our government is set up to defend those rights. If we don't follow the basic tenants of our own laws, why would be pay fuck all attention to international law?

Why? It's inconvenient, wastes resources, and might cause a potential media frenzy and makes a mess out of public opinion. A JDAM or a car bomb is far cheaper, and far more convenient than any effort to bring him in alive for the purposes of trialing him. The only reason I can think of that makes it worthwhile to bring him in alive is if the intention is to process him using highly effective enhanced interrogation techniques in America's reliable outsourced blacksites.

Easy and right are not always the same thing. Kind of like while its easy to have a blinding hatred of American foreign policy, it doesn't make it right to just hope all the evil whitey Americans just off themselves.

[Bakustra]

*snip*

To be honest, I doubt that it's any more or less legal for the US government to assassinate non-Americans than Americans.

[Shroom Man 777]

Seriously? Besides sounding like your normal "America=bad" you want to go one further and say it's better to have a government kill it's own instead of a government killing people outside of its jurisdiction? How is anyone supposed to interpolate that as anything more than you getting a boner thinking of America just killing Americans and not anyone else? Seriously, your 'America Fuck Yeah' has it's place, smacking knee jerk nationalist down, but you're taking it too far into Troll zone now.

What? I just think that a government is more justified in doing whatever it wants to its own citizens, than it is towards citizens of OTHER countries. You see it all the time. Countries can abuse their own citizens, as long as they don't touch anyone else in anyone else's country because the second they touch someone else then the other countries get pissed and all sorts of unpleasantries happen. But as long as they stick with abusing their own citizens, and only their own citizens, the rest of the world could care less and it's A-Okay.

Of course, it's not right. Of course, it's abhorrent. But it seems like an internationally accepted standard of behavior and if America behaves this way, then it's not really doing anything different from those other guys. *shrug*

If America is in the business of assassinating people, then certainly doing it to people who don't belong to other nations and who aren't in other nations, is certainly more convenient and less prone to cause adverse reactions in those other nations' governments.

We are supposed to be a nation of laws, those laws say we as citizens has rights XYZ. You are damn skippy I think it should be harder for our own government, which exists solely for the purpose of defending our people and our laws, to whack Soprano style one of it's own citizens than a foreign enemy. And International laws are predicated on nations of laws continuing such with allies and neighbors, if you are not following your own nations laws, why would you follow laws you've established with other nations.

A foreign enemy? How exactly does America, or at least American intelligence agencies, define who it whacks or who it kidnaps and detains in Gitmo and other places? Are those people enemy combatants? Has their guilt exactly been established, through fair trial? How do we even know that a person is a 'foreign enemy'?

If it's easy for America to kill or kidnap people who are citizens of other countries, who are in other countries, heedless of the protocol of those other countries... then why should America's own domestic rules be different in that regard? So America can violate Bakalakadakistan's laws in whacking Mohammad Jihad, but somehow America can't do that to its own citizens? Why? If America treats Bakalakadakistan's national laws like crap, and freely does whatever it wants to citizens in that country, then what exactly makes America's own laws different from that country's laws? What makes America's laws any different from the laws of all those countries whose citizens America has killed or kidnapped over the years? The American government has shown itself to be fully capable of violating any laws of any country. This is just the continuation of that.

You follow laws you've established with other nations, because if you break them, then you face diplomatic consequences. Although this is less of a concern for America than it is for smaller nations that have to be more careful in their actions.

Yeah, smells like Troll bait. You'd rather have Americans kill Americans, gotcha. Never mind if we can get these asshole politicians to follow the actual laws, including not whacking US citizens, you'd stand a better chance of the USA not being in shitty illegal, untendable wars. But why worry about that, it's just easier to fap off to Americide.

Of course, following the actual laws would be the ideal option. But if we're going for the cloak-and-daggery 24-style gung-ho approach at intelligence and counter-terrorism, then letting American operatives do what they do to people - irregardless of their citizenship, American or non-American nationality, etc. - is certainly understandable. Isn't that what they're doing now?

You kill your own people you undermine your power base. Our laws say we have rights, our government is set up to defend those rights. If we don't follow the basic tenants of our own laws, why would be pay fuck all attention to international law?

You can always alienate that group of people who you're coming down on and whacking. Then the majority of the population will support your actions, and maybe you'll do the exact opposite of undermining your power base - you can actually greatly strengthen your power base by demonstrating the strong actions you do towards those alienated groups of people in the name of national defense and toughness against terrorism.

One of the reasons why international law should be paid attention to is because of the actions the other countries might take if they get offended by your actions. Admittedly, this is not a problem with the USA because there's not much anyone can do about it. But this is applicable to a lot of smaller countries that get away with doing all sorts of bad things to its own people, but don't do anything to other countries and other people's citizens. Countries like Zimbabwe or something can get away with abusing their own people, just as long as it's their own people they're abusing and not any other country's - because if they do what they do to their own people to the people of another country, then that other country's gonna be a bit upset with them.

Why? It's inconvenient, wastes resources, and might cause a potential media frenzy and makes a mess out of public opinion. A JDAM or a car bomb is far cheaper, and far more convenient than any effort to bring him in alive for the purposes of trialing him. The only reason I can think of that makes it worthwhile to bring him in alive is if the intention is to process him using highly effective enhanced interrogation techniques in America's reliable outsourced blacksites.

Easy and right are not always the same thing. Kind of like while its easy to have a blinding hatred of American foreign policy, it doesn't make it right to just hope all the evil whitey Americans just off themselves.

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Of course it's not.

Did I ever say that it was particularly right or moral?