Category Archives: Obama administration

Secret panel can put Americans on ‘kill list’

Glenn Greenwald writes: Here is what the Democratic President has created and implemented, and what many party loyalists explicitly endorse (when there’s a Democrat in the White House) — from Reuters:

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions . . . . There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council . . . . Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate. . . . The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process. . . .

Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing. The process involves “going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president” . . . .Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described. They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval . . . But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals’ decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.

So a panel operating out of the White House — that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates — is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider. It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that; I genuinely wonder whether the Good Democrats doing so actually first convince themselves that if this were the Bush White House’s hit list, or if it becomes Rick Perry’s, they would be supportive just the same. Seriously: if you’re willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret — with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency — and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren’t you willing to support?

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Palestinians near UNESCO membership

Reuters reports:

Palestinians moved a step closer to full membership of the U.N. cultural agency on Wednesday when its board decided to let 193 member countries vote on admission this month.

The latest move in a Palestinian quest for statehood recognition drew a swift rebuke from the United States and Israel, which both argue that the way to create Palestine is through negotiations, and a cool response from France.

In September, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied to the Security Council for full membership of the United Nations, ignoring a U.S. warning that it would veto the move, as well as threats from members of the U.S. Congress to restrict American aid to the Palestinians.

At UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 40 representatives of the 58-member board voted in favor of putting the matter to a vote, with four — the United States, Germany, Romania and Latvia — voting against and 14 abstaining, a source at the agency told Reuters.

That set the scene for a membership vote at UNESCO’s General Conference, a meeting that runs from October 25 to November 10 and involves all 193 members of the agency, based in Paris.

It also raised questions about whether Washington might be required by U.S. law to cut off funding for the agency if it were to accept the Palestinians as a member. The United States pays 22 percent of UNESCO’s dues, the State Department said.

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Palestinian protesters accost U.S. diplomats during West Bank visit

The Associated Press reports:

A small crowd of Palestinian protesters accosted an American diplomatic delegation visiting the West Bank Tuesday, blocking a convoy of vehicles, chanting “shame on you” and hurling a shoe — a deeply insulting gesture in Arab culture.

The Americans, including employees of the consulate in Jerusalem, were on their way to a U.S. reception in town of Ramallah meant to reaffirm cultural and educational ties with the Palestinians.

But relations have grown strained recently, with Palestinians disappointed over President Barack Obama’s handling of Mideast peace efforts. They say he is not tough enough on Israel and are also upset over U.S. vows to block their attempt to receive full membership at the United Nations.

Members of Congress have already put a hold on $200 million in economic assistance to the Palestinians to dissuade them from pushing forward with the U.N. request. Officials have also hinted that aid could be cut altogether if the Palestinians proceed with their plans. The U.S. provides some $500 million a year to the Palestinians.

The activists involved in the demonstration, which was organized on Facebook, called for a boycott of the U.S. reception. They held banners reading, “No for the American funds,” ”Veto America” and “Obama, your vision is shortsighted.”

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Egypt’s military unsure when it will relinquish power, U.S. says

The New York Times reports:

Not even Egypt’s interim military rulers know when they plan to relinquish power to a new civilian government, the United States ambassador to Egypt, Anne W. Patterson, said Tuesday.

Speaking at a news conference here with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta after he met with the Egyptian military leaders, Ms. Patterson offered an unusually candid assessment of the haze over Egypt’s path toward democracy after the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak eight months ago.

Asked if American officials knew whether the Egyptian military council intended to turn over power at the seating of a newly elected Parliament in March, or the planned adoption of a new constitution later in 2012, or the election of a president some months beyond that, Ms. Patterson said, “I don’t think, frankly, the military knows or anyone else knows.”

“This process has really been fraught with uncertainty from the very beginning and decisions are often made on a day-to-day basis, so I would expect that to continue for a while,” she added.

