[Sapremolz]

Intelligence chief acknowledges U.S. may target Americans involved in terrorism
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 4, 2010

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are "taking action that threatens Americans."

Blair told members of the House intelligence committee that he was speaking publicly about the issue to reassure Americans that intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense "follow a set of defined policy and legal procedures that are very carefully observed" in the use of lethal force against U.S. citizens.

. . .

In response to questions from Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the panel's ranking Republican, Blair said: "We take direct action against terrorists in the intelligence community. If that direct action, we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

Hoekstra pressed for clarification of the policy, especially its threshold for targeting Americans for lethal action.

"The concern that I have today is that I'm not sure that . . . [it is] very well understood as to what you and the people in your organization can do when it comes to Americans who have joined the enemy," Hoekstra told Blair.

The director of national intelligence said the factors that "primarily" weigh on the decision to target an American include "whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans." washingtonpost.com

The big hubbub here turns on the legality of killing Anwar al-Awlaki, the US born and raised radical cleric in Yemen tied to the Fort Hood shooter, 9.11 hijackers and now the Nigerian crotch bomber. And the crotch bomber's ongoing cooperation--he has now even been turned against the cleric--is pinning the tail on the donkey that he's the terrorist-in-fact that his prior instigating preachings and guilts by associations showed him to be.

Abdulmutallab: Cleric Told Me to Bomb Jet
Detroit Bombing Suspect Abdulmutallab Providing Intelligence about Anwar al-Awlaki, Radical Cleric Tied to 9/11 and Fort Hood

(CBS/AP) Updated 6:41 p.m. EST

The suspect in a failed Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt told federal investigators that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to carry out the attack, CBS News has learned.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who faces terrorism charges in the Christmas bombing, has been cooperating with the FBI for about a week, providing information about his contacts in Yemen and the al Qaeda affiliate that operates there.

Abdulmutallab has turned against the cleric who claims to be his teacher, al-Awlaki, and has helped the U.S. hunt for him in Yemen, a law enforcement official said Thursday.

Abdulmutallab's cooperation talking al-Awlaki is significant because it could provide fresh clues for authorities trying to capture or kill him in the remote mountains of Yemen. . . .

According to the source, Abdulmutallab told investigators he obtained the powerful explosives PETN and TATP in Yemen and was left on his own to decide when and how to bring down a plane, Milton reports. Abdulmutallab has apparently disclosed to investigators he picked Northwest Flight 253 because of its availability.

The source said Abdulmutallab told investigators he was guided by al-Awalki to detonate the bomb over U.S. soil, unlike the failed British bomber plot in 2006 when the bombers were instructed to detonate bombs on airliners over the ocean on the way to the U.S. so that there would be no evidence left behind.

Al-Awlaki himself said in a recent interview that he and Abdulmutallab had kept in contact. A senior U.S. intelligence official said al-Awlaki represented the biggest name on the list of people Abdulmutallab might have information against. Both spoke on condition anonymity to discuss the sensitive ongoing investigation. Abdulmutallab: Cleric Told Me to Bomb Jet - CBS News

Blair's briefing before Congress concerns the Washington Post's disclosure last week that Obama had personally authorised a Christmas Eve drone attack seeking to kill Anwar al-Awlaki.

Myself, I understand the policy behind the law against killing US citizens without authorisation from the top. But seriously, IMO, what reasonable question is there for killing the likes of Anwar al-Awlaki? When he wasn't getting arrested for picking up prostitutes in the US, he's been instigating terrorists on US soil and abroad and is genuinely an AQ member waging jihad on the US. Just take a refresher course on this POS:

Anwar al-Awlaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And then there's US born characters such as:

Adam Yahiye Gadahn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

First, IMO, US citizens who decide to voluntarily join and/or conduct hostilities against the US aren't US citizens anymore. There's even case precedent to back that up. For example, in the case of a former US citizen who voluntarily served in the Axis Romanian Army and later the Waffen SS as a concentration camp guard during WWII, my local US District Court held as follows (and was affirmed by the Third Circuit) as follows in pertinent part:

. . . We can think of no conduct more repugnant to an intent to retain American citizenship or more demonstrative of an intent to relinquish American citizenship than voluntary service in the armed forces of a country at war with the United States. . . . Schiffer's conduct in serving in the Romanian Army is so obnoxious to an intent to retain United States citizenship that, in the absence of credible proof to the contrary, we can infer his intent to relinquish his United States citizenship. . . . We believe that Schiffer's voluntary service in the Waffen-SS alone also would have been sufficient to relinquish the United States citizenship he acquired at birth. . . . [O]ther than perhaps in the circumstance of a civil war, it is inconceivable to us that a person could wage war against a country in which he intends to maintain citizenship. FindACase™ | UNITED STATES v. SCHIFFER

So, if they aren't citizens anymore in law, then the assassination rule doesn't even apply. But even if it does for the sake of the argument, what Blair said to Hoekstra is common sense IMO:

. . . "Whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American has -- is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved." Blair explained. "We don't target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans." . . . 'Permission' needed to kill U.S. terrorists - Washington Times

I do agree that criteria for making the list should be publicised, and CIA hits go through proper clearances using the criteria, but it doesn't seem to be too complicated an issue. The government would get publicly excoriated and sued by relatives for mega-dollars if it didn't pick only the clearest cases, and isn't a reasonable assumption that they want to kill innocent US citizens. But guys like the ones I'm linking are proudly and openly announcing their guilty nature, and IMO, there should be no question that they get fragged and bagged at the first opportunity available.