Please Kill Me
No U-turn, Tom Burckhardt and John Yau
39 minutes ago
Saturday 1 October 2011
Five Things That #OccupyWallStreet Has Done Right
#OccupyWallStreet protests are now well into their second week, and they are increasingly capturing the public spotlight. This is because, whatever limitations their occupation has, the protesters have done many things right.
I will admit that I was skeptical about the #OccupyWallStreet effort when it was getting started. My main concerns were the limited number of participants and the lack of coalition building. One of the things that was most exciting about the protests in Madison—and the global justice protests of old such as Seattle and A16—was that they brought together a wide range of constituencies, suggesting what a broad, inclusive progressive movement might look like. You had student activists and unaffiliated anarchists, sure; but you also had major institutional constituencies including the labor movement, environmentalists, faith-based organizations, and community groups. The solidarity was powerful. And, in the context of a broader coalition, the militancy, creativity, and artistic contributions of the autonomist factions made up for their lack of an organized membership base.
With #OccupyWallStreet the protest did not draw in any of the major institutional players on the left. Participants have come independently—mostly from anarchist and student activist circles—and turnout has been limited. Some of the higher estimates for the first day’s gathering suggest that a thousand people might have been there, and only a few hundred have been camping out.
That said, this relatively small group has been holding strong. As their message has gained traction—first in the alternative media, and then in mainstream news sources—they have drawn wider interest. On Tuesday night, Cornel West visited the occupied Zuccotti Park and spoke to an audience estimated at 2000. Rallies planned for later in the week will likely attract larger crowds. People will come because the occupation is now a hot story.
#OccupyWallStreet has accomplished a great deal in the past week and a half, with virtually no resources. The following are some of the things the participants have done that allowed what might have been a negligible and insignificant protest to achieve a remarkable level of success...
I will admit that I was skeptical about the #OccupyWallStreet effort when it was getting started. My main concerns were the limited number of participants and the lack of coalition building. One of the things that was most exciting about the protests in Madison—and the global justice protests of old such as Seattle and A16—was that they brought together a wide range of constituencies, suggesting what a broad, inclusive progressive movement might look like. You had student activists and unaffiliated anarchists, sure; but you also had major institutional constituencies including the labor movement, environmentalists, faith-based organizations, and community groups. The solidarity was powerful. And, in the context of a broader coalition, the militancy, creativity, and artistic contributions of the autonomist factions made up for their lack of an organized membership base.
With #OccupyWallStreet the protest did not draw in any of the major institutional players on the left. Participants have come independently—mostly from anarchist and student activist circles—and turnout has been limited. Some of the higher estimates for the first day’s gathering suggest that a thousand people might have been there, and only a few hundred have been camping out.
That said, this relatively small group has been holding strong. As their message has gained traction—first in the alternative media, and then in mainstream news sources—they have drawn wider interest. On Tuesday night, Cornel West visited the occupied Zuccotti Park and spoke to an audience estimated at 2000. Rallies planned for later in the week will likely attract larger crowds. People will come because the occupation is now a hot story.
#OccupyWallStreet has accomplished a great deal in the past week and a half, with virtually no resources. The following are some of the things the participants have done that allowed what might have been a negligible and insignificant protest to achieve a remarkable level of success...
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Mark Engler @'Dissent'
ACLU Statement on Killing of Anwar Al-Aulaqi
WASHINGTON - September 30 - U.S. airstrikes in Yemen today killed Anwar Al-Aulaqi, an American citizen who has never been charged with any crime.
ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said, "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."
ACLU National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner said, "Outside the theater of war, the use of lethal force is lawful only as a last resort to counter an imminent threat of deadly attack. Based on the administration's public statements, the program that the President has authorized is far more sweeping. If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the President does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."
More information on the government's targeted killing policy is available at:
www.aclu.org/targetedkillings
Via
ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said, "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."
ACLU National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner said, "Outside the theater of war, the use of lethal force is lawful only as a last resort to counter an imminent threat of deadly attack. Based on the administration's public statements, the program that the President has authorized is far more sweeping. If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the President does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."
