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US Admits To Droning Four American Citizens, But Wait, Isn't The Number 5?

A

ARMCX1

Mayor
It should come as no surprise. The Obama administration finally admitted what everyone paying any attention at all for the last decade already knew -- that 4 US citizens have been killed by the US in drone strikes since 2009.

The citizens are: Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Kahn, Abdul Rahman al Awlaki, Jude Kenan Mohammed.

According to a letter written by AG Holder describing the targeted killings, only Anwar al-Awlaki was an intended target. The other 3 citizens killed were accidental.

Personally, Holder's letter was the first mention I had heard of Jude Kenan Mohammed as an American citizen killed by drone. The date of his killing (in Pakistan) was not released.

I commend the administration for shedding some light onto the program of killing US citizens (and other citizens) extrajudicially by drone.

But there is a glaring omission in Holder's effort to shed light. There is another US citizen killed by drone not listed in Holder's letter.

In 2002, Kamal Derwish (aka Ahmed Hijazi), a US citizen from Lackawanna NY, was killed by a drone strike in Yemen. Derwish is the first known US citizen killed by a drone. His killing has been ignored by the press and also by Holder's letter.

http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N54/long4-54.54w.html

My question is what to make of an effort to shed light on a program of sanctioned targeted killings of US citizens that at the start, continues to shield past killings from public scrutiny?
 
Well, I guess Holder getting 80% of the names down right, and the fact that 4 out of 5 US citizens killed were accidents justified on the basis of associations and activities regarded as secrets is transparency enough.
 
if Obama started telling us what happened on Bush's watch, he'd have to get into torture and the deaths that followed. repubs wouldn't stand for that.
 
Justified. Alawki was killed for making war on tha U.S. and the other three [Unwelcome language removed] were killed for hanging out with Awlaki. This is the only thing Obama has done in his time as president that is actually profuctive.
 
JuliefromOhio said:
if Obama started telling us what happened on Bush's watch, he'd have to get into torture and the deaths that followed. repubs wouldn't stand for that.
Click to expand...

Obama only tortures Americans, specifically Conservatives, via the OIRS (Obama Internal Revenue Service).
 
Killing Bin Laden wasn't "profuctive"?

The only one killed with Awlaki was Kahn. Awlaki's son was killed when we attacked a group of Al Qaeda leaders and he just happened to be there. Same with the Jude Mohammed. The moral of the story is you shouldn't hang out with the bad guys.

We at least do target legitimately identified enemy personnel. The terrorists, Al Qaeda, Shabab, Al-Sharia, AQAP, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban kill just to kill. Who was the target on 911? The Boston Marathon bombers were trying kill a legitimate target or was it just to make everyone afraid?

There are two kinds of people complaining about Americans killed by drone strikes....one is the folks who just want to keep up the complaints about Obama. If it was a republican doing it there wouldn't be a problem. The other kind are those who think this isn't a war and equate it to the event in Philadelphia when the police bombed the building that Move was in....They think we can simply arrest and try people like Awlaki.
 
Derwish wasn't tortured. He was droned just like the other 4 Americans. There's something about the Derwish killing that forces the government to keep it under wraps and in a different category -- a category of non-accountability and omission from the historical record.

My own opinion is that Derwish's killing happened before the legal justification for extrajudicial killings was in place and that the facts of the Derwish killing don't fit with the justification for killing Americans by secret tribunals.

The exclusion of the Derwish killing from Holder's letter and the historical record is not accidental.
 
ARMCX1 said:
Derwish wasn't tortured. He was droned just like the other 4 Americans. There's something about the Derwish killing that forces the government to keep it under wraps and in a different category -- a category of non-accountability and omission from the historical record.

My own opinion is that Derwish's killing happened before the legal justification for extrajudicial killings was in place and that the facts of the Derwish killing don't fit with the justification for killing Americans by secret tribunals.

The exclusion of the Derwish killing from Holder's letter and the historical record is not accidental.
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sure, Obama brings it up, then what? we begin criminal prosecution of Bush et al?
 
I'm having a hard time becoming maudlin over the deaths of these particular Islamic terrorists simply because they had obtained green cards in the US. I have far more pity for the truly innocent Middle Eastern citizens who have died as a result of our war against Al Qaeda. If you had a real point to make here, then you wouldn't have to fall back on a technicality to make it.
 
JackDallas said:
Justified. Alawki was killed for making war on tha U.S. and the other three <img src=images/smilies/animated/censored.gif>s were killed for hanging out with Awlaki. This is the only thing Obama has done in his time as president that is actually profuctive.
Click to expand...

