The United State Government recently killed an American citizen affiliated with al Qaeda named Awlaki. The decision to destroy this United States citizen was made by a secret outlaw committee, with changing secret membership, operating with secret rules and secret justifications, with no due process and fuzzy oversight by the President of the United States. The school systems of the United States should immediately stop teaching our children that this country is a democracy.
An article published by Reuters, ” Secret panel can put Americans on “kill list,” written by Mark Hosenball and published September 5, 2011 contains the details about its title. The following are quotations are excerpted from that article, http://www.reuters.com/article…
There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.
The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy.
Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.
Ruppersberger said.
The process involves “going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law,”
Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described.
The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.
But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki’s hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.
…intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial.
You can be killed without even knowing who you have offended. We have a non-democracy in which we must trust the politicians, bureaucrats, military and their underlings who anonymously lie to us, regularly. If we have no right to know when or how we will be killed and if all we can trust is the aggressive and the arrogant, the Constitution of the United States is gone.
As a United States Border Patrol agent once said to me:
“It does not matter how you vote.”
This was a reply to this author when I said I voted while discussing Border Patrol behavior about an incident that did not involve me in any way. How revealing! This appears to sum the attitude of the Washington government. Washington does not give a dam about us unless we have wealth.
If you oppose the plans of the aggressive and arrogant for your country, could you be put on the list? There are no rules. Some fat capitalist, or commissar, or anyone could buy the presidency and have you killed, anonymously. This is not democracy. It certainly gives others reason to hate and destroy us.
Witchcat
I love what your saying. Keep it up.
Witchcat,
You seem to be the kind of person that would appreciate this political poem I wrote in ’09, which, as a matter of fact, caused me to be purged from COUNTERPUNCH when I accused them of being wimps (and other things) for not running it. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts a lot of White Lefties feel your above post is ‘over the top’–you know, negative, defeatist, and oh, and my favorite: counterproductive. It would be nice if White Lefties realized (like Black folks have and do) what we are really up against, and work from that. Thank you for your posts.
Peter
YOU SILLY LITTLE PEOPLE
(Inspired by James Douglass’ book: JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE. The voice in the poem is the voice of the Corporate Reich at one of their Planning/Retreat cocktail parties, telling the waitstaff person what’s what in America.)
the dead do not matter
remember we killed Kennedy
are you stupid?
we can do anything we want
Iraqi dead American dead
a little nuclear war
we can do anything
if I were you I’d shut up and shop
while you still can
looters will be shot
your health care your children?
oh please you’re making us cry
tears in our martinis
from deep underground
we will still run the world
while you vigil in front of caves
we will use your daughters to procreate
for us a new herd of sheep
an unlimited food supply
it will be just like old Rome
only better as we watch the sheep
do what you call the unspeakable
perhaps you should have spoken it
out loud back when it might have mattered
instead of just whining about peace
don’t worry your peace is coming
you silly little people who want to be like us
without any of the guilt or shame
the peace of unburied dead
do you have a sign for that? a candle?
come on make us laugh–it’s a party
Peter Buknatski
Montpelier, Vt.
(Spring, 2009)
Ya know, when Americans swallowed The Warren Commission Report in 1964, Wall St. knew they’d swallow anything, rather than face up to anything. All about marketing. And I know Wall St. just loves how the White Left falls all over itself in denial and debate, while the Corporate Reich grows stronger. The word ‘enabling’ come to mind.