More information on the government's targeted killing policy is available at:
www.aclu.org/targetedkillings
Via
After Anwar Al-Awlaki Hit, U.S. Full Of New Praise For Yemen's Embattled Government
"This success is a tribute to our intelligence community and to the efforts of Yemen and its security forces who have worked closely with the United States over the course of several years," President Obama said in remarks about the assassination of the terrorist leader. "[Awlaki] has met his demise because the government and the people of Yemen have joined the international community in a common effort against al-Qaida."
Similar remarks flowed freely all day.
"It's a good day," a defense official said in a statement, "for American counterterrorism efforts--and for counterterrorism cooperation with the government of Yemen. For some time, the Yemenis have played a key role in the hunt for Awlaki."
Another government official, speaking to the Los Angeles Times, added, “It was good to see the Yemen government actually allow us to go in. Allowing us to go on the property and get fingerprint analysis was a nice gesture of cooperation by the Yemeni government.”
It was a jarring break from the language coming from the State Department in recent weeks, as the death count from protests against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh spiked.
"The United States extends our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives during recent protests in Sana’a," State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said on September 20, amid signs that government forces had launched a wholesale attack on the opposition movement.
"We have long condemned the use of violence during this period of upheaval and reject any actions that undermine productive efforts underway to achieve a peaceful political resolution to the current crisis in Yemen," Nuland's statement continued. "The United States continues to support the Yemeni people’s aspirations for a peaceful and orderly transition that is responsive to their aspirations for peace, reconciliation, prosperity, and security."
The situation in Yemen poses a major challenge for American policymakers, who find themselves torn between supporting the democratic aspirations of the Yemeni people, while also hoping to preserve what they view, in Saleh, as an essential military partner in the war on terror.
As recently as 2010, for instance, the Pentagon doubled its military aid to Yemen to $150 million per year, primarily for counterterrorism operations.
But in recent months, after an Arab Spring-inspired protest movement took hold in Sanaa, Yemen's capital, those American-funded and trained troops found themselves turned against their own people.
In a further twist, Saleh had only just returned to Yemen a few days before the Awlaki strike after spending much of the summer in Saudi Arabia, recovering from wounds he suffered during an anti-government attack on his compound.
According to a count by The New York Times, 40 people were killed in attacks by government forces against the opposition movement the day after Saleh came home, amid an ongoing spike in violence.
Less than a week later, American forces finally tracked down al-Awlaki, a wanted figure who had been at large in the country for several years.
"In my mind it is no coincidence this happened after his return," Christopher Boucek, an expert on Yemen with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNN Friday, arguing that paving the way to the strike may have been part of an attempt by Saleh to reinforce his indispensability in the war on terror.
Steven Heydemann, a senior vice president at the U.S. Institutes of Peace, agreed.
"Saleh is trying to use his support for counterterrorism to buy himself U.S. and perhaps Saudi good will, hoping to capitalize on this in his efforts to delay a transition, perhaps indefinitely," Heydemann told HuffPost. "But I don't think it will work. The U.S. knows that Saleh's future remains highly uncertain, and that it will need the support of any successor regime to sustain counterterror operations."
But, Heydemann argued, American policy on regime change would remain the same.
"The U.S. is not going to pretend that with this drone strike Saleh can rewind the tape to pre-uprising days," he said. "Won't happen, no matter what kind of praise it might direct his way in the short term."
In a briefing for reporters Friday, Nuland reiterated that the American view is that "it’s time for President Saleh to transfer power," but then offered a narrow delineation between Saleh and the "government of Yemen."
"We fight al-Qaida with the Yemeni government, with security forces," she said. " We expect that cooperation will continue in strong shape, but it is time for President Saleh to turn over the reins of power and allow a democratic transition."
Joshua Hersh @'HuffPo'
WikiLeaks Hasn't Gone Far Enough
Audio track of Julian Assange at the Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas Sep. 30 2011 opening talk entitled "Wikileaks hasn't gone far enough". Live video feed from London. This transmission packed the largest space in the Sydney Opera House.
ValeRESearch V. Vale - RE/Search
Contradicting Gil Scott-Heron, the "Revolution" will NOT be televised - "Occupy Wall Street" is in its 12th day & most citizens don't know!
Lessons from the past...
