Assassination Program is a "State Secret"

[Simon Darkshade]

After all, escorted convoys were typical peacetime practice...hang on, no...

Instantaneous mobilization and adoption of different doctrine works well in retrospect in bedrooms, not it reality.

 

[bhsup]

Well, wrt convoys, they should have re-adopted those immediately after hostilities started. They got the system down pat in WWI, so it isn't like they had to figure out "hey, how do we convoy??"

 

[illram]

If you agree with this policy, under what circumstances would you not sanction an unchallengeable killing.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

One cannot ever presume common sense based on experience in a large organization, particularly when there was a doctrinal disagreement and minor aversion to it the last time around.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

One cannot ever presume common sense based on experience in a large organization, particularly when there was a doctrinal disagreement and minor aversion to it the last time around.

That is maybe a good apology in an unexpected war. But the US had a close look at the damage German submarines could do since what - two years? - as well as the possible counter-measures and your president couldn't wait to join the fun.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Not my President whatsoever, then or now - I have a Queen, not some elected poltroon. It is the story of every war, though - quickly relearning things that should have been done from the start.

 

[MobBoss]

Not my President whatsoever, then or now - I have a Queen, not some elected poltroon.

Ah...so your poltroons are simply born...not chosen.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

The monarch has never been the source of bad political policy for centuries...more than can be said for other heads of state. Anyway, it is neither here nor there. Suffice it to say I am not defending US mistakes in convoys off the US out of some strange allegiance.

 

[I'm Cleo!]

I'm surprised you're not getting more traction here. Obama's government is generally seen as a decently moral one, but it appears that citizens aren't willing to push against it and thus Obama might seize the right to authorise death warrants without Habeas Corpus against American citizens.

Because some people are just authoritarians. If they were born in the Soviet Union, they'd be saying, "What do you have to hide, comrade? The KGB only investigates threats."

I'm honestly baffled that people are disagreeing with the outrage you're showing.

It's because you don't understand "liberty," el mac. It has nothing to do with due process or secret evidence or detaining people indefinitely without any contact with the outside world, it's about making sure the government doesn't interfere with the solemn and sacred right of a handful of financial services and health insurance companies to extract economic rents from the productive economy. That is what the Framers were scared of!

And so much for hiring a constitutional lawyer as President, eh?

Hey, he's still the President. And the President looks out for himself, as the Framers understood. As I said way back before he was elected about how he voted on telecom immunity: he might have voted for immunity for telecoms not because he had some principled stand on the issue, but because he might very well be in position to use the warrantless wiretapping powers the Bush administration had developed! It's easy to say "the President ought not to have the power to do X" when you're not the President. There's some quote (Thompson?) to the effect of: if you want to be the President, you're not the type of person who ought to be the President.

Checks and balances works okay, but if you spend a generation stacking the judicial branch with people who have radical pro-executive viewpoints, it starts to break down. (That said, I don't think the current Court is quite that radical on civil liberties grounds. Horrifyingly pro-business, yes, but they've been better on civil liberties.)

Cleo

 

[Traitorfish]

The monarch has never been the source of bad political policy for centuries...more than can be said for other heads of state.

Neither have knickerbockers, but that doesn't mean their retention is in any way enlightened.

 

[Theige]

Back to the real issue, is it actually an assassination program?

Or, rather, as the name would suggest, it is a "capture with authorized use of deadly force if necessary", list.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The US government isn't even trying to capture these people.

And what would you call deliberately trying to kill public figures for political reasons?

 

[MobBoss]

The US government isn't even trying to capture these people.

And what would you call deliberately trying to kill public figures for political reasons?

I dont think the reasons are political, but rather strategic, and also a matter of national security.

Alleging the reasons are political....is political itself.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Alleging the reasons must be "strategic" without actually knowing any facts is obviously political.

 

[MobBoss]

Alleging the reasons must be "strategic" without actually knowing any facts is obviously political.

Uhm...so would alleging 'politics' without actually knowing any facts.

Just sayin...



But seriously, I just happen to not be that paranoid about the government in this situation. As your hero John Stewart so ably stated "I might not agree with you, but I dont think your're Hitler'.

Lets return to sanity!!

 

[Formaldehyde]

But we do know some facts. His father's attempts to use the courts to determine what actual reason the US goverment could possibly have for attempting to assassinate his son was blocked for "national security" reasons. How much more "political" do you want to get?

You are familiar with the Bill of Rights and due process?

Do you really consider defending assassination with no actual facts to support that position to be "sane" while the other side is not?

Do you disagree with this statement? Do you think it is not germane?

Because some people are just authoritarians. If they were born in the Soviet Union, they'd be saying, "What do you have to hide, comrade? The KGB only investigates threats."

 

[Traitorfish]

You are familiar with the Bill of Rights and due process?

Pfft, communist tripe!

 

[innonimatu]

Eh, it's way past my bedtime, and I really need to sleep, but what the hell, I'll give it a shot as the Devil's advocate.

The issue:
The first development you have already touched upon:In todays world - well from the beginning of this millennium - military action and police action has become intermingled, and the difference between capturing a heavily armed criminal and fighting a war against a country is on its way to being eradicated.

Bounty hunters, secret agents, weapons depots, kidnappers, police, battlefields, terrorists, drug lords, corporate warriors, huge state armies, smugglers, extremists of all kinds, rebels and hit men seem to all have been mixed together into the same madness.

As such, it seems more and more evident that police will need military abilities and the military will need police abilities, and we will be losing the notion of having the police maintain security inside the state, and the military maintain security outside the state.

Only if we accept that your initial supposition ("military action and police action has become intermingled") is necessarily true. It isn't. That happened as a result of a political decision which could easily have been different.

The second development is that the world is becoming more and more globalised. Migration becomes easier, trade and communication goes all over the world at all times, and multicultural societies become more and more the norm. Because of this notions such as American (US citisen), Norwegian, Mexican, Iranian, Egyptian and whatever else becomes less and less useful as labels that say anything at all about the people bearing them.

None of this is new. Quite the opposite. Much of the world was arguably more "multi-cultural" a hundred years ago than today. The whole of Central Europe was an ethnic mosaic, for example. Not to mention the Americas, etc.

If you insist that the President of the United States can not take the life of a person holding a US citisenship without the permission from a US court, then, by extension, the President of the United States may also not take the life of any other person without permission from a US court. Imagine, if you will, that the Taliban is a bit stronger, and has an armoured division being led by a guy with a US citisenship. Would the President need a US court to give permission before he can give orders to fight this division and kill/capture this guy? What if there were a thousand US citisens in the ranks of a well-armed Taliban military?

IF the "war on terror" were an actual declared war, of course not. But either way a president has no business sanctioning the creation of "assassination lists". In war people die as a consequence of the fighting, not because some politician signed a list of assassination targets. Some military planner may decide to make a list of targets, as as part of an actual war that too will be accepted.
But it seems to me, as an outside observer of this discussion, that it is the difference between killing as a consequence of immediate or tactical circumstances (war) and assassinating (political, without the justification of war) which is the issue here. An assassination is the singling out of a specific individual as a target for political/personal motives.

 

[Lord Baal]

Well, I guess I trust in our government more than most, even Obama in this particular case. Perhaps instead of compromising potential secret information on how get glean such information, some congressional oversight is in order. However, if the congress says, 'yes, its legit' you will simply be in the same position of trust....for them as opposed to the President.

There is already a provision to show such documents and make such arguments before a judge in a closed court when matters of state secrecy and national security arise. Sure, that requires trusting the judge, but I'd prefer to trust a legal opinion over a political one.

There does come a point in time when one has to levy some trust to its elected leadership in that they are doing the right things to protect the nation. As much as I disagree with Obama on many issues, I dont see him just out to kill people 'cause its what the cool kids do.

Just because Obama might not abuse this power doesn't mean a future president might not. If McCain ever becomes President he may order the execution of every punk teenager with a skateboard, and that nasty old man who stood in front of him at the soup line when he went for the early bird special.

I thought Radioactive Man was a Russian. Gambit was from New Orleans wasnt he?

Not if we're thinking of the same Radioactive Man. Yep, Gambit is from New Orleans. Cannonball is also a Southerner. Plenty of superheroes are, actually.

The first step is to fire whoever called this a "capture or kill" list. Seriously, it's a known fact that when the authorities are trying to capture somebody who doesn't want to be captured, killing them sometimes becomes necessary. They should have just called it a 'most wanted' list. Totally stupid way to draw attention to yourself and give fodder to your opponents.

Very good point.

Well Germany disrupted the entire naval traffic on the east coast by sinking hundreds (or maybe thousands, don't know where to find a source right now) of American vessels and killing thousands of American citizens (America was shamefully unprepared for naval attacks in the east at the beginning of the war).
Seems to me that the terrorists have yet some catching up to do.

Just because the Germans killed more doesn't mean they're as big a threat to the US. They also killed more Americans than the Soviets ever did, yet I doubt many people would argue that Nazi Germany was a bigger threat to the US than the USSR. AQ, as a cell-based terror group, has the potential to cause absolutely horrendous damage to the US. That it hasn't is more due to its own incompetence than anything the US has actually done. The last time AQ did something remotely intelligent was September 11.

What are you talking about, we had one of the largest fleets in the world. Were the RN, with the largest fleet in the world at the time, unprepared considering they lost far more shipping tons?

How they hell were we supposed to be more prepared?

The US did a good job of fighting the Germans in the unofficial naval war of 1940-41. Why they suddenly forgot to protect their coastal vessels after Pearl Harbour is something I've always wondered about. The obvious solution is the convoy system, which you were already using on shipments to Britain.

Indeed. I can't find any figures on the total number of ships which were sunk. But from February to May of 1942, U-boats were ostensibly responsible for 348 sinkings. It was a turkey shoot at first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_North_America_during_World_War_II

They performed equally woefully in the Pacific theatre for a time. I've never understood why, since they had all the tools in place to defend themselves from attack.