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On the world stage, Obama the idealist has taken fright

Simon Tisdall writes:

Candidates run on hope. Incumbents run on their record. But Barack Obama, lining up for a second term at the White House next year, has little to offer on either score. The heady optimism of 2008 has dissipated. At home, Obama is primarily associated with hard times: only 34% of voters approve of his handling of the economy, according to a recent poll. Abroad, his presidency has come to stand for impotence and incompetence. He promised new beginnings; what he has delivered, for the most part, is waffle, dither and drift.

If this verdict seems harsh, take a quick tour round the globe. Everywhere the pillars of American superpower are crumbling. The old habit of hegemony, formed in the postwar decades and confirmed in 1989 as Soviet power imploded, is fading as fast as a Honolulu sunset.

Part of the explanation is faltering industrial and financial clout, reflecting the rapid rise of rivals like China and India. But that is compounded by another central element: Obama’s persistent failure to stand up, in practical, substantive ways, for the values, beliefs and interests he so eloquently espouses.

Obama’s early, anguished indecision over keeping his promise to close Guantánamo Bay now looks like a grim portent. So, too, does his administration’s failure to support the Iranian students whose “green revolution” was so cruelly suppressed in Tehran in 2009. When the Arab spring took hold this year, the man who in Cairo had preached the pre-eminence of the democratic ideal took fright. Tunisia did not matter much. But when he faced accusations of becoming the president who “lost” Egypt, Obama’s dither default setting was triggered anew.

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Former Mossad chief: Iran far from achieving nuclear bomb

Haaretz reports:

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said Monday that a military strike on Iran was “far from being Israel’s preferred option,” telling the Council for Peace and Security that “there are currently tools and methods that are much more effective.”

Dagan also said Iran’s nuclear program was still far from the point of no return, and that Iran’s situation is “the most problematic it has been in since the revolution” in 1979.

But Israel’s strategic situation is also “the worst in its history,” he warned, adding that Israel itself has contributed a lot to this deterioration. As an example, he cited Deputy

Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon’s decision to humiliate the Turkish ambassador last year by demonstratively seating him on a low chair.

Dagan made his remarks on the same day that visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta passed on a clear message from his boss in Washington: The United States opposes any Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

At a joint press conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Panetta stressed that any steps against Iran’s nuclear program must be taken in coordination with the international community.

The United States, he said, is “very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary” to keep Iran from posing “a threat to this region.” But doing so “depends on the countries working together,” he added.

He repeated the word “together” several times in this context.

Panetta cited Iran’s nuclear program as number one on the list of issues he had discussed with Barak. He voiced concern not only about the nuclear program, but also about Iran’s support for terror, its efforts to undermine regional stability and the fact that it had supplied weapons that were used to kill American soldiers.

At the press conference, which took place at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, Panetta also stressed America’s deep commitment to Israel’s security.

His message for Barak, at their second meeting in two weeks, appeared to be simultaneously embrace and restrain: America is standing by Israel, but an uncoordinated Israeli strike on Iran could spark a regional war. The United States will work to defend Israel, but Israel must behave responsibly.

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Secret memo on Obama’s right to kill Americans

David Shipler writes:

The Obama administration should release the secret Justice Department memo justifying the placement of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, on the CIA’s kill list. The legal questions are far from clearcut, and the country needs to have this difficult discussion. A good many Obama supporters thought that secret legal opinions by the Justice Department—rationalizing torture and domestic military arrests, for example—had gone out the door along with the Bush administration.

But now comes a momentous change in policy with serious implications for the Constitution’s restraint on executive power, and Obama refuses to allow his lawyers’ arguments to be laid out on the table for the American public to examine. Shakespeare’s line in Hamlet on the “insolence of office” comes to mind.