A youth disturbed too often by the future
This dissertation revisits the documents of the May 1968 uprising in France and particularly the posters of the Atelier Populaire to ask what role guerrilla media played in relation to the central socio-political discourses and demonstrations. Three chapters analyse the iconography, language and context of the posters, taking an approach that looks to the materialist semiotics of the Bakhtin Circle alongside the contemporaneous concerns of academics like Lefebvre, Barthes and Derrida, as well as precursory and parallel moments of revolutionary conjuncture. The larger concerns of this dissertation relate to the relationship between revolutionary politics and emancipatory artistic practiceMore about May 1968 here.
Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall
HERE
Can Free Web Content Save The Guardian?
A large part of the page is given over to a photo of a young girl, 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was abducted on her way home and later killed. On the July 5 in question, the Guardian revealed that a reporter at Rupert Murdoch's tabloid News of the World had tapped the cell phone of the murdered schoolgirl. Although this was only one of many scoops by the Guardian in the wiretapping scandal surrounding the Murdoch paper, it was undoubtedly the most momentous. The story shook the Australian media tycoon's global empire, scandalized the British public, and prompted the British parliament to openly discuss curbs on the yellow press. Murdoch closed the News of the World and police opened investigations into 16 reporters and managers at the paper. And all because of Rusbridger's "guardians."
The paper has made something of a name for itself with such revelations. In fact it has become the symbol of independent journalism. But in purely economic terms, it's a complete fiasco.
Offsetting the Losses
The Guardian has been losing money every year since 2004. Last year alone, it and its sister newspaper, the Observer, lost more than €47 million. It's only thanks to the farsightedness and generosity of its former owners, the Scott family, that the paper hasn't gone bankrupt.
Since 1936, the paper has been funded by the Scott Trust. This structure has but a single aim: "To secure the editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity."
Many newspapers would like to be based on such a business model. The Scott Trust owns a number of lucrative companies, including the used-car magazine and portal Auto Trader. The profits generated on these are used to offset the heavy losses incurred by The Guardian.
"Our mission is to be profit seeking rather than profit finding," says Deputy Editor Ian Katz. Even CP Scott, the paper's owner in the early 20th century, believed it was more important to be influential than to turn a profit.
However, the Guardian's losses have become too big to absorb -- and in 2007 the Scott Trust was forced to sell some of its assets to refill its coffers.
Andrew Miller, a former consumer-goods industry manager and for the past year the managing director of the newspaper's parent company, the Guardian Media Group, recently warned that if the Guardian continued to make such heavy losses, the company would simply run out of money within five years...
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Isabell Hülsen @'Der Spiegel'
Adult Swim - Unclassified (Free Download)
xxxy – Kerpow
Untold – Peaky
Geiom – Pure Bristle
Ginz – Chrome
Lukid – Running From The Demons
Geeneus ft Riko, Wiley, Breeze (Knife & Gun Dusk & Blackdown 2step mix ft Farrah)
SBTRKT – Golddigger
Starkey – Eris
Actress – Murder Plaza
Zomby – Hexagons
Dauwd – Ikopol
Boxcutter – Waiting For The Lights
Babe Rainbow ft Ashley Webber – Give You Time
Burial – Street Halo
Kode9 – Just Inside
Pinch – Blow Out The Candle
Cooly G – R U Listening
HERE
Once Again, The eXiled Exposes Koch Hypocrisy
eXiled editors Mark Ames and Yasha Levine were on the Dylan Ratigan Show yesterday, talking about their latest scoop for The Nation. The pair uncovered a series of letters from billionaire libertarian robber baron Charles Koch to the free-market economics guru Friedrich Hayek, urging the latter to come to America and take advantage of America’s generous Social Security and Medicare programs–the same programs that Koch and his brother are now pushing to obliterate for the rest of us.
The letters are an amazing find, revealing once again just how morally and ethically bankrupt the philosophy of the ruling elite truly is.
Via
On Newspapers, Public Discourse, and the Right to Remain Anonymous
In a recent Washington Times editorial titled “Internet trolls, Anonymity and the First Amendment,” Gayle Falkenthal declared that “the time has come to limit the ability of people to remain anonymous” online. She argued that any benefit to online pseudonyms has long since dissipated and anonymous commenters have polluted the Internet “with false accusations and name-calling attacks.” Newspapers, she wrote, should ban them entirely.
This argument is not only inaccurate, it's also dangerous: online anonymity, while allowing trolls to act with impunity, also protects a range of people, from Syrian dissidents to small-town LGBT activists and plenty of others in between.
