Kill Me Now, Or, Obama Bringing People Together

Part of the Obama Administration legal rationale for assassinating Americans has been leaked, to bipartisan criticism.

Comments

[Stephanie]

First.

[Jane: Mock the Media]

Impeach all of them for war crimes.

[NK]

Jane@3:15-- heh!
But seriously, Holder would only drop a Hellfire missle on the RIGHT SORT of target within the USA.

[henry]

Should we wear hats with X's on top to make it easy for them?

[Neo]

The notion, that the the drone-strike memo shifts the burden of proof to the target rather than the government, is a throwback to the 19190Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of which killed at least 400 unarmed men, women and children.

When asked about children being in the crowd at the inquiry, Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer said that his troops were prepared to aid any that petitioned, but couldn’t explain just how that could be done.

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

Obama needs to inform Congress before he creates these rules which BTW are utterly unconstitutional. Impeach the guy!

[Jim Eagle]

The Republican's in Congress should up the ante and introduce a Drone Control & Safety bill requiring all Drone owners and operators to be registered, all Drones locked in Safes at all time and limiting them to only 2 hellfires capacity.

[Cecil Turner]

Well, this is one of those cases where I agree with the result (shooting al Awlaki and a national right to self-defense) without much confidence in the process. Seriously, the whole “an informed, high-level official” sounds like [the fictional version of] Cardinal Richelieu.

[maryrose]

henry and JIB:
You guys are a laugh riot. Best comments of the day! I agree with Jane. Who died and left Obama boss? He has committed some serious impeachable offenses. Too bad the GOP are too chicken to call him on it. I would love an impeachment trial ala Clinton for the second term festivities. At least it would liven things up and rid us of this feeling of malaise and torpor.

[NK]

If you want to have a laugh-- or throw up- just go back and read all of the Left Wing Civil Liberties lawyers writing about the tyrant BOOOSH regarding the Hamdan and Padilla cases et al, and pay attention to their absolute silence now as their boy Barry declares himself SUNGOD with the power of life and death over US Citizens.

[Neo]

“I hope no one uses the term ‘illegal mmigrants’ here today. Our citizens are, the people in this country are not illegal, they are out of status, they are new Americans that are immigrants, and I think that we can forge a path to citizenship that will be able to pass muster.” -- John Conyers

So these bonds that S&P rated were ... "out of status"

[NK]

CecilT@3:33-- have to disagree. what due process did al Awlaki get? who knows? the next SunGod step is Hellfiring US Citizens here in the US-- and those targets will be the "right kind"-- pale skinned 'separatists' and 'survivalists' terrorists. US Citizen Jihadis have due process rights, or none of us do.

[Rob Crawford]

Who died and left Obama boss?

He was elected president. The president has the authority to prosecute wars, and like it or lump it, Congress did the modern equivalent of declaring war against al'Qaeda.

The requirements, as I understand them, are:

1) Threat must be imminent,
2) Capture must not be feasible,
3) The strike is otherwise in accordance with the laws of war.

A US citizen who leaves the country and starts working with al'Qaeada is no different than a US citizen who left the US and took up arms with Hitler's Germany. They existed, and no one was declared a war criminal when they died during allied air strikes, shelling, rifle fire, or bayonet charges.

And what's the alternative? That any military operation where there MAY be a US citizen on the receiving end must pass judicial review? How would that work?

And Neo -- WHAT BURDEN OF PROOF? It's not a court of law, it's a battlefield. If a would-be jihadi wants a day in court, he has every opportunity here in the US.

[Cecil Turner]

CecilT@3:33-- have to disagree. what due process did al Awlaki get? who knows?

Who cares? He was manifestly an unlawful combatant member of a group Congress has authorized use of military force against. Killing him: righteous.

[Thomas Collins]

Happy, progs? You now get to preen about how horrible it was that Boooossshh/Hitler/Cheney allowed the CIA to sprinkle a few drops of water on Khalid's nose, and how great it is that Obama respects human rights. No danger of enhanced interrogation now, because Obama will just have them killed.

Next up: A photo of Obama playing drone XBox.

