Joan Smith: Obama – the idealist turns assassin
[Joan Smith is a columnist, critic and novelist.]
Back in the old days, when Barack Obama was one of the hopefuls trying to get his party's presidential nomination, he was asked a specific question: does the American constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charge as unlawful enemy combatants? The would-be candidate's response was unequivocal, rejecting the idea that there was any such power. No wonder, then, that so many people were startled when it emerged last week that the Obama administration has authorised not only the detention but the "targeted killing" of an American citizen, the extremist Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
For decades, the CIA was suspected of covertly plotting political assassinations, but the practice was believed to have been banned by President Gerald Ford. Under the Bush administration, such an admission would have caused more outrage than astonishment, but isn't Obama supposed to be more principled than his predecessor?
Perhaps we shouldn't have been caught off guard. The ground for the announcement was prepared in February when the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, said that targeted killings of American nationals were theoretically possible: "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that." He must have had Awlaki in mind: the Muslim cleric was born in New Mexico and was an imam in the US before he went to Yemen, where he's believed to be hiding.
President George W Bush famously talked about wanting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" after the 9/11 attacks. Congress approved the use of military force against al-Qa'ida after the suicide-bombings and its operatives are considered to be enemies of the US, exempting them from Ford's ban on assassinations. Now Awlaki finds himself in the same category, accused of escalating from verbal threats to getting involved in actual plots, with counter-terrorism officials claiming he has recruited individuals to attack US interests. But specific details of what he's accused of have not been released...
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
Back in the old days, when Barack Obama was one of the hopefuls trying to get his party's presidential nomination, he was asked a specific question: does the American constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charge as unlawful enemy combatants? The would-be candidate's response was unequivocal, rejecting the idea that there was any such power. No wonder, then, that so many people were startled when it emerged last week that the Obama administration has authorised not only the detention but the "targeted killing" of an American citizen, the extremist Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
For decades, the CIA was suspected of covertly plotting political assassinations, but the practice was believed to have been banned by President Gerald Ford. Under the Bush administration, such an admission would have caused more outrage than astonishment, but isn't Obama supposed to be more principled than his predecessor?
Perhaps we shouldn't have been caught off guard. The ground for the announcement was prepared in February when the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, said that targeted killings of American nationals were theoretically possible: "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that." He must have had Awlaki in mind: the Muslim cleric was born in New Mexico and was an imam in the US before he went to Yemen, where he's believed to be hiding.
President George W Bush famously talked about wanting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" after the 9/11 attacks. Congress approved the use of military force against al-Qa'ida after the suicide-bombings and its operatives are considered to be enemies of the US, exempting them from Ford's ban on assassinations. Now Awlaki finds himself in the same category, accused of escalating from verbal threats to getting involved in actual plots, with counter-terrorism officials claiming he has recruited individuals to attack US interests. But specific details of what he's accused of have not been released...