Dr. Strangekill or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Assassination of American Citizens

Muhammad ud-Deen/Associated Press The C.I.A. has placed the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on a list for killing. via nytimes.com

The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.

That comes from the NYTimes today and it fills me with despair.

This is how far we've fallen--where we need to "discuss" whether it's OK for an American citizen to be assassinated.

Now, I'm pretty sure that assassination is banned by international law. So, that should pretty much cover it as to whether it's OK to assassinate ANYONE, let alone an American citizen. In case it isn't, we have the Sixth Amendment to the Bill of Rights to fall back on. That's the one that promises "the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed..."

Basically, when a person is assassinated by a government, that person doesn't get a trial, doesn't get an impartial jury, or an impartial ANYthing. We must trust the government to NEVER make a mistake and know FOR CERTAIN that this fellow MUST DIE for what he has done.

Of course, the founding fathers knew that this could never be guaranteed, so they devised our system to make sure checks and balances were in place so that if the government made any mistakes, the accused would have a chance to avoid injustice. Of course, if the government is playing judge, jury and (literally) executioner, how can his rights be guaranteed?

Then there's the idea that capital punishment is not legal in every state in the union, so that should also stop the USG from considering this policy. Of course, none of these factors are stopping them at all.

If Obama doesn't shut this debate down with an unequivocal denial of this policy, I'm going to have to start calling him "King Barry" because that's exactly how he'll be acting: kingly--effectively deciding who lives and who dies.

The fact that the NYTimes article I link to above goes on to say the below, also bugs me to no end:

The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy.

Really NYTimes? REALLY? It doesn't make YOU uneasy? What if the USG decides your paper aids terrorists? They have the power to do that, you know--they could be mistaken and still do it. And once they decide you're aiding terrorists, they can start assassinating reporters. Dipshits. Don't you get it? If ONE American citizen can be "legally" assassinated in the United States, than ANY American citizen can be under circumstances that aren't too hard to come by.

I'm so sick of this sick idea that journalists should be "unbiased." They're supposed to be biased, dammit--for the PEOPLE! They should be challenging every single thing the government does! Instead they just sit amorally back and let others be "deeply uneasy."

And this is only the beginning of my criticisms against the NYTimes for their shoddy work. Check out life.thepete.com later today for another piece on the NYTimes crappy job deciding how they feel about the BP Oil Spill and oil in general.

Gah! Bush is gone yet the nightmare world he created is still with us!!

Posted via web from thepete's posterous