It’s a month old, but Gary Farber at Amygdala has a most informative post on the problems with the U.S. killing American citizens without offering any proof. You know, besides the fact that the Constitution says pretty fucking clearly that we can’t!
Let’s not kill all the lawyers
The argument by the right is that these are “enemy combatants who have declared war on the United States.” Therefore the US has every right to hunt them down and kill them on sight. This isn’t a new argument. Actually it’s known as the Begin Doctrine which states that, “The best defense is forceful pre-emption.” Israel has been sending assassination squads into various countries to kill their “enemies” since the late 50’s. Most people thought that after the Church Committee hearing and the passage of the law against state sponsored assassinations the problem had been solved. But the neo-cons and Zionists in the Bush administartion created an exemption to the law made up out of whole cloth. And because of the pressure put on him by the Clinton wing (Blue Dog conservative warmongers) of the Democratic Party, Obama has become an uber-assassin.
um, the begin doctrine doesn’t have anything to do with the u.s. constitution.
also, “the begin doctrine” is about preemptive military attacks to prevent WMDs being used against israel. it didn’t exist before the osirak strike in 1981 (when began was president). as you point out, israel has used assassination since before that (i’m not sure about the 50s, but definitely in the 1970s, most famously after the slaughter of israeli athletes at the munich olympics)
getting back to u.s. law, the big problem with targetted killings is that the courts refuse to get involved in the issue of targeted killings. if the courts won’t review a kill order, we’re effectively in lawless territory, where the executive branch can do whatever it wants without a check.
snuzy you’re quite right, it is about pre-emptive military strikes. The most famous case being the Six-Day War in 1967. But the entire concept is rooted in the use of Israeli assassination squads in the 50’s and 60’s in South America and elsewhere to eliminate Nazi “war criminals.” Bush and the neo-cons adopted the concept to sanction the war in Iraq because Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction.” Most recently the concept was pushed by Hillary Clinton to justify the war in Libya because Qaddafi was going to “massacre civilians.” Now these same neo-cons want to attack Iran because “they are trying to build a nuclear bomb.” Zionists controlling US foreign policy is a very dangerous thing.
i’m sorry, i think you are mixing up different things. the begin doctrine has nothing to do with the libyan war. zionists were not on the whole in favor of the libyan operation (in fact, the entire arab spring makes israel pretty nervous, for good reason. arms from the libyan civil war are coming into gaza in large numbers)
to say that “zionists control u.s. foreign policy” could be interpreted different ways. if you mean that people who happen to be pro-israel are in control of u.s. foreign policy, you are no doubt correct. (virtually the entire american political establishment is pro-israel) if, on the other hand, you are saying that u.s. foreign policy decisions are dictated by zionism, or that israeli concerns motivate every foreign policy decision, that’s simply not true. although zionism is a strong influence on u.s. foreign policy making, there are plenty of decisions the u.s. makes that are not driven by israeli concerns (libya being a good example)
and why is are the words “war criminal” in quotes? israel did hunt nazi war criminals after WW2, but they were actually war criminals. many had been convicted at nuremburg and those that weren’t (e.g. eichmann) were apprehended by israel and put on trial either in germany or israel.