9 thoughts on “Holder Says U.S. Might Kill Citizen on Our Soil – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. This is the sad state of democracy in the US and in Israel. This is what democracies have decided they need to do to survive. I share your concerns but I also remind myself every day that as bad as this is, we are the good guys or rather that the others are even worse.

  2. http://telegraphindia.com/1130308/jsp/calcutta/story_16645665.jsp#.UTlUj_5YUVU. An unrelated comment. I am from India and Nahoum’s Bakery was my favourite. On my yearly visit to my grandparents home in Calcutta (Now Kolkatta), a visit to Nahoums was a must to load up on all the goodies. A plump and balding David was always at the cash counter chatting with customers. His lemon tart cake was my favourite. I used to see a lot of muslim staffs working in his shop….some in skull caps. He was loved by the muslim community of Kolkatta. His Jewish girls School ( its a large school) had almost 70℅ muslim girls on its roll in the late 1980es. My two cousins studied here.
    I want to offer my condolence to his family..

  3. I would expect US citizens are vulnerable to torture and secret imprisonment within the US, as well. Once a tortured confesion is extracted — death.

  4. how new is this policy. During the Watergate investigation G. Gordon Liddy offered to stand on a designated
    corner so Nixon could have him taken out and the US Marshalls protecting John Dean feared he would be assassinated.
    Others plotted the deaths of Castro, and Kissinger and Nixon certainly had much to do with the overthrow of
    Allende. So they endorsed the right to kill. The question was whether there was ever a restriction on taking out a US citizen. How would we know? Only when GW killed a US citizen in Yemen and more or less bragged about it did
    it become an issue.
    GHW Bush has been accused of tacit approval of the killing of Letelier in DC which also resulted in the death of
    US citizens. GW Bush and his spokesman on these issues, Michael Chertoff always maintained that anything they
    claimed they could do to a non citizen could be done to a citizen, just that they would not do it. We really don’t know
    what has gone down in the past. Deserters (GW), draft dodgers (Cheney and his crew) and never served (Obama)
    must get a real kick out of being able to say “go kill”. Its what a real man would do.

  5. I hate to say it, but I’m with Holder–who at least has the virtue of having been consistent–here. (And, G-d help me, Lindsey Graham.)

    Want to imagine an “extraordinary circumstance”? No problem: United 93. As was noted at the time, the legal authority to shoot down the plane (with innocent American citizens on board) was dubious, if not non-existent. (Didn’t stop Dick Cheney from ordering it, but that’s a sidebar for the moment.)

    In the wake of The Event, the legal authority was granted. If we’re only talking the difference between using a drone and having to send a fighter pilot up to shoot it down, well, then you’re just haggling over the price.

    Is this a good idea? Probably not. Is it the letter of the law? Absolutely. Holder, in both cases, specified that it would require “extraordinary” circumstances–the first explicitly, the second implicity (“not engaged in combat”).

    His successors may have a more malleable interpretation of “extraordinary circumstances,” but the standard of those is well-known–and a large portion of the people (especially Senators) who supported Rand Paul’s filibuster have argued that exactly that authority is necessary for the Executive Branch. Having it acknowledged that they might use it was an opportunity for hypocrisy, not “principle.”

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