[maryrose]

RobC:
Capture not feasible? Threat imminent? Who decides this? Hagel?

[Cecil Turner]

Who decides this?

That is the rub. (But it's going to be any time a target is selected in war.) I don't dispute it's an executive decision, but the idea of one high level official doing it is distasteful and prone to abuse.

[NK]

Did FDR shoot the American--gone Nazi saboteurs on sight? were Tokyo Rose suspects assasinated? John Walker Lindt --fragged by the USMC? Padilla shot at O'Hare? No, wartime POTUSs have always given US citizen enemy combatants due process in wartime-- what due process is this administration giving citizens? -- who knows? they won't say.

[maryrose]

Obama will kill them because he doesn't want more info on the war on terror. Remember according to him , we have AlQueda on the run. Any real current news or status about Al Queda will mess up the narrative. My fear is a shoot first and damn the consequences ,which seems a tyupical Barry move. No responsibility and denial of the truth of the situation.Benghazi comes to mind...

[NK]

"Who decides this?" SunGod won't answer Congress's questions, and the "media" doesn't even try to act like they're trying.
I hope the next Repub POTUS Hellfires Krugman just to make a rhetorical point.

[Thomas Collins]

"Killing him: righteous"

CT, I suspect if we had the same info Obama has, we'd send a drone love greeting to most of the jihadists Obama has. But I think Obama does use the drones to avoid practices that make his supporters squirm but could yield useful intelligence. I hope I'm wrong, and that we still have a useful information gathering operation away from the public's eye.

As far as torture goes, I say do what works. If having Kacey Jordan service the Mohammedan jihadists extracts useful info about jihadists, I say let Kacey do her thing. If waterboarding is useful, do that. If Kacey doing her thing and waterboarding at the same time works, do that.

[Rob Crawford]

Capture not feasible? Threat imminent? Who decides this?

The president, his advisors, and members of the military, presumably.

Do you support the use of military power against jihadis? If so, then in the end you've given someone -- quite often a 19 to 24-year-old young man -- the authority to use a weapon to end someone's life. They will use that weapon in direction of the chain of command -- and the president's at the top of that chain.

Morally, this policy is indistinguishable from saying that a US citizen who has taken up with al'Qaeda and takes part in an attack on US forces -- say, in Afghanistan -- can be shot by a soldier repulsing that attack, no judicial process required.

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

Rob,

The problem is, drone strikes at the whim of the president are not limited to battlefields.

[XBradTC]

NK, America has always given due process to American citizens bearing arms against it when practicable.

How many members of the Italian Army or the Wehrmacht were dual citizens? At least a few. No one got their tits in flutter about killing them.

Al Alwaki was an unlawful combatant, and not entitled to any of the protections of the law of war.

The US (nor any other lawful combatant) is not obligated to demand surrender. It is only required to accept any attempt to surrender.

BTW, the law of war also prohibits the use of civil courts for captured combatants.

[Rob Crawford]

I don't dispute it's an executive decision, but the idea of one high level official doing it is distasteful and prone to abuse.

How is that different from having a commander in chief?

A single man -- Truman -- decided to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just as "distasteful and prone to abuse".

[Cecil Turner]

No, wartime POTUSs have always given US citizen enemy combatants due process in wartime--

Nonsense. Your examples are all people who were captured. There were several Americans killed in German uniforms (this site claims at least 8 were killed in the Waffen SS). If they'd been captured, they'd no doubt have gotten a tribunal prior to punishment. But if that's not feasible . . .

[Rob Crawford]

The problem is, drone strikes at the whim of the president are not limited to battlefields.

The moment one happens that isn't authorized by a Congressional AUMF, yes, a line has been crossed.

[XBradTC]

Jane, what is a battlefield? Do both sides of a conflict have to be present? Is it only legitimate when troops are on the ground? What about an artillery strike? Is that better?

[maryrose]

RobC:
Do you trust them? Bammy and his cohorts? They sure messed up Benghazi. Just saying...