Unfortunately, many newspapers have already banned anonymous comments, and while not all have offered an explicit reasoning for their policies, "civility" is often cited as justification in discussions on online anonymity.
Of course, online civil discourse is something to strive for. Anyone who’s spent time reading YouTube comment threads is aware of the vitriolic bile spewing from the keyboards of largely anonymous masses. And it is a truism that when people speak using their true identity, they are more likely to think about the consequences of their speech.
But while identification brings about a greater sense of safety for some, for others, it presents a great risk. Think, for example, of victims of domestic abuse, whose online safety is predicated on not revealing their identity or location. Or the small-town schoolteacher who fears revealing her political views to her local community but seeks solidarity online. Or the gay teenager who wants to explore communities online but isn’t quite ready to come out. Or the myriad other examples compiled by the Geek Feminism blog.
Contrary to Ms. Falkenthal’s assertion that “The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but not anonymity,” the Supreme Court has made these same arguments about safety and anonymity for decades. In 1960, the Court explicitly upheld a speaker’s right to remain anonymous,
In Talley v. California, Justice Black wrote “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures, and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.”
And in 1995, the Court upheld online speakers’ First Amendment right to remain anonymous, emphasizing, “protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse.” The court went on to say anonymous speech “exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation…at the hand of an intolerant society.”
These principles are, of course, nothing new and date back to our country’s birth. Yet Ms. Falkenthal says, “When our nation was being formed, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin stood behind their incendiary, treasonous views in public even at the risk of being hanged for what they said,” implying that the Founding Fathers would be against online anonymity if they were alive today.
However, Ms. Falkenthal herself later admits that Paine actually wrote his most influential work Common Sense anonymously, just as Franklin got his start writing under a name that was not his own, the pseudonym “Mrs. Silence Dogwood.”
But no example illustrates the importance of anonymity more than The Federalist Papers. The series of essays, published in the nation’s most popular newspapers in 1778 under the pseudonym “Publius,” were instrumental in the ratification of the Constitution. Yet it was not until after Alexander Hamilton’s death in 1804 that the public discovered the essays had been written by Hamilton, along with James Madison and John Jay.
Lest readers believe that the age of the pseudonym is dead, more recently, the right to anonymity was vital for protesters in the Arab Spring: Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who was detained for more than a week in the height of Egypt’s uprising, had anonymously created the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Saeed,” widely credited as the driving force behind the successful revolution.
Bloggers in Syria are now faced with the same risks as Ghonim amidst a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
The complex questions currently faced by newspapers have been addressed before. One event in the earlier, pre-social media days of blogging brought to the forefront a discussion around online civil discourse. Back in 1997, following anonymous death threats made to prominent blogger and game developer Kathy Sierra, publishing magnate Tim O’Reilly proposed a Blogger’s Code of Conduct to improve discourse in the blogosphere. Though the code would have prohibited anonymity, requiring users to sign up with an e-mail address, it allowed one to display publicly a handle or username in lieu of a "real" name.
Sierra recently weighed in on the debate, stating “I am for preserving pseudonymity, and believe that eliminating it will never stop the worst of the trolls, griefers, haters, and stalkers. There are far better ways to help reduce the worst of anonymity-fueled behavior online including plain old moderation.”
Indeed, comment moderation is a simple and low-resource method by which newspapers can ensure comments remain civil. Most newspapers with large online readership, from the New York Times, to the UK’s Guardian, implement comment moderation in some form.
There will always be those for whom a name is not a barrier toward acting abusively; for those with little to lose, there’s no reason to hide. Inversely, those who stand to lose a lot by identifying online are those who need pseudonyms the most, to speak their mind freely, without fear of retribution.
Jillian York and Trevor Timm @'EFF'
This argument is not only inaccurate, it's also dangerous: online anonymity, while allowing trolls to act with impunity, also protects a range of people, from Syrian dissidents to small-town LGBT activists and plenty of others in between.
Unfortunately, many newspapers have already banned anonymous comments, and while not all have offered an explicit reasoning for their policies, "civility" is often cited as justification in discussions on online anonymity.
