Think Humanely

From DemocracyNow!:

White House lawyers are debating whether the US can legally assassinate a US citizen in Yemen. Anwar al-Awlaki is a US-born cleric who has been accused of having ties to the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the shooting at Fort Hood. ABC reports US officials fear the possibility of criminal prosecution without approval in advance from the White House for a targeted strike against Awlaki. Awlaki has not been charged with any crimes under US law.

The same government that Republicans do not trust to run a public option, that Democrats do not trust to craft meaningful health care reform, and the same intelligence and justice communities that gave us lie after lie about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, failed to catch the person(s) responsible for the anthrax attacks and – shall I go on? – now want the power and legal authority to assasinate Americans anywhere in the world based on their say-so. Anwar al-Awlaki might very well be guilty. But we don’t know. Why? Because he hasn’t been found guilty in a court of law. Why hasn’t he been found guilty? Because he hasn’t been tried. Why hasn’t he been tried? Because he hasn’t even been charged with a crime. He is “suspected.”

Do you know who else was “suspected” of being a terrorist or having ties to terrorism? Maher Arar, a Canadian who was tortured for almost a year. There is also German citizen Khaled al-Masri, who was allegedly beaten and sodomized after he was imprisoned indefinitely “because his name was the same as that of another man suspected of terrorist links.” What of the men, women and children imprisoned it our Guantanamo Bay base? From a press release by the Department of Justice:

Since 2002, more than 550 detainees have departed Guantanamo Bay for other destinations, including Albania, Algeria, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Bermuda, Chad, Denmark, Egypt, France, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Palau, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Yemen.

We were told that these were the “worst of the worst.” They want to kill your children. Et cetera. Et cetera. Why were they freed? Largely because there was no reliable or credible evidence to support their incarceration. None, which would explain why there were no charges for hundreds of prisoners. No trials. No convictions. Innocent people were imprisoned for years. Innocent people were tortured. Now the government wants to play god and be allowed, with impunity, to declare people, not only in abstentia, but without any legal proceeding whatsoever, not guilty (because, after all, they haven’t been charged with anything) but deserving of death. They want to be able to send assassins (or drones or whatever new killing toy our $700+ billion defense budget can come up with) after Americans anywhere in the world, and “neutralize” them. But we should just trust the government, right? After all, the White House, Congress, Department of Justice, and intelligence agencies have proven themselves to be perfectly credible. They definitely won’t make any mistakes. And they certainly won’t abuse this power.