The questions are legion. If U.S. government officials are being accurate and truthful in both their attributed and anonymous statements, Awlaki was placed on the list only in April 2010, after he had “gone operational” and had crossed the line between speech and action. Did the lawyers think that the First Amendment protected even his fiery rhetoric, easily available to potential jihadists by Internet, which had inflamed a few wannabe terrorists? Did they require that he actually take a hand in some planning before he could be considered worthy of the drone strike that killed him in Yemen? Hours after his death, President Obama awarded him a posthumous promotion, calling him for the first time “the leader of external operations for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

What is the basis for this grand title? There is no doubt about his words—anybody can still hear and read them—but the picture of his actions is sketchy, derived from unverified intelligence. Given how wrong the CIA was about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is it really sufficient to base a death warrant on intelligence operatives’ untested assertions? How can their accuracy be checked? Does the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process extend to Americans overseas? Due process, after all, was the Framers’ effort to enhance the accuracy of the criminal justice system. Is there another way that an independent review can be done before a missile is sent in the direction of some named person who is not on a battlefield? Isn’t it strange that under Obama’s reasoning, the president can’t order torture but can order death, that he needs a judge’s authorization to listen to an American’s phone overseas but needs no such judicial approval to end the citizen’s life?

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Congress blocking aid to the Palestinians: the facts and what they mean

Lara Friedman from Americans for Peace Now writes:

This past weekend there were press reports (original story in the Independent, with further reporting in the Israeli press) that Congress was blocking $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA). As is often the case when it comes to the rather arcane world of Congress and appropriations, the press reports were partly correct and partly incorrect, and also missed some rather important points.

The Facts

  • U.S. direct assistance to the PA for FY2011, which amounted to $200 million, is already out the door. Congress can’t do anything to block funding that has already been spent, although some members of Congress are threatening to cut off this funding in 2012 to punish the Palestinian Authority for going to the UN.
  • Congress is blocking $192 million in funds for U.S. humanitarian programs for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza. This funding is being blocked by Republicans on two House committees: the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Appropriations Committee’s Foreign Operations Subcommittee. These funds are for programs funded through USAID and carried out by non-governmental organizations. It should be emphasized that the West Bank/Gaza assistance program is completely distinct from U.S. aid to the PA. U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has long been kept hermetically sealed off from PA aid – specifically to enable it to continue, even, for example, when concerns over corruption led Congress to prohibit all aid to the PA (a prohibition that still is law today, but a law that the President has the authority to waive, with conditions), and even after Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. The U.S. program for the West Bank and Gaza, it should be emphasized, is probably the most congressionally restricted, conditioned, vetted and overseen U.S. assistance program in the world – all to ensure that not a dollar benefits the PA and that not a dollar serves any purpose but to address humanitarian concerns and promote U.S. policy objectives.
  • Congress is also blocking $150 million in funding for security assistance to the PA (aid that comes under the title of “international narcotics control and law enforcement programs – INCLE”). This block – which so far has not been reported in the media – does target the PA and will be very problematic for the PA. These funds are being blocked by Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and possibly also by the House Foreign Affairs Committee (this could not be confirmed as of this writing). Some members of Congress have also threatened to cut these funds in 2012 to punish the Palestinian Authority for going to the UN.

The press has not been clear on how Congress is blocking funds that have been previously approved, so to clarify: Congress keeps a very tight hold on the purse strings when it comes to foreign aid in general, and assistance for the Palestinians and the PA in particular. One way it does this is by (as part of the law providing the funds) requiring the Administration to notify/consult with relevant committees (House and Senate) before actually spending money. The relevant committees are the committees with jurisdiction over foreign assistance – the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Foreign Operations Subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. As part of this notification process, a committee member or members can place a hold on a given expenditure – in theory in order to get more information/justification from the Administration.

That is what is happening here with the holds on the $192 million for USAID funding for the Palestinians, and the hold on the $150 million for security assistance – although of course while some members might legitimately want more information (including information about how USAID might be adapting to new circumstances that could be relevant to a these aid programs), for others this could easily be a handy pretext for just blocking the funding for political reasons. [Continue reading…]

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The Palestinians’ next move

Rashid Khalidi writes:

As the dust settles after last week’s “showdown” at the United Nations over the Palestinian application for membership, several initial conclusions can be drawn.

