Just as George W. Bush had the despicable John Yoo—who maintained in a secret legal memo (and continues to maintain) that torture is legal, the Geneva Conventions (or any other laws of war) applied to the conflict in Afghanistan, and the president is not bound by the War Crimes Act—Barack Obama has David Barron and Martin Lederman in his Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel who secretly maintain the legality of assassinating a US citizen.
Charlie Savage, writing for the New York Times, reports that a secret legal memorandum within the Obama administration found that the assassination would be legal “only if it were not feasible to take him alive….”
The Bill of Rights, international laws of war, federal law against murder, and an executive order all clearly ban assassination. But the secret legal opinion was crafted specifically for Obama to allow the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen and Muslim cleric living in Yemen. Savage reports that the secret opinion “was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr. Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat.”
Savage reports that Barron and Lederman’s secret memo holds that Awlaki could be assassinated because US intelligence was convinced he was taking part in the war with Al Qaeda, posed a significant threat, and the Yemeni “were unable or unwilling to stop him.” In other words, Awlaki was fair game in the September 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against terrorists.
Awlaki was killed in a covert September 2011 strike by an unmanned drone aircraft in Yemen, with the secret knowledge and permission of the president of Yemen. The Obama administration refuses to discuss its role in the strike, if it was a military or intelligence strike, the feasibility of capturing Awlaki, or providing any explanation of its position of legal assassination of a US citizen.
It’s high time for US presidents to stop hiding behind fallacious secret legal memos. If a president believes the opinions to not be fallacious, there’s absolutely no reason for secrecy.
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