The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

Without a shred of due process, far from any battlefield, President Obama succeeds in killing Anwar al-Awlaki

By Glenn Greenwald

FILE - In this Nov. 8, 2010 file image taken from video and released by SITE Intelligence Group on Monday, Anwar al-Awlaki speaks in a video message posted on radical websites. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official says U.S. intelligence indicates that U.S.-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed in Yemen. (AP Photo/SITE Intelligence Group, File) NO SALES (Credit: AP Photo/SITE Intelligence Group, File)

Topics:Yemen

(updated below)

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 had 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.

What’s most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar (“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President’s ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry’s execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists: criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.

From an authoritarian perspective, that’s the genius of America’s political culture. It not only finds ways to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.

* * * * *

In the column I wrote on Wednesday regarding Wall Street protests, I mistakenly linked to a post discussing a New York Times article by Colin Moynihan as an example of a “condescending” media report about the protest. There was nothing condescending or otherwise worthy of criticism in Moynihan’s article; I meant to reference this NYT article by Ginia Bellafante. My apologies to Moynihan, who rightly objected by email, for the mistake.

UPDATE: What amazes me most whenever I write about this topic is recalling how terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process. Remember all that? Yet now, here’s Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President — even Barack Obama — vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process.

Also, during the Bush years, civil libertarians who tried to convince conservatives to oppose that administration’s radical excesses would often ask things like this: would you be comfortable having Hillary Clinton wield the power to spy on your calls or imprison you with no judicial reivew or oversight? So for you good progressives out there justifying this, I would ask this: how would the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process look to you in the hands of, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann?

I was on Democracy Now earlier this morning discussing the Awlaki assassination and presidential due-process-free killings:

: Follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: @ggreenwald. More Glenn Greenwald

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Snipers, others take lives of 23 protesters as violence intensifies in country's capital

By Ahmed Al-haj, Associated Press

Anti-government protestors carry a wounded protestor from the site of clashes with security forces, in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011. Yemeni government forces opened fire with anti-aircraft guns and automatic weapons on tens of thousands of anti-government protesters in the capital pushing for ouster of longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh, killing several people and wounding dozens.(AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Yemen

Pro-regime forces, including snipers picking off protesters from rooftops, killed at least 23 people Monday in a second day of clashes shaking Yemen’s capital, medical and security officials said.

The two days of fighting, which have killed nearly 50 people altogether, marked the most serious outbreak of violence in months, as frustration in the streets again builds over the president’s refusal to step down after 33 years in power.

The officials said thousands of protesters armed with sticks overran a camp belonging to the Presidential Guards in Sanaa and that others were headed toward the headquarters of the elite force led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s son Ahmed in the south of the city.

The officials said 20 of the 23 killed on Monday were on Sanaa’s central Hayel street. They included a child and at least three soldiers who defected to join the protesters. Mortar shells thought to have been fired by pro-regime forces killed another two people in the capital, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information.

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in Sanaa Sunday to press demands for Saleh to step down. Pro-regime snipers killed at least 26 of the protesters.

Beside those killed, scores of protesters suffering gunshot wounds were taken to hospitals in Sanaa, according to Mohammed al-Maqtari, a doctor at a field hospital set up by the protesters. The wounded included soldiers from the 1st Armored Division, which, along with its commander, joined the protesters more than six months ago.

Witnesses said the soldiers were involved in skirmishes with the Presidential Guards.

In the southern city of Taiz, at least one protester was killed and 15 others were wounded Monday in clashes between anti-regime demonstrators and security forces, according to witnesses. In the southern port city of Aden, three protesters were wounded in clashes with government forces, witnesses there said.

Yemen’s protest movement has stepped up demonstrations in the past week, angered after Saleh deputized Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi last week to negotiate further on a Gulf-mediated, U.S.-backed deal under which he would step down in return for immunity from prosecution. Saleh has already backed away three times from signing the deal.

Many believe the move is the latest of many delaying tactics. Saleh has resisted calls to resign.

The United States once saw Saleh as a key ally in the battle against the dangerous Yemen-based al-Qaida branch, which has taken over parts of southern Yemen under cover of the political turmoil in the country. The U.S. withdrew its support of Saleh as the protests gained strength.

: More Ahmed Al-haj

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As its government teeters, the impoverished and chaotic Gulf nation is the focus of a U.S. bombing campaign

By Justin Elliott

President Barack Obama discusses the continuing budget talks, Tuesday, July 19, 2011, in the the briefing room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Topics:The Story You Missed, Yemen, War Room

The Obama administration has in recent months intensified its bombing campaign in the unstable Gulf nation of Yemen, where Islamic militants have been the target of U.S. airstrikes for several years.

Just this month, a U.S. drone strike against militants in southern Yemen reportedly killed at least 50 people — many of them civilians. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed U.S. officials this week saying that the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was “placing a higher priority on attacking the U.S. and Western targets overseas.”

All of this is occurring against a backdrop of civil unrest and fighting in Yemen, where the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been trying to violