Obama Orders Assassination of U.S. Citizen by CIA Hit Team

For the first time in history, an American president has officially ordered the assassination of a US citizen. [Democratic] President Barack Obama has approved the “targeted killing” of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric who is reported to be in hiding in Yemen. No substantial evidence has been brought to bear against Awlaki, 38, who is accused of terrorism, and he will be afforded no legal recourse against the death sentence. He has not been charged, tried, or convicted of anything. DID YOU VOTE FOR THIS? WILL YOU NOW VOTE ONLY SOCIALIST OR GREEN?

From: Obama orders assassination of US citizen, by Tom Eley, 8 April 2010 at;
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/pers-a08.shtml

Word of Obama’s decision has been intentionally leaked by multiple intelligence officials to various media sources. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal published news articles on the story on Tuesday, and these were confirmed by stories in the Washington Post and New York Times on Wednesday.

The killing of citizens declared by the executive branch to be “terrorists” was first announced as state policy by Obama’s director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, in February congressional hearings. “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community,” Blair said. “If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”

Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, has been linked by e-mail communication to Nidal Malik Hasan, the army psychologist who gunned down 13 soldiers in a November rampage at Ford Hood, Texas. No evidence has been presented, however, to suggest that Awlaki in any way planned or ordered the attack.

There have also been allegations, so far entirely unsubstantiated, linking Awlaki to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian youth who attempted to blow up an airplane as it approached Detroit on December 25, 2009. The failed attack was, in fact, made possible by the stand-down of the US intelligence apparatus—or its direct complicity.

Awlaki’s family have defended him. “I am now afraid of what they will do with my son, he’s not Osama Bin Laden, they want to make something out of him that he’s not,” said his father, Dr. Nasser al-Awlaki, a US-trained scientist, in a January interview with CNN. “How can the American government kill one of their own citizens? This is a legal issue that needs to be answered.”

The public justification for killing Awlaki is based on bald assertions and hearsay from intelligence sources who refuse to even identify themselves. Typical is the following account from the New York Times: “American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula … They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said.”

The decision to kill Awlaki takes Washington’s lawlessness to a new level. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drone assassination program has killed between 400 and 500 “militants,” the vast majority in countries with which the US is not officially at war. The Bush and Obama administrations have declared the right to attack or invade countries Washington deems to be threats to US interests, and have institutionalized a worldwide regime of kidnappings and indefinite imprisonment without trial in the so-called “war on terror.”

But while Washington has long flouted the laws of war, there is no precedent for a president openly ordering the assassination of a US citizen he declares to be an enemy.

This is, however, a further extension of the claim asserted by Bush and continued by Obama that the president has the power to declare individuals, citizens as well as non-citizens, to be “illegal enemy combatants” and held indefinitely in military detention without being charged or given access to the courts. The Obama administration is moving to institutionalize the policy of indefinite detention by setting up a military prison in Illinois, so-called “Guantánamo North,” where scores of Guantánamo detainees will be held indefinitely without trial.

The Obama administration justifies the policy of targeting US citizens for murder by citing the September 14, 2001 congressional act, the Authorization to Use Military Force. Passed three days after the September 11 attacks, the measure allowed the US president, from that moment forth, “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

Out of 531 senators and congressmen casting votes, only one opposed this sweeping measure that is now being invoked by Obama to kill a US citizen without charge or trial.

The Obama White House is evidently seeking a new pseudo-legal justification for the policy of state murder. “Officials now argue privately that Americans who side with the country’s enemies are not ultimately ‘entitled to special protections’,” the British Telegraph reported. The “special protections” to be discarded are none other than the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which the Founding Fathers installed precisely to provide the citizenry protection from the state.

There has been no evidence that suggests Awlaki represents any immediate threat to the US people. On the contrary, his killing will only provide new fodder for terrorist groups. The administration’s decision to kill Awlaki is largely motivated by the desire to establish a new precedent.

The implications are chilling. In principle, there is nothing in such a policy to stop intelligence officials from declaring political opponents of US imperialism within the 50 states to be terrorists and put on a list for liquidation. Neither Blair’s initial testimony nor subsequent media accounts have spelled out any limitations to the policy of assassinating US citizens beyond assurances that the measure is to be used only against “terrorists.”

The executive branch arrogates to itself the powers of judge, jury, and executioner, and those targeted for liquidation have no right to question the supposed evidence against them.

There is a deeper logic behind the order to kill Awlaki. Under conditions of economic crisis, the methods of imperialist violence abroad must inevitably be visited upon the population at home. The turn toward war and increasingly dictatorial forms of rule both rise inexorably from the deepening crisis of US and world capitalism.

There has been no opposition within establishment political quarters to Obama’s order. The New York Times article on the decision reads as a legal brief defending it.“As a general principle, international law permits the use of lethal force against individuals and groups that pose an imminent threat to a country,” the leading organ of US liberalism writes. “People on the target list are considered to be military enemies of the United States and therefore not subject to the ban on political assassination first approved by President Gerald R. Ford.”

This underscores the fact that no section of the political establishment retains any serious commitment to the defense of democratic rights. Only through the independent political mobilization of the working class against both parties of US.
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For more on this case, see
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/04/07/us-confirms-citizen-is-on-cia-assassination-list/

REMEMBER, ALL FASCIST TACTICS ARE SOON USED AGAINST DOMESTIC UNREST, IN THE FIGHT FOR BREAD BY THE WORKINGCLASS.

California's socialist electoral party is Peace & Freedom Party at:
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/

and the Green Party is at:
http://www.cagreens.org/

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/pers-a08.shtml






extra commentary;

By ordering assassination of U.S. citizen, Obama Violates U.S. Constitution

This is very disturbing news. Obama's regime has now surpassed the audacity of the previous (as of yet untried) war criminal regime of GW Bush by ordering assassinations of U.S. citizens. While we may not like all U.S. citizens, we need to protect their rights granted to them by the U.S. Constitution. Opening the door for assassination of one U.S. citizen will surely enable the Obama regime to form a list of people that they wish to have out of their way. Who will be next targeted for elimination by Obama's CIA hit squad?

Any political leader ordering assassinations of U.S. citizens is in violation of the U.S. Constitution. If a U.S. citizen breaks the law, or is under suspicion of being a lawbreaker, then s/he needs to be arrested and publically charged with whatever crime they are believed to have committed, NOT put on a CIA hit list!!

Sorry that i ever campaigned one second for this slick talking thug Obama, the lesser evil turns out to be not that significantly lesser evil than his predecessor GW bush. At least with Bush and McCain we knew that we needed to fight the power, unlike Obama who pretends to be our friend then stabs us in the back.

Fuck that lying traitor Obama!! Am very glad that i voted for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney!!

BTW - We the people need to charge Obama with aiding and abetting GW Bush regime by refusing to bring the GW Bush regime to trial for their war crimes of violating the Geneva Conventions by authorizing torture (Yoo, Addington, Feith, etc...), using deceit (unfound WMDs, tortured false confession of Al Libby, etc...) to justify invasion of sovereign nations Iraq and Afghanistan.

More rage against the Obama regime is needed from the left, libertarians and others who have not yet seen justice for the illegal invasions of Iraq, unconstitutional wiretapping and other crimes against citizens now continued under the Obama regime. Now we have CIA hit teams chasing U.S. citizens, trying to kill them without ever having a trial!

The Tea Party has taken the wind out of the sails of the left and it seems that progressives like Keith Olberman and the MSNBC have become the new propaganda ministers of the Obama regime, classifying any protesters against Obama as "racist". Seems like the media defends whomever is in power and strongarms the protesters by using misinformation.

This is always taken out of context, a few racist goon infiltrators of the Tea Party then represent the entire protest movement on the media news, and behind the scenes the oppositon from the Tea Party people is now regulated by the hidden hand of the GOP, thus reducing their effectiveness as a truly populist movement.

Sort of like how A.N.S.W.E.R. took over the leftist anti-war movement under the GW Bush regime. Who knew? ANSWER was a tool of the Democrats, while Tea Party is a tool of the Republicans. However, that doesn't mean that the regular people who make up the majority of the protests on either side have legitimate reasons for outrage against the ruling party.

That doesn't mean that there are real reasons for anger at the Obama regime due to their continuous betrayal of progressive values and the further escalation of the military conflicts in the Middle East.

Now i truly hate Barack Obama (NOT because of his skin color!) because he betrayed the promises he made to peacefully resolve the military conflicts in the Middle East. Ordering CIA assassinations of U.S. citizens is crossing the line for me, and i encourage all U.S. citizens to keep holding tight to their guns and do NOT allow these deceptive Demoncraps to take your consitutional rights to bear arms away, we will need to protect ourselves from Obama's CIA assassins!!


Modern day version of Pastor Niemoller's warning;

First the CIA jackals came for suspected al Queda opertives, but i said nothing because i was not an al Queda opertive. Then the CIA came for the U.S. militia members, but i said nothing because i was not in any organized militia. Then they came for the lone wolves, and there was nobody left alive willing to defend me!!



Additional online thoughts on Obama's violation of U.S. Constitution;

"Today we found out that President Obama gave the CIA permission to kill al-Awlaki. The rub? Unlike a lot of our other radical Islamic cleric enemies, al-Awlaki is a natural born citizen of the United States.

Don’t get me wrong; al-Awlaki is asking for it, and he has asked for a bullet in his head for a long time, by his actions. That said, the last time I checked, American citizens have certain rights under the Constitution of the United States, one of which is, when they’ve committed crimes, a right to a trial before a jury of their peers. By this authorization, Obama has essentially said that an American citizen labeled a terrorist is not eligible for his constitutionally ensured rights.

This is a huge grab of power by the Executive Branch, and their justifications don’t really hold up.

In February, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said that in order to carry out these assassinations, special permission must be granted. By whom must the Executive Branch situated CIA get permission? By the President. So much for checks and balances! But that’s okay, because there are conditions that must be met:

He also said there are criteria that must be met to authorize the killing of a U.S. citizen that include “whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved.”

Err, so under this rationale, I take it groups like the Hutaree are also eligible to be targeted for assassination? They were clear threats to other Americans, and police officers to boot. They also have a stated goal of war against the United States. Of course, nobody would seriously think of trying to assassinate a stateside terrorist group. Right? Right?

“They’re a threat” is not an argument for ignoring the rule of law.

Such should be the case with al-Awlaki. The goal should be to capture and try him, not assassinate him. The end result will probably result in the death penalty, anyway, but at least we won’t have violated the Constitution, and everything this country was founded on to do it. If we can get close enough to kill him, why not try to go the extra step and get him back here for a trial?"

article found @;

http://www.poligazette.com/2010/04/08/unfortunate-precedent-set-american-citizens-can-now-be-targeted-for-assassination/