First, the United States now is thoroughly out of touch with most of the international community when it comes to Palestine and Israel. It has positioned itself to the right of the most right-wing, pro-settler government in Israeli history. This was reflected in the joyful reception of President Obama’s speech by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and his right-wing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, as well as in the Israel lobby’s satisfied response to Obama’s caving in to Israeli demands all along the line.

In an almost surreal display of pandering, Republican presidential candidates—notably Texas governor Rick Perry—disparaged the president for “appeasing” the Palestinians and thereby betraying Israel. This rhetoric came despite the fact that Obama single-handedly sabotaged the Palestinians’ UN bid while publicly lecturing them and the entire General Assembly on the suffering of Israelis without so much as a word acknowledging Israeli occupation, violence and settlements—not to mention the Palestinian suffering caused by these American-supported policies. Obama’s domestic electioneering in the face of a historic demand by the long-suffering Palestinians was not lost on the world. Taken in the context of the Arab Spring and its wave of popular demands for human and political rights, it means that the United States has lost all credibility as an honest broker in this conflict.

The second conclusion to be drawn is that after two decades of the U.S. behaving as “Israel’s lawyer,” the two-state solution is now dead. It has been buried by forty-four years of unceasing Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the benevolent gaze of nine successive U.S. administrations. The most recent in a long line of boastful Israeli announcements of further settlement construction in occupied Arab East Jerusalem last week is a perfect illustration of this truth. Despite the usual expression of “disappointment” from the White House and the State Department, the United States has, in fact, again acquiesced to the illegal colonization of more occupied Palestinian territory. This served as a ceremonial last nail in the coffin of the disastrous American-led process that since the beginning of peace negotiations in Madrid in 1991 oversaw and facilitated the near tripling of the illegal Israeli settler population to well over half a million and the imposition of severe restrictions on the movement of over 4 million Palestinians. [Continue reading…]

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports:

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned on Sunday that Israel was becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East, and said Israeli leaders must restart negotiations with the Palestinians and work to restore relations with Egypt and Turkey.

Mr. Panetta told reporters traveling with him that while Israel is still the most powerful state in the region, “Is it enough to maintain a military edge if you’re isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena?” He continued, “Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to project your military strength.”

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Arab world indifferent about death of unknown American cleric

But the headline says: “As the West Celebrates a Cleric’s Death, the Mideast Shrugs.”

The New York Times, forever the trumpet of institutional power, apparently sees no need to draw a distinction between the White House and the West — even though most people in the West, like those in the Middle East, wouldn’t, until a few days ago, have been able name Anwar al-Awlaki, identify his photo or say anything about him.

The report itself is more clear-eyed:

Until about two years ago, few in Yemen or the Arab world had heard of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born propagandist for Islamic radicalism whose death President Obama celebrated as a major blow against Al Qaeda.

“A dime-a-dozen cleric” was one response, by Gregory Johnsen, a Princeton professor who studies Yemen. Another: “I don’t think your average Middle Easterner knows who Anwar al-Awlaki is,” said Emad Shahin, a scholar of political Islam at Notre Dame University.

While Western officials and commentators saw the end of Mr. Awlaki as another serious loss for Al Qaeda, a very different reception in the Middle East was the latest reminder of the disconnect between American aims and Arab perceptions. In a region transfixed by the drama of its revolts, Mr. Awlaki’s voice has had almost no resonance.

“I don’t think this will really get people’s interest, I can’t imagine why it would,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center. “It seems totally irrelevant to how Arabs view the world right now. They don’t care about Awlaki.”

It is a remarkable feature in the Arab world these days how little Al Qaeda actually comes up in conversations. Even before the eruption of revolts and revolutions, a group that bore some responsibility for two wars and deepening American involvement from North Africa to Iraq was losing its significance. When Osama bin Laden died, his killing seemed more an epitaph for another era. As is often remarked, the events of Sept. 11 seem a historical note to much of an Arab population where three in five are younger than 30.

