AG Eric Holder/White House responds to Rand... We can kill you if we think ur a combatant

[Reason]

AG Eric Holder/White House responds to Rand. We can kill you if we think you're a...

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AG Eric Holder/White House responds to Rand. We can kill you if we think you're a combatant...

March 7, 2013

What Holder Really Said

Posted by William Grigg on March 7, 2013 02:23 PM

It took a 13-hour filibuster from Senator Rand Paul to wring this terse statement from Attorney General Eric Holder:

“It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: `Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no.”
Like all statements from people who presume to rule others, this brief message from Holder – – who is Nickolai Krylenko to Obama’s Josef Stalin – should be read in terms of the supposed authority claimed thereby. This means removing useless qualifiers in the interest of clarity.

What Holder is saying, in substantive terms, is that the President does have the supposed authority to use a drone to kill an American who is engaged in “combat,” whether here or abroad.

"Combat" can consist of expressing support for Muslims mounting armed resistance against U.S. military aggression, which was the supposed crime committed by Anwar al-Awlaki, or sharing the surname and DNA of a known enemy of the state, which was the offense committed by Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdel.

Under the rules of engagement used by the Obama Regime in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan, any “military-age” male found within a targeted “kill zone” is likewise designated a “combatant,” albeit usually after the fact.

This is a murderous application of the "Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy," and it will be used when -- not if -- Obama or a successor starts conducting domestic drone-killing operations.

Holder selected a carefully qualified question in order to justify a narrowly tailored answer that reserves an expansive claim of executive power to authorize summary executions by the president.

That’s how totalitarians operate.

[sailingaway]

yeah, saying 'they are a combatant' pretty much ignores the 'how do you decide they are' question, which is where the due process and ability to say 'no I'm not, I was just using my brother in law's computer' part should come in...

[Lucille]

Yup.

[JoshLowry]

yeah, saying 'they are a combatant' pretty much ignores the 'how do you decide they are' question, which is where the due process and ability to say 'no I'm not, I was just using my brother in law's computer' part should come in...

That would require an actual investigation. Too inconvenient for a global battlefield!

[sailingaway]

That would require an actual investigation. Too inconvenient for a global battlefield!

even on a sunny day in Malibu....

[Lucille]

That would require an actual investigation. Too inconvenient for a global battlefield!

[Darguth]

yeah, saying 'they are a combatant' pretty much ignores the 'how do you decide they are' question, which is where the due process and ability to say 'no I'm not, I was just using my brother in law's computer' part should come in...

Preface: I'm not attempting to defend the Administration or its drone policies. However...

I'd point out--as I did elsewhere--that being labeled an enemy combatant and being engaged in combat are not inherently one-and-the-same. The prisoners in Gitmo are labeled combatants. However, I don't think anyone--even the Administration--is or would claim that they are engaged in combat while being imprisoned.

[dancjm]

Holder selected a carefully qualified question in order to justify a narrowly tailored answer that reserves an expansive claim of executive power to authorize summary executions by the president.

QFT.

[presence]

I'd point out--as I did elsewhere--that being labeled an enemy combatant and being engaged in combat are not inherently one-and-the-same. The prisoners in Gitmo are labeled combatants. However, I don't think anyone--even the Administration--is or would claim that they are engaged in combat while being imprisoned.

Which is the point. We should not be able to list people as "enemy combatants" and then seek to execute them regardless of whether they are immediately engaged in hostile combat.

If you want to put people on capture lists that is one thing, but to put them on kill lists is another entirely.

Our military, our police, should not be allowed under the color of law to seek to kill ANYONE who is not imminent threat; immediately hostile, actively combating or resisting.

Kill listing and bombing marked individuals while they eat or sleep is not moral.


We are a half-hot-second away from ubiquitous little green tracking boxes on each and every individual in existence, each numbered and constantly tracking and permanently recording from birth to death. When we accept the notion of marked push-button assassinations in this new environment of constant surveillance then we have truly lost our humanity.

[DGambler]

If people take up arms to secede, then this administration will kill them.

[sailingaway]

Preface: I'm not attempting to defend the Administration or its drone policies. However...

I'd point out--as I did elsewhere--that being labeled an enemy combatant and being engaged in combat are not inherently one-and-the-same. The prisoners in Gitmo are labeled combatants. However, I don't think anyone--even the Administration--is or would claim that they are engaged in combat while being imprisoned.

But does 'engaged in combat' mean at that moment so the true meaning of 'imminent' comes in, the guy is piloting a plane aimed at a tower, or does it mean 'suspected of being in a course of conduct of combat but at the moment drinking a latte on the pier'?

[presence]

Did the president have the authority to drone bomb Dorner?




keyword: dorner 71
http://www.memegenerator.net/Dorner-71

[Lucille]

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"
--Samuel Adams

[ZENemy]

This administration is so insistent on asserting its power, just like any other DYING entity