[Thomas Collins]

It's hard for me to see how Obama has done anything outside of the executive powers of the POTUS in the battle against jihadism. It burns me up that establishment media second guessed everything Bush did to protect us, but I must temper my disgust at that behavior and not let it cloud my assessment of Obama's actions.

[maryrose]

I trust the regular military. Not the one co-opted by Bummer to do his bidding.

[Cecil Turner]

A single man -- Truman . . .

I'd have fewer qualms if the "official" were the President, mostly because he bears ultimate responsibility anyway. The idea of a single official (especially unnamed) still bothers me, though. (I admit having difficulty raising a coherent objection.)

But I think Obama does use the drones to avoid practices that make his supporters squirm but could yield useful intelligence.

I agree. I don't care for his strategy, but still support the legitimacy of this particular event (Awlaki).

[maryrose]

TC:
Excursion into Libya without so much as a by my leave is one example.
Mali failure and sending weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Intervention in Egypt -result chaos.
Nothing in Syria where 10's of thousands have died at the hand of assad.
yep Obama's got great foreign policy chops.

[Rob Crawford]

Do you trust them? Bammy and his cohorts? They sure messed up Benghazi. Just saying...

No. And Democrats didn't trust Bush.

[Rob Crawford]

I trust the regular military. Not the one co-opted by Bummer to do his bidding.

Unless we've had 100% turn-over since 2009, it's same military. Or have we deployed some zampolits without our notice?

[Thomas Collins]

Maryrose, on policy, I agree with you. But a bad policy may still be constitutional.

[Rob Crawford]

maryrose -- you realize your list of foreign policy grievances contains both an intervention and a failure to intervene? Do you think a slower resolution to Libya would have had fewer deaths than Syria?

FWIW, I'm not defending the Obama administration. I think they're idiots manipulated by malignant fools.

[NK]

CecilT-- was al-Awlaki beyond capture? could he have been tried by Military Commission and sentence imposed afterwards? Rhetorical questions of course. al-awlaki could have been captured, or tried in abstentia -- this administration chose instead assasination by Hellfire. This is new ground -- you may consider it legitimate, but the 5th and 14th Amendments may deem it otherwise.

TC-- no doubt that the real villains here aren't SunGod and the military carrying out his orders, it is the lying disgraces in the Civil Liberties and Media industry who ignore assasinations of US citizens by their boy Barry.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

I am glad this administration has taken another aggressive, positive step towards eliminating Al Queda and its sympathizers wherever it finds them, whether they are citizens of the USA or not.

I find nothing wrong with the policy.

But, then, I find nothing wrong with water boarding either, troglodyte that I am.

I count on being amused in the coming weeks watching the pretzel twisting press and the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi trying to distinguish the anti-AlQueda policies of the eeeeeeevil Bussssshhhhhhh from the far more aggressive policies of this administration.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

I hated Dems who criticized Bush on this not because they were asserting principles but because I knew they'd line up to kiss the arse of a Dem pres doing exactly the same thing.

Let's not be Dems. Killing bad guys is good even if a jerk is doing it and doing it for the wrong reasons.

[Old Lurker]

Why is it illegal to kill leaders (other than some sort of self survival code) particularly when the line between their political office of the moment and their former terrorist organization is blurry? Why is it illegal to kill rabid preachers urging on their minions ? Would an American Iman spouting jihad from a pulpit in the desert somewhere be fair game?

Gosh I am confused.

[Jim Eagle]

Rob,

The majority of 60, 70 and 80 years grads of the service academies would disagree with you on the "same military". Just saying. Those guys who retired in the last few years are not happy campers when it comes to the secularization and wussification of the military leadership.

I get a lot of their group bulletins and emails and it is very revealing as to how they believe the command structure has changed dramatically.

[XBradTC]

CecilT-- was al-Awlaki beyond capture?

The standard mentioned was "practicable," not "remotely possible, if you're willing to lose enough people and miss enough times."

Lawful combatants are under absolutely NO obligation to attempt to capture the enemy.

[XBradTC]

And I'll let the lawyers chime in, but my understanding is that trial in absentia is problematical on Constitutional grounds.

