{"id":26212,"date":"2013-02-06T19:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feeds.feedblitz.com\/~\/37899969\/0\/alternet~Will-Liberals-Rise-Up-and-Strongly-Attack-the-Obama-Targeted-Assassination-Program"},"modified":"2013-02-06T19:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T18:01:00","slug":"will-liberals-rise-up-and-strongly-attack-the-obama-targeted-assassination-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/will-liberals-rise-up-and-strongly-attack-the-obama-targeted-assassination-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Liberals Rise Up and Strongly Attack the Obama Targeted Assassination Program?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You would think that the left would draw the line somewhere on the President’s policies.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: maxhphoto \/ Shutterstock.com<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

February 6, 2013<\/span><\/em> \u00a0| \u00a0<\/p>\n

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Last year Brown University\u2019s Michael Tesler released a fascinating study<\/a>\u00a0showing that Americans inclined to racially blinkered views wound up opposing policies they would otherwise support, once they learned those policies were endorsed by President Obama. Their prejudice extended to the breed of the president\u2019s dog, Bo: They were much more likely to say they liked Portuguese water dogs when told Ted Kennedy owned one than when they learned Obama did.<\/p>\n

But Tesler found that the Obama effect worked the opposite way, too: African-Americans and white liberals who supported Obama became more likely to support policies once they learned the president did.<\/p>\n

More than once I\u2019ve worried that might carry over to bad policies that Obama has flirted with embracing, that liberals have traditionally opposed: raising the age for Medicare and Social Security or cutting those programs\u2019 benefits. Or hawkish national security policies that liberals shrieked about when carried out by President Bush, from rendition to warrantless spying. Or even worse, policies that Bush stopped short of, like targeted assassination of U.S. citizens loyal to al-Qaida (or \u201caffiliates\u201d) who were (broadly) deemed (likely) to threaten the U.S. with (possible) violence (some day).<\/p>\n

Those ugly parentheses are made necessary by Michael Isikoff\u2019s exclusive report on the Obama administration \u201cwhite paper\u201d<\/a>\u00a0that justifies its unprecedented claim to the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process on foreign soil. The New York Times and the ACLU had sued to get the administration to release the Office of Legal Counsel\u2019s opinion in the case of the targeted assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki by drone strike in Yemen last year. The administration fought that effort, but Isikoff was leaked a summary, \u201cLawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen Who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa\u2019ida or An Associated Force.\u201d It lays out a legal rationale far beyond anything the administration has claimed before.<\/p>\n

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Specifically, where Attorney General Eric Holder insisted such attacks would only be used to deter \u201cimminent threat of violent attack,\u201d similar to the rights police officers have to kill a suspect in a hostage situation or impending terror attack, the white paper clarifies what that means \u2014 or rather obfuscates \u2014 in chilling language:<\/p>\n

The condition that an operational\u00a0leader present an \u2018imminent\u2019 threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.<\/p>\n

So: the president doesn\u2019t need \u201cclear evidence\u201d of a \u201cspecific attack\u201d planned for \u201cthe immediate future.\u201d How about little or no evidence of some vaguely debated attack at some point some day?<\/p>\n

And while joining up with al-Qaida might be evidence that an American means his or her country grave harm, what about hooking up with \u201cassociated force\u201d? The memo doesn\u2019t define it. And it doesn\u2019t restrict the power to make these judgments to the commander in chief either; it\u2019s enough that an \u201cinformed, high-level official\u201d deem the suspect an \u201coperational leader\u201d who presents the danger of an unspecified \u201cimminent threat\u201d \u2014 some day.<\/p>\n

As Glenn Greenwald notes<\/a>, the paper itself makes clear it\u2019s establishing a kind of ceiling, not a floor \u2014 it allows that targeted assassination may also be allowed under conditions not outlined in the paper. \u201cThis paper does not attempt to determine the minimum requirements necessary to render such an operation lawful,\u201d it states; rather, \u201cit concludes only that the stated conditions would be sufficient to make lawful a lethal operation.\u201d And it reflects a continuation of the Bush-Cheney doctrine of \u201cglobal battlefield,\u201d justifying such operations anywhere al-Qaida may be operating.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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