Of course, online civil discourse is something to strive for. Anyone who’s spent time reading YouTube comment threads is aware of the vitriolic bile spewing from the keyboards of largely anonymous masses. And it is a truism that when people speak using their true identity, they are more likely to think about the consequences of their speech.
But while identification brings about a greater sense of safety for some, for others, it presents a great risk. Think, for example, of victims of domestic abuse, whose online safety is predicated on not revealing their identity or location. Or the small-town schoolteacher who fears revealing her political views to her local community but seeks solidarity online. Or the gay teenager who wants to explore communities online but isn’t quite ready to come out. Or the myriad other examples compiled by the Geek Feminism blog.
Contrary to Ms. Falkenthal’s assertion that “The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but not anonymity,” the Supreme Court has made these same arguments about safety and anonymity for decades. In 1960, the Court explicitly upheld a speaker’s right to remain anonymous,
In Talley v. California, Justice Black wrote “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures, and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.”
And in 1995, the Court upheld online speakers’ First Amendment right to remain anonymous, emphasizing, “protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse.” The court went on to say anonymous speech “exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation…at the hand of an intolerant society.”
These principles are, of course, nothing new and date back to our country’s birth. Yet Ms. Falkenthal says, “When our nation was being formed, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin stood behind their incendiary, treasonous views in public even at the risk of being hanged for what they said,” implying that the Founding Fathers would be against online anonymity if they were alive today.
However, Ms. Falkenthal herself later admits that Paine actually wrote his most influential work Common Sense anonymously, just as Franklin got his start writing under a name that was not his own, the pseudonym “Mrs. Silence Dogwood.”
But no example illustrates the importance of anonymity more than The Federalist Papers. The series of essays, published in the nation’s most popular newspapers in 1778 under the pseudonym “Publius,” were instrumental in the ratification of the Constitution. Yet it was not until after Alexander Hamilton’s death in 1804 that the public discovered the essays had been written by Hamilton, along with James Madison and John Jay.
Lest readers believe that the age of the pseudonym is dead, more recently, the right to anonymity was vital for protesters in the Arab Spring: Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who was detained for more than a week in the height of Egypt’s uprising, had anonymously created the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Saeed,” widely credited as the driving force behind the successful revolution.
Bloggers in Syria are now faced with the same risks as Ghonim amidst a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
The complex questions currently faced by newspapers have been addressed before. One event in the earlier, pre-social media days of blogging brought to the forefront a discussion around online civil discourse. Back in 1997, following anonymous death threats made to prominent blogger and game developer Kathy Sierra, publishing magnate Tim O’Reilly proposed a Blogger’s Code of Conduct to improve discourse in the blogosphere. Though the code would have prohibited anonymity, requiring users to sign up with an e-mail address, it allowed one to display publicly a handle or username in lieu of a "real" name.
Sierra recently weighed in on the debate, stating “I am for preserving pseudonymity, and believe that eliminating it will never stop the worst of the trolls, griefers, haters, and stalkers. There are far better ways to help reduce the worst of anonymity-fueled behavior online including plain old moderation.”
Indeed, comment moderation is a simple and low-resource method by which newspapers can ensure comments remain civil. Most newspapers with large online readership, from the New York Times, to the UK’s Guardian, implement comment moderation in some form.
There will always be those for whom a name is not a barrier toward acting abusively; for those with little to lose, there’s no reason to hide. Inversely, those who stand to lose a lot by identifying online are those who need pseudonyms the most, to speak their mind freely, without fear of retribution.
Jillian York and Trevor Timm @'EFF'
I'm sending you a poem
Transcript follows. Images kindly supplied by Jeff at Hard Rock; owners of a staggering amount of music memorabilia who have a regularly updated, highly recommended Facebook page.
Via
Extrajudicial Execution of Samir Khan Arguably More Significant Than Awlaki
By this time in the day, the early morning report of the killing of Anwar Awlaki is old news. From ABC News:
That’s right, not just one, but two, Americans were summarily and extrajudicially executed by their own government today, at the direct order of the President of the United States. No trial, no verdict, just off with their heads. Heck, there were not even charges filed against either Awlaki or Khan. And it is not that the government did not try either, there was a grand jury convened on Khan, but no charges. Awlaki too was investigated for charges at least twice by the DOJ, but non were found.