The only in absentia trials I've heard of have been for people that jumped bail. That is, they had the opportunity to confront their accusers, trail by jury of peers, discovery of evidence against them, access to counsel and all other constitutional protections, and decided to forgo them.

Someone how has never been apprehended arguably has not been given that chance. Which puts us right back to the practicality of capture.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

I find it far more alarming that we are selling F16s and M1s to the Muslim brotherhood.

I also am far more concerned about the jihadists now in control of three new countries and bidding to bag more and the events in Iran and Pakistan which Barry spends his time enabling while his sole strategy for containing radical Islam is popping off a drone now and again and hightailing out of everywhere else.

Assassinating Yamamoto was a useful thing but it was hardly a substitute for Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

[NK]

If today in Afghanistan a US Army Captain comes upon an Arab Jihadi, shot through the leg in a fire fight with US Troops and separated from his weapon, thus no longer actively engaged in combat-- if that US Army Captain shoots the Arab Jihadi in the head, because we'd all be better off, that Captain would be court martialled for wrongful killing because his duty was to capture that jihadi and remit him for prosecution as an unlawful combatant. Yet the CinC gets to push a button and off US citizens. This is rational?

[Jim Eagle]

NK,

You're the lawyer. Who do you think wrote those rules, Generals? And I don't mean the JAG.

[NK]

Paying off some locals to grab al awlaki and deliver him to CIA would have been eminently practicable (and cheaper than a Hellfire mission). fair point about abstentia trials, I'll have to look at the military Commission statute to see if they are permitted.

[NK]

which rules?

[Jim Eagle]

Rules of Engagement.

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

what is a battlefield?

Good question. If you listen to this president, it's Fox News, so who knows.

Generally my personal standard is: would I approve of this if bush proposed it? My problem is the vague ambiguous language that I find dangerous with this president. I wouldn't oppose tightening it up under Bush either.

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

Oh and the failure to consult with congress which is apparently required.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

How many citizens of the Confederacy did Mr. Lincoln kill attempting to repatriate them?
In fact the North considered their rebellion illegal and consequently them still American citizens and the Confederacy still American soil.

[Cecil Turner]

Paying off some locals to grab al awlaki and deliver him to CIA would have been eminently practicable (and cheaper than a Hellfire mission).

I disagree, but anyway there's no requirement to do so. He was a legitimate military target. If you were standing over him and he wanted to surrender, shooting wouldn't be legit. If he was trying to escape . . . too bad. Ditto for spotted by a drone in bad guy country.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Not rational, maybe, NK. But consistent with the laws of war. Once a combatant has become incapacitated or surrendered and thereby subject to be taken into custody, the combatant is entitled to POW status, and may not be executed unless found guilty of a capital offense by a military commission under the laws of war.

[maryrose]

Dead jihadists are fine with me.I think someone should take out Amadidejad but of course they don't drone him they just let him drone on with his anti-Israel rants.
RobC;
I liked Bush's policies, but Obama hides what he does and then lectures us about guns. A pox on him. He is bypassing Congress on a daily basis because he thinks he is king. Foreign Policy mistakes are abundant and growing. We had no business in Libya. Our ambassador should have been recalled like the British one was and 4 Americans are dead because Wonder Boy dropped the ball.I have no faith in him or his policies and now with Kerry, it will be more of the same.2016 can't come soon enough for me.

[jimmyk]

But consistent with the laws of war. Once a combatant has become incapacitated or surrendered and thereby subject to be taken into custody, the combatant is entitled to POW status

Even if he is an unlawful combatant, in violation of all those pesky Geneva convention requirements (like being in uniform, etc.)? Or by "laws of war" do you mean our own ROE?

[Cecil Turner]

Even if he is an unlawful combatant [ . . . ]?

Yep, even then. (Of course, you can wait until he's recovered enough, have a tribunal, and hang him afterward, if so decided.)

[Jim Miller]

Jim Rhoads - It kind of depends on how you read the laws of war. If both sides have signed the Geneva Conventions, then ,yes, the combatant is entitled to POW status.

If his side hasn't, then I don't think he is -- though in most circumstances you might give it to him for practical reasons.

Here's a story from the Civil War that illustrates that illustrates how older laws of war could work: A Union cavalry outfit captured a Confederate officer out of uniform, spying. Being sporting fellows, they decided to give him a chance. They told him he could be hanged, or he could take his chances trying to escape on his horse. He took the latter, and was shot and killed before he had gone more than a few yards.

Now, I may be an early Cro Magnon, rather than a late Cro Magnon, but I think the old practice of executing, if useful to your side, captured combatants not in uniform is a good idea.

It's good because it provides a measure of protection to civilians and neutrals.

[pagar]

"Those guys who retired in the last few years are not happy campers when it comes to the secularization and wussification of the military leadership."

http://tpnn.com/obama-reported-to-be-dismissing-military-leaders-who-will-not-fire-on-civilians-if-ordered/

[Melinda Romanoff on Kindle]

Here we go again.

LUN.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Even if an unlawful combatant or a spy, under the laws of war he is not subject to summary execution under the circumstances NK related. POW status has nothing to do with it and the implication to the contrary in my 5:04 post is incorrect.

[Soylent Red]

Generally my personal standard is: would I approve of this if bush proposed it? My problem is the vague ambiguous language that I find dangerous with this president. I wouldn't oppose tightening it up under Bush either.

This, of course, is the crux of the hypocrisy.

Whether or not it prosecutes a war more efficiently or effectively is irrelevant. It is a power that should never be made available to a tyrant, and thus should not be made available to those who might become a tyrant.

That person might be evil Bushitler, or Obama, depending on what side of the fence you stand on. But I only hear the bleating about civil liberties and fascism when it is a figure from the Right claiming these kinds of powers. Otherwise any fears are baseless kookery.

The question everyone should be asking themselves is how comfortable they are with their most hated member of the opposition party being able to make life or death decisions about their mothers while they vacation in France. Because that's really what this boils down to. There is, to my knowledge, any limitations or policy on the scope, time duration, areas approved for targeting, effects of collateral damage, compensation for wrongful death, etc.

I am all in favor of drone strikes on bad guys but I just can't get behind the idea that ONE MAN makes the decisions. At a minimum it should be a list voted on in Congress, based on credible intelligence, limited to a 90-180 day window, in an area of known hostility. For those unfamiliar, that would be analogous to the basic limitations for nominating bad guys for lethal targeting in Afghanistan.

The Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL). Wikipedia it. Dirty hajji gets the benefits of a little Western circumspection, why don't Americans?

[Janet]

I bet the guys from Haditha can't believe they were prosecuted for civilian casualties considering how popular drone bombings are now.

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

The question everyone should be asking themselves is how comfortable they are with their most hated member of the opposition party being able to make life or death decisions about their mothers while they vacation in France.

I thought that was what I was saying - and now YIKES!!! I am the height of hypocrisy.

I'm so sad.

[Jim Miller]

Jim Rhoads - As a practical matter, in most cases I would take the wounded, disarmed jihadi prisoner because he might talk, especially if he knew it might save him from hanging.

And we might want to give him a brief, military trial before hanging him, but I don't see that as absolutely necessary.

I'll repeat that I want rules of war that protect neutrals and civilians.

[pagar]

Mel @ 05:33, I hear No Money Down is back too.
----------------------------------------------
'I find it far more alarming that we are selling F16s and M1s to the Muslim brotherhood"
.
IMO, this is even worse.

http://www.therightplanet.com/2013/02/muslim-brotherhood-in-the-white-house-names-bios-disclosed/

[Soylent Red]

Not you Jane. You identified where the hypocrisy is rooted.

The hypocrisy is that NOBODY on the Left sees this as a legitimate concern, whereas when Booooooosh was President, it was a whole different story.

And I will go ahead and suggest that many people's problem with this particular power grab is that Obama is the one doing it. If it were Bush or Romney, why, it would be just one more effective tool in the War on Terror.

If you are not comfortable with the opposition having the power, you shouldn't be comfortable with your own party having the power.

[jimmyk]

I'll repeat that I want rules of war that protect neutrals and civilians.

I would add "and soldiers who respect those rules," even if the ultimate goal is to protect civilians (though I think it's more than that).

[xbradtc]

I'll just mention that while in NK's scenario, killing the jihadi is illegal under both UCMJ and the Law of War, the Jihadi would NOT be under protection of POW status.

POW status is only for lawful combatants.

[jimmyk]

To clarify, my 5:57 should read "and [that protect] soldiers who respect those rules."

[Well-regulated non-infringement.]

Who needs drones?
==========

[Jane - Mock the Media!]

Phew Soylent - it is truly amazing isn't it? Things that were so rabidly important when Bush was in office don't matter a whit today.

We best remember that.

[The Night of the Living Democrat.]

Yes, Jane, the full spectrum of the pathological Bush Derangement Syndrome. Endemic, and cachectic.
===================

[Rick Ballard]

"I find it far more alarming that we are selling F16s and M1s to the Muslim brotherhood."

I just hope the Mossad Arabic Repair and Maintenance Training Center is as good as their Persian operation.

[Soylent Red]

Hopefully there will be enough time to fully reconcile ourselves to Obama exploiting the gaping hole in the protection of civil liberties, left open in the rush to more efficiently dispatch potential threats. That's a lot to ponder as I lay dying in a smoking hole for something I typed on the internet once.

[narciso]

It was an easy case to make it, surprisingly though that memo didn't make it, btw, who wrote it, we know the Bybee, Haynes, and other memos by their author,

Now Broken Wheel really is not the best dissenters, they were complaining how on December 24, 2009, Awlaki had not committed
an attack, when he had sent Abdulmutallab on his way to Detroit. The Post reports, BelMokhtar was in the CIA's sights in 2003, somewhere in North Africa, but they decided not to drop the hammer,

[narciso]

Well actually it was the military, not CIA apparently, but the point still applies.

[squaredance]

Of course the Left does not object to it. They are completely irrational. They were never sincere before under Bush. When he might do something like this it was an excuse to exercise emotion and self righteousness, and to "frame" the opposition; it had nothing at all to do with any sort of "morality". I would not goes so far as to say they did not care about the so-called "victims" for after all they are brother combatants against the USA, but this was never their primary concern. Attack, attack, attack, and by any means necessary. logic and facts only play a role in so far as they are needed to parse what that enemy (that would be the rest of us) does and how that can be spun into agi-prop and propaganda.

This is why on one hand that can attack the catholic church on "pedophilia", and at the same time call the BSA "evil" for not wanting homosexuals around young boys. This is how they can claim to take our guns to "protect the children", and thereby violate what is perhaps the most clearly stated amendment in the constitution, and at the same time dream up a wholly manufactured right, one that is most clearly not in the Constitution, to justify something like 40 million abortions.

There is no reasonableness here. That is who and what they are, and they cannot be fought with a direct and logical refutation of their irrationality.

What did she say? "What does it matter?"

[Chubby]

there is a video up on RCP where John Bolton gives Obama a fine set of talking points, says he is totally within his powers

[Chubby]

John Bolton: Obama Can Order Drone Strikes Against U.S. Citizens

LUN

[Chubby]

I can't remember a single Democrat talking head that supported Bush and waterboarding.

[narciso]

Yeah, that's the sticking point, Chubby, and I'm willing to guess the author of this memo, was somehow involved in the Levick Group/CCR whitewash.

[Hillary! Rodham Clinton]

What difference does it make?

[Stoppin' the jab, catching the roundhouse.]

They worried themselves sick about machines scanning phone records and worry not a whit about a madman in the White House with a red buttoned GPS.
=============

[Chubby]

well, some of them seem to be worried, but now that Bolton has given them talking points they won't have to worry any more

[Rick Ballard]

The ROE/orders which were interpreted by the snipers as "shoot on sight" at the Ruby Ridge murder appear to have been generated by a group. If a single individual is issuing the kill orders, it's more difficult, IMO, to get get to "mistakes were made" with no responsibility ever being attached to an individual.