In that atmosphere, many saw Mr. Awlaki’s death as an essentially American story: here was a man that American attention helped create, and its Hellfire missiles killed, in a campaign born out of American fears of homegrown militancy. What distinguished Mr. Awlaki was not his ideas or influence but his American upbringing, passport and perfectly idiomatic English.

“When the Obama administration and the U.S. media started focusing on him, that is when Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula pushed him to the fore,” Mr. Johnsen said, referring to the group’s Yemeni branch. “They were taking advantage of the free publicity, if you will. And any stature he has now in the Arab world is because of that.”

Another analyst, Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation, echoed the idea that Mr. Awlaki’s fluency in English generated more interest about him. “The U.S. focus on Awlaki was a function of his language abilities and their understanding of his role as a recruiter and propagandist. If recent events can be said to further marginalize violent rejectionists such as Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, then there is very little room for a virtual unknown such as Awlaki to command any serious attention.”

Mr. Hanna said that was even more the case with the Arab world having plunged into what he described as “this transformational juncture.”

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Obama’s take-no-prisoners approach to terrorism

After Barack Obama began his presidency by deciding to close Guantanamo and ban torture, Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU said:

These executive orders represent a giant step forward. Putting an end to Guantanamo, torture and secret prisons is a civil liberties trifecta, and President Obama should be highly commended for this bold and decisive action so early in his administration on an issue so critical to restoring an America we can be proud of again.

What later became apparent was that Obama had less interest in civil liberties than he has in resolving the legal complications of dealing with terrorist suspects.

Should suspected terrorists be tried in civilian or military courts?

Should they be detained inside or outside the United States?

What kind of legal protections do they deserve when being interrogated?

What constitute legal interrogation methods?

For Obama, all of these questions have a simple answer: whenever possible, terrorist suspects should be killed rather than taken into detention.

He will never articulate his policy in such brutal and simple terms, but by this point the policy of the US government should be clear.

What has become apparent over the last two and a half years is that George Bush and Dick Cheney would have faced little or no criticism if there had been just one subtle difference in their approach to governance: had they been Democrats they could have avoided the political messiness of using torture and instead been global vigilante purists and said America will kill its enemies whenever and wherever we find them.

So, as Dick Cheney now applauds Obama, he does so with an apparent sense of envy and resentment.

But note also, Cheney is still promoting an old-school approach when he says: “I think you’ve got to go through the process internally, making certain it’s reviewed by the appropriate people in the Justice Department — that they take a good careful look at it — but I think they [the Obama administration] did all that in this case.”

Well, from what we know at this point, that careful review process was either not applied to Samir Khan, or, if it was applied, concluded he could not be targeted — but he got assassinated in any case.

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Yemenis say they have bigger problems than al Qaeda

The New York Times reports:

On the streets of Sana, the nation’s conflict-stricken capital, the news of the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American propagandist for Al Qaeda who inspired jihadists around the world, was largely overshadowed by the continuing domestic turmoil here.

Many Yemenis had not even heard that Mr. Awlaki had been killed, even by Friday night. And most had only a faint sense of why the United States considered him a highly significant target. If anything, Yemenis thought his death would only increase their woes.

“I don’t know why he was important, except that he was a terrorist,” said Belal Masood, who works in a restaurant in Sana’s old city. “But maybe this will create a problem for us Yemenis, because when you strike Al Qaeda they normally strike back larger. Really, we wish they could have killed him in another country.”

Another man, Walid Seneb, who was sitting on a street curb with three friends on Friday night, said, “We don’t like these terrorists who make problems for us. Mr. Seneb was the only one of the four men who had heard of the cleric’s death.

“But right now there are worse problems,” he said. “Our national crisis is the biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything from the government stopped.”

After eight months of antigovernment protests that began during the Arab spring, Yemen’s government has been torn apart. The armed forces are divided between those loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and those who follow a rebel military commander. Conflict between the two sides turned into urban warfare in Sana two weeks ago, with over 100 people being killed. With fears that a large-scale civil war may break out and a debilitating economic crisis , Yemenis are sufficiently absorbed with their own problems that they do not have much time or attention to devote to the death of a man who was most known for reaching out to the English-speaking world of Muslim extremists.

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How did Obama decide to execute Samir Khan?

The fact that President Obama decided to target the US citizen Anwar Awlaki for extra-judicial execution, is a subject of considerable controversy. What is arguably even more questionable is the killing of Awlaki’s American companion at the time of the Hellfire missile strike in Yemen yesterday: Samir Khan.

Khan, who grew up in New York and North Carolina, had been the subject of a criminal investigation, yet the FBI could not find sufficient evidence to indict him. Neither had he been included on Obama’s list of people who he claims the right to execute, but he got killed anyway.

CNN says intelligence professionals “see Khan’s death as a ‘two-fer,’ with al-Awlaki being the primary target.”

If there is any kind of official explanation about what happened — not that we’re likely to hear one from a president who clearly values secrecy more than accountability — how might it go?

Khan’s presence alongside Awlaki was a happy coincidence? His shredded body was a welcome piece of collateral damage?

Or, Obama’s authorization was sought and Khan’s was a kind of two-for-the-price-of-one impulse killing.

What can reasonably be inferred is that careful consideration had already been given to whether Khan could be legitimately targeted and the conclusion was that he could not — hence, even though he had long been known to be in Yemen and been responsible for producing al Qaeda’s English-language Inspire magazine, he had not been added to Obama’s target list.

In response to the killing of Awlaki, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said yesterday:

The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law. As we’ve seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. The government’s authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific, and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the President — any President — with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country.

The execution of Samir Khan would seem to indicate that Obama took a step even further: he claims the right to kill any American — even those whom he does not deem to present a threat to the country!

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The U.S. is the main obstacle to Middle East peace

Henry Siegman writes:

Over the past few days, much has been written about the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of its statehood and Washington’s opposition to it. But the real importance of last week’s events at the UN does not lie with the US response itself, but with the effect that response has had on the international community. For now, the Palestinian bid must be reviewed by a special UN committee, a process that will take weeks or months, thus postponing any immediate reckoning with the veto threatened by the Obama Administration. But for the first time, there is a broad recognition of the emptiness of the American claim that the US is uniquely qualified to bring the Israel-Palestine conflict to an end, and awareness that it may instead be the main obstacle to peace.

This recognition marks a dramatic shift from only two years ago. In his speech in Cairo in June 2009, Obama seemed to announce a new American commitment to fairness, international law, and a two-state solution when he proclaimed that:

the Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they’ve endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations—large and small—that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly last week, however, Obama reserved his compassion for those responsible for the Palestinians’ misery. “Let’s be honest,” he said. “Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it,” and Israeli citizens have been killed by suicide bombers on their buses. “These are facts, they can not be denied,” he said. As noted by The New York Times’s Ethan Bronner, the speech could have been written by an Israeli government official: “It said nothing about Israeli settlements, the 1967 lines, occupation, or Palestinian suffering, focusing instead on Israeli defense needs.”

Moreover, Obama’s depiction of today’s Israel was neither honest nor factual. Far from waging repeated wars on Israel, a decade ago its neighbors offered to establish full normal relations, including diplomatic recognition, trade and security—an offer Israel has to this day spurned and rejected. The earlier Arab hostility to Israel which Obama invoked is as relevant to Netanyahu’s policies as the Soviet Union’s hostility to America is to Obama’s policies.

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Does Obama believe he has the right to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime?

“This is a great day for America,” says a senior Obama administration official, but not such a great day for the people of Yemen.

Fayza Sulieman, a protest leader fighting for democracy in Yemen told The Guardian:

We always question the timing of these announcements from our government, [Yemen’s recently returned President] Saleh is on the backfoot and on the verge of stepping down and suddenly Anwar Awlaki is killed. We all know that Saleh’s ‘fight’ against Al-Qaida is the only thread of support keeping him in office. We pray that this news does not distract the world from our struggle against this tyrannical regime.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, vice chair of the prestigious American Society of International Law, as well as a professor at the University of Notre Dame, tells Danger Room why President Obama had no legal authority to order the assassination of Awlaki.

“The United States is not involved in any armed conflict in Yemen,” O’Connell tells Danger Room, “so to use military force to carry out these killings violates international law.”

O’Connell’s argument turns on the question of whether the U.S. is legally at war in Yemen. And for the administration, that’s a dicey proposition. The Obama administration relies on the vague Authorization to Use Military Force, passed in the days after 9/11, to justify its Shadow Wars against terrorists. Under its broad definition, the Authorization’s writ makes Planet Earth a battlefield, legally speaking.

But the Authorization authorizes war against “nations, organizations, or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” It’s a stretch to apply that to al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate, which didn’t exist on 9/11. But when House Republicans tried to re-up the Authorization to explicitly bless the new contours of the war against al-Qaida, the Obama administration balked, fearing the GOP was actually tying its hands on the separate question of terrorist detentions.

“It is only during the intense fighting of an armed conflict that international law permits the taking of human life on a basis other than the immediate need to save life,” O’Connell continues. “In armed conflict, a privileged belligerent may use lethal force on the basis of reasonable necessity. Outside armed conflict, the relevant standard is absolute necessity.”

So did al-Awlaki represent an “absolute” danger to the United States? President Obama, in acknowledging Awlaki’s death on Friday morning, didn’t present any evidence that he did.

As NPR reported, at a moment when few politicians are willing to question anything that is done in the name of national security, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul had some tough words for Obama

“I don’t think that’s a good way to deal with our problems,” Paul told reporters. “Al-Awlaki was born here; he is an American citizen. He was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody. We know he might have been associated with the underwear bomber. But if the American people accept this blindly and casually that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys, I think it’s sad.

“I think what would people have said about Timothy McVeigh? We didn’t assassinate him, who we were pretty certain that he had done it. Went and put through the courts then executed him. To start assassinating American citizens without charges, we should think very seriously about this.”

And if Obama thinks his much trumpeted overseas successes are going to help him get re-elected, as MSNBC points out, the failing economy is really the only issue that preoccupies American voters.

No president since George H.W. Bush has had more foreign-policy successes happen under his watch than President Obama. The death of bin Laden. The dismantling of al Qaeda. The ouster of Khaddafy. And the end of combat operations in Iraq. Yet when you look at polls and Obama’s approval rating, he’s getting almost no credit from the American public, a la Bush 41.

When you ask the public about Obama and foreign policy, he gets good marks. But it’s not front of voters’ minds. In a bad economy, as Bush 41 learned, what happens overseas doesn’t matter.

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Judge, jury, and executioner: Obama gets Awlaki. Can the president kill his way to re-election?

Spencer Ackerman reports:

An American citizen responsible for taking al-Qaida’s message viral has been killed in Yemen, according to the Yemeni government. As a target, the Obama administration considered him second only to Osama bin Laden. But don’t expect al-Qaida’s surging Yemeni cell to grow much weaker as a result.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born extremist, was reportedly killed while traveling in southern Yemen, his base of operations for years. The Yemeni government made the announcement of Awlaki’s death on Friday, but left out the circumstances — notably, who killed Awlaki.

Agence France Presse reports that “tribal sources” said Awlaki was killed “in air strike that hit two vehicles in Marib province.” If true, that means the U.S. killed Awlaki. Not only does Yemen lack the capability for a precision air strike, but joint CIA and U.S. Special Operations Forces teams have stepped up both intelligence and strike operations in the past year, including armed drone flights. Indeed, Rep. Peter King, the chairman of the House homeland-security committee, jumped the gun by praising President Obama and U.S. intelligence for Awlaki’s death.