Jacko, it must be a chilly day in the underworld, you and I agree on something. That is until your last sentence.
 
middleview said:
...There are two kinds of people complaining about Americans killed by drone strikes....one is the folks who just want to keep up the complaints about Obama. If it was a republican doing it there wouldn't be a problem. The other kind are those who think this isn't a war and equate it to the event in Philadelphia when the police bombed the building that Move was in....They think we can simply arrest and try people like Awlaki.
Click to expand...

There's a third type of people complaining that you neglected to mention. This type thinks that the constitution affords every American due process from secret charges, secret tribunals and secret extrajudicial executions. And, if extrajudicial killings are A-OK in wartime as most on this board seem to believe, then they have to live with executing the wrong man 80% of the time or else believe that the collaterally damaged deserved their fate anyway (as you said, don't hang out with bad guys.)

You raise a legitimate and complicated issue regarding the role of the US judicial system in our age of terror and yet the courts have sentence 171 people (mostly American citizens) for al-Qaeda related crimes. So I guess I'm the type of person that overlaps with those who see a role for the courts in wartime (gasp! what about sources?, what about methods?, what about the urgency and the timing? don't cops sometimes kill citizens in the absence of a court judgement? etc etc etc)

al-Awlaki was on the kill list for 2 years before he was killed. What would have been the error in trying al-Awlaki in absentia to determine if he deserved the death penalty according to American law?

The US legal system worked for US citizens like Jose Padilla (dirty bomber), John Lindh (Taliban fighter) and the 169 other persons convicted of al-Qaeda related crimes by US courts since 1997. Lots of bad guys aiming to do lots of bad things to Americans.

No person of any origin has been sentenced to death for any al-Qaeda related crime by a US court or a military tribunal.
 
NightSwimmer said:
I'm having a hard time becoming maudlin over the deaths of these particular Islamic terrorists simply because they had obtained green cards in the US. I have far more pity for the truly innocent Middle Eastern citizens who have died as a result of our war against Al Qaeda. If you had a real point to make here, then you wouldn't have to fall back on a technicality to make it.
Click to expand...

What technicality did I fall back upon? Are you saying a naturalized citizen is less of an American than a native born citizen? Wasn't al-Awlaki born in New Mexico?

My argument is legal and constitutional, not sentimental. So there is a real point -- namely the constitution and the inevitable clash between it and alleged wartime exigencies.

None of these guys killed were green cards so get your facts right.
 
Derwish's death has been in the public domain for 11 years although systematically ignored. Obama already ditched any prosecution for any Bush crimes the moment he walked in the WH door.

It's not logical to think that mentioning Derwish would inevitably lead to a prosecution of Bush since that possibility was removed in 2007 when the Dems took over Congress and in 2009 when Obama was elected.

The point of Derwish isn't to prosecute Bush, it's to note that the effort at openness wasn't factually open.
 
ARMCX1 said:
What technicality did I fall back upon? Are you saying a naturalized citizen is less of an American than a native born citizen? Wasn't al-Awlaki born in New Mexico?
Click to expand...

No. What I'm saying is that one forfeits their rights as a citizen when they elect to make war against their own nation.

You're welcome to make all of the arguments that you wish that all killing is wrong and that we should just take the advice of Jesus and turn the other cheek when someone attacks us. At least that would be logically consistent, rather than being a bullshit appeal to emotion.
 
I get a kick out of Drone-Gate, because the only way we know that we've droned anyone, is because the Obama Administration has TOLD us we have. And no...that didn't just happen in a speech the other day. All the speech did, was "officially confirm" the dronings.

Somehow...the drone-obsessed seem to feel a couple of things that they maybe shouldn't be. First, they seem to be sort of acting under the assumption that some righteous ferret rooted out this information even as the Obamans tried to keep it secret. And...that since we have no proof that say...LBJ, or Nixon, or Reagan...or whomever, "droned" anyone, Obama is especially unique and evil in this regard.
 
fairsheet said:
I get a kick out of Drone-Gate, because the only way we know that we've droned anyone, is because the Obama Administration has TOLD us we have. And no...that didn't just happen in a speech the other day. All the speech did, was "officially confirm" the dronings.

Somehow...the drone-obsessed seem to feel a couple of things that they maybe shouldn't be. First, they seem to be sort of acting under the assumption that some righteous ferret rooted out this information even as the Obamans tried to keep it secret. And...that since we have no proof that say...LBJ, or Nixon, or Reagan...or whomever, "droned" anyone, Obama is especially unique and evil in this regard.
Click to expand...


Perhaps it's merely nostalgia? Maybe they'd prefer that we reverted back to killing our enemies with long swords, like back in the good old days?
 
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