Aside from that, I second Ignatz's view.

[Dave (in MA)]

Didn't read the article, so let me guess. The legal rationale is predicated on the CIC having a Nobel Peace Prize?

[narciso]

From the folks who went after Marco Rubio's cousin, for something he did 25 years ago;

[Porchlight]

Sheesh, remember how flipped out the left was over the Yoo memo?

Yeah, I can barely remember either.

[Cecil Turner]

I'll just mention that while in NK's scenario, killing the jihadi is illegal under both UCMJ and the Law of War, the Jihadi would NOT be under protection of POW status.

Actually, that's correct. What I meant to say is that there's no practical difference at the moment of capture. Even an unlawful combatant is entitled to surrender, and to have a tribunal before being punished.

He is never entitled to POW status (though a tribunal is required even to establish that point--i.e., that he is an unlawful combatant {now "alien unprivileged enemy belligerent"}--under current US law). But you have to treat him essentially the same . . . at least until a military commission rules otherwise.

[narciso]

So this is the scene, that Boal wrote, for ZD 30;

http://www.vulture.com/2013/02/toughest-scene-zero-dark-thirtys-mark-boal.html

It would seem they did more compositing then necessary, Kashmiri, seems to be standin for Baluchi,

[narciso]

There was no Saudi group around UBL, the Khan bros, which include Al Kuwaiti, were Pakistani,

[MarkO]

Are we really killing any of them? How do we know? How do we know who they are or what they did or if anything we are being told about it is remotely true?

Personally, I have never trusted the government on any level, much less the Feds. As a college student, it was a point of personal pride for so many of us that we would never trust the government. Why should we?

I am fine with summarily executing traitors. Is that what we are doing? Who says. Better yet, what difference does it make?

[NkoniPad]

JImR @534and CecilT@929 state the law applicable to my hypothetical AUSA Captain correctly-- if he summarily executes that Jihadi he's up on a UCMJ murder charge for violating the UCMJ, the standing ROE and US Treaty Obligations. Yet, the Cinc refuses to describe the due process he gives US citizens before he declares them enemies and assasinates them. That is not rational, just, and it should be outlawed by congress now, until a system of due process is codified just like the one that applies to our junior officers in the field. Just watched the trial scene from "Billy Budd" on TCM. Our political class today is so debauched that the serious issues we discuss at JOM and addressed by Melville 120 years ago never cross their twisted minds and soulless hearts. I detest this crew in DC-- they are so unworthy of the office they hold.

[Neo]

There is such an investment in our “Capitol City” by both parties that they are now both working to protect the funding. Yes, all politics are local and the DC metro area is local to itself, except it’s constituents can tax the rest of the country.
Now, not only do we need term limits for our politicians, but we now need a rotating Capitol City so it is harder for the political class to put all their efforts into one location.

Imagine the Congress meeting half the year in Lincoln NE or Boise ID

[xbradtc]

JImR @534and CecilT@929 state the law applicable to my hypothetical AUSA Captain correctly-- if he summarily executes that Jihadi he's up on a UCMJ murder charge for violating the UCMJ, the standing ROE and US Treaty Obligations.

You're making an apples to oranges comparison. The hypothetical jihadi in the Captain's case has been rendered hors de combat. Were he not wounded, even unarmed, it would be perfectly legal under UCMJ, and the law of war (though perhaps not under ROE) for your captain to shoot him in the back of the head with no warning.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

But in the hypo, the guy was wounded.

[Soylent Red]

Imagine the Congress meeting half the year in Lincoln NE or Boise ID

Whoa hoss. Keep those assholes away from my home.

[Patriot4Freedom]

Things Hillary Clinton said . . .

“How dare you try to compare those minimal drone strikes to the horrific torture, by waterboarding, of those helpless detainees from our overseas contingent operations”.

“With all due respect, we had four only have a few dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk who decided they’d go kill Americans order a drone strike,” she said in a heated voice. “What difference, at this point, does it make? It is is not our job to figure out what happened.”