But at least Awlaki was on Barrack Obama’s “Americans That Are Cool to Kill List”. Not so with Samir Khan. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever Khan is on the classified list for killing (actually two different lists) my survey of people knowledgeable in the field today revealed not one who believed khan was on any such list, either by DOD or CIA.
So, the US has been tracking scrupulously Awlaki for an extended period and knew with certainty where he was and when, and knew with certainty immediately they had killed Awlaki and Khan. This means the US also knew, with certainty, they were going to execute Samir Khan.
How did the US then make the kill order knowing they were executing a US citizen, not only extrajudicially, but not even with the patina of being on the designated kill list (which would at least presuppose some consideration and Yoo-like pseudo-legal cover)?
Did Barack Obama magically auto-pixie dust Khan onto the list with a wave of his wand on the spot? Even under the various law of war theories, which are not particularly compelling justification to start with as we are not at war with Yemen and it is not a “battlefield”, the taking of Khan would appear clearly prohibited under both American and International law. As Mary Ellen O’Connell, vice chairman of the American Society of International Law, relates, via Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Dangerroom:
People should not just be evaluating today’s fresh kills as to Awlaki, Samir Khan should be at the tip of the discussion spear too.
bmaz @'emptywheel'
Senior administration officials say that the U.S. has been targeting Awlaki for months, though in recent weeks officials were able to pin down his location.And today they got him. Awlaki was killed by a drone delivered Hellfire missile, via a joint CIA and JSOC operation, in the town of Kashef, in Yemen’s Jawf province, approximately 140 kilometres east of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. But not only Awlaki was killed, at least three others, including yet another American citizen, Samir Khan, were killed in the strike.
“They were waiting for the right opportunity to get him away from any civilians,” a senior administration official tells ABC News.
That’s right, not just one, but two, Americans were summarily and extrajudicially executed by their own government today, at the direct order of the President of the United States. No trial, no verdict, just off with their heads. Heck, there were not even charges filed against either Awlaki or Khan. And it is not that the government did not try either, there was a grand jury convened on Khan, but no charges. Awlaki too was investigated for charges at least twice by the DOJ, but non were found.
But at least Awlaki was on Barrack Obama’s “Americans That Are Cool to Kill List”. Not so with Samir Khan. Not only is there no evidence whatsoever Khan is on the classified list for killing (actually two different lists) my survey of people knowledgeable in the field today revealed not one who believed khan was on any such list, either by DOD or CIA.
So, the US has been tracking scrupulously Awlaki for an extended period and knew with certainty where he was and when, and knew with certainty immediately they had killed Awlaki and Khan. This means the US also knew, with certainty, they were going to execute Samir Khan.
How did the US then make the kill order knowing they were executing a US citizen, not only extrajudicially, but not even with the patina of being on the designated kill list (which would at least presuppose some consideration and Yoo-like pseudo-legal cover)?
Did Barack Obama magically auto-pixie dust Khan onto the list with a wave of his wand on the spot? Even under the various law of war theories, which are not particularly compelling justification to start with as we are not at war with Yemen and it is not a “battlefield”, the taking of Khan would appear clearly prohibited under both American and International law. As Mary Ellen O’Connell, vice chairman of the American Society of International Law, relates, via Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Dangerroom:
“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.”And therein lies lies the reason the US killing of Samir Khan may be even more troubling than the already troubling killing of al-Awlaki. There is no satisfactory legal basis for either one, but as to Khan there was NO process whatsoever, even the joke “listing” process utilized for Awlaki. The US says it took care to not harm “civilians”, apparently that would mean Yemeni civilians. American citizens are fair game for Mr. Obama, list or no list, crime or no crime, charges or no charges. Off with their heads!
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.
People should not just be evaluating today’s fresh kills as to Awlaki, Samir Khan should be at the tip of the discussion spear too.
bmaz @'emptywheel'
A Rare Display of the Origins of Electronic Music
“Daphne Oram was the first woman to direct an electronic music studio, the first woman to set up a personal studio and the first woman to design and construct an electronic musical instrument. This happened back in the late 1950s when she used sine wave oscillators, reel-to-reel tape decks and other electronics that most of us vaguely remember. She went on to invent a machine in 1965 called Oramics that used hand-drawn patterns that were converted to music that would be stored magnetically.”
@readwriteweb
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