Killers R US

The US -- under the direction of our commander-in-chief -- has been going on a targeted killing spree as of late. It is bad enough that the US continues to kill innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and who knows where else, but lately we have been going after big targets too.

A few days before the unverified assassination of Osama Bin Laden, NATO forces (the US is the ring leader) dropped a bomb in Tripoli that killed several members of Muammar Gaddafi's family. The chief target -- Gaddafi himself -- was not injured. Next in line, of course, was Bin Laden.

Friday, in a drone attack in Yemen, US forces tried to take out Anwar al-Awlaki. This target also escaped injury, but others were killed. While al-Awlaki is a Muslim and an alleged supporter of terrorism like Bin Laden and Gaddafi, there is one distinguishing characteristic that separates him from the other two: al-Awlaki is an American citizen.

Mind you, al-Awlaki has been charged with no crime. There are suspicions that he has been involved in some so-called terrorist activities, but nothing has been substantiated. Nonetheless, President Obama wants him dead!

Glenn Greenwald, for one, is more than a bit exasperated by this whole situation.

...if someone is willing to vest in the President the power to assassinate American citizens without a trial far from any battlefield -- if someone believes that the President has that power: the power of unilaterally imposing the death penalty and literally acting as judge, jury and executioner -- what possible limits would they ever impose on the President's power? There cannot be any. Or if someone is willing to declare a citizen to be a "traitor" and demand they be treated as such -- even though the Constitution expressly assigns the power to declare treason to the Judicial Branch and requires what we call "a trial" with stringent evidence requirements before someone is guilty of treason -- how can any appeals to law or the Constitution be made to a person who obviously believes in neither?

What's most striking about this is how it relates to the controversies during the Bush years. One of the most strident attacks from the Democrats on Bush was that he wanted to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants. One of the first signs of Bush/Cheney radicalism was what they did to Jose Padilla: assert the power to imprison this American citizen without charges. Yet here you have Barack Obama asserting the power not to eavesdrop on Americans or detain them without charges -- but to target them for killing without charges -- and that, to many of his followers, is perfectly acceptable. It's a "horrific shredding of the Constitution" and an act of grave lawlessness for Bush to eavesdrop on or detain Americans without any due process; but it's an act of great nobility when Barack Obama ends their lives without any due process...

I have written before about the slippery slope we seem to be on and you can't get much more slippery than this! It is one step away from totalitarianism.