It would also mean that the Obama administration assassinated an American citizen without due process of law. Ever since evidence emerged in late 2009 that Awlaki communicated with both Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the U.S. has launched numerous air strikes in the hope of killing him. A bevy of U.S. counterterrorism officials have testified that Awlaki plays an “operational” role in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. None have offered any evidence for that conclusion.

In 2008 Obama was able to inspire a grassroots campaign, mobilizing young people across America with the bland and non-committal slogan: “Change We Can Believe In.” Now we have an even less meaningful “Obama for America” in 2012. Maybe it should be: “Obama — the lean, mean, killing machine,” or “Obama: on target for 2012.”

There’s no way he can get re-elected on the strength of the economy, so maybe it will come down to this: being able to kill the right people at the right time.

David Axelrod is probably gathering reports right now on whether Obama’s latest assassination is really going to be a vote winner. There might not be the same expression of jubilation that accompanied Osama bin Laden’s killing, so maybe this will have to be decided by focus groups.

“This is a great day for America,” a senior administration official says. That’s what they think in the White House. And then there are those of us left to wonder whether by the end of his first term, we’ll end up sick and bemused, having concluded: Obama turned out to be worse than Bush.

Glenn Greenwald writes:

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki.  No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was “considering” indicting him).  Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt.  When Awlaki’s father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were “state secrets” and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts.  He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner.  When Awlaki’s inclusion on President Obama’s hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that “it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.”

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.).  It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its.  The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world.  The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

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Obama: A disaster for civil liberties

Jonathan Turley writes:

With the 2012 presidential election before us, the country is again caught up in debating national security issues, our ongoing wars and the threat of terrorism. There is one related subject, however, that is rarely mentioned: civil liberties.

Protecting individual rights and liberties — apart from the right to be tax-free — seems barely relevant to candidates or voters. One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States.

Civil libertarians have long had a dysfunctional relationship with the Democratic Party, which treats them as a captive voting bloc with nowhere else to turn in elections. Not even this history, however, prepared civil libertarians for Obama. After the George W. Bush years, they were ready to fight to regain ground lost after Sept. 11. Historically, this country has tended to correct periods of heightened police powers with a pendulum swing back toward greater individual rights. Many were questioning the extreme measures taken by the Bush administration, especially after the disclosure of abuses and illegalities. Candidate Obama capitalized on this swing and portrayed himself as the champion of civil liberties.

However, President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them. The earliest, and most startling, move came quickly. Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture. In his first year, Obama made good on that promise, announcing that no CIA employee would be prosecuted for torture. Later, his administration refused to prosecute any of the Bush officials responsible for ordering or justifying the program and embraced the “just following orders” defense for other officials, the very defense rejected by the United States at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

Obama failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised. He continued warrantless surveillance and military tribunals that denied defendants basic rights. He asserted the right to kill U.S. citizens he views as terrorists. His administration has fought to block dozens of public-interest lawsuits challenging privacy violations and presidential abuses.

But perhaps the biggest blow to civil liberties is what he has done to the movement itself. It has quieted to a whisper, muted by the power of Obama’s personality and his symbolic importance as the first black president as well as the liberal who replaced Bush. Indeed, only a few days after he took office, the Nobel committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize without his having a single accomplishment to his credit beyond being elected. Many Democrats were, and remain, enraptured.

It’s almost a classic case of the Stockholm syndrome, in which a hostage bonds with his captor despite the obvious threat to his existence. Even though many Democrats admit in private that they are shocked by Obama’s position on civil liberties, they are incapable of opposing him. Some insist that they are simply motivated by realism: A Republican would be worse. However, realism alone cannot explain the utter absence of a push for an alternative Democratic candidate or organized opposition to Obama’s policies on civil liberties in Congress during his term. It looks more like a cult of personality. Obama’s policies have become secondary to his persona.

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