bobbyw24
10-11-2011, 07:14 AM
Not the first time that the left’s anti-war legal heroes have morphed from civil libertarians when Bush was in office to war-power expansionists once they went to work for The One. Remember when Harold Koh convinced Obama that he didn’t need to bother with congressional authorization after all if he wanted to wage war in Libya? Good times.
The latest converts to the church of It’s Okay When We Do It: OLC lawyers David Barron and Martin Lederman, who, it turns out, co-authored the legal memo last summer arguing that the killing of Awlaki was legal, notwithstanding the fact that he was an American citizen.
The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis. The memo, however, 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…
The legal analysis, in essence, concluded that Mr. Awlaki could be legally killed, if it was not feasible to capture him, because intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between the United States and Al Qaeda and posed a significant threat to Americans, as well as because Yemeni authorities were unable or unwilling to stop him…
It was principally drafted by David Barron and Martin Lederman, who were both lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel at the time, and was signed by Mr. Barron. The office may have given oral approval for an attack on Mr. Awlaki before completing its detailed memorandum. Several news reports before June 2010 quoted anonymous counterterrorism officials as saying that Mr. Awlaki had been placed on a kill-or-capture list around the time of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009. Mr. Awlaki was accused of helping to recruit the attacker for that operation…
The memorandum is said to declare that in the case of a citizen, it is legally required to capture the militant if feasible — raising a question: was capturing Mr. Awlaki in fact feasible?
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/10/revealed-white-house-lawyers-who-drafted-secret-awlaki-kill-memo-were-critics-of-bushs-war-powers/
The latest converts to the church of It’s Okay When We Do It: OLC lawyers David Barron and Martin Lederman, who, it turns out, co-authored the legal memo last summer arguing that the killing of Awlaki was legal, notwithstanding the fact that he was an American citizen.
The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis. The memo, however, 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…
The legal analysis, in essence, concluded that Mr. Awlaki could be legally killed, if it was not feasible to capture him, because intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between the United States and Al Qaeda and posed a significant threat to Americans, as well as because Yemeni authorities were unable or unwilling to stop him…
It was principally drafted by David Barron and Martin Lederman, who were both lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel at the time, and was signed by Mr. Barron. The office may have given oral approval for an attack on Mr. Awlaki before completing its detailed memorandum. Several news reports before June 2010 quoted anonymous counterterrorism officials as saying that Mr. Awlaki had been placed on a kill-or-capture list around the time of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009. Mr. Awlaki was accused of helping to recruit the attacker for that operation…
The memorandum is said to declare that in the case of a citizen, it is legally required to capture the militant if feasible — raising a question: was capturing Mr. Awlaki in fact feasible?
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/10/revealed-white-house-lawyers-who-drafted-secret-awlaki-kill-memo-were-critics-of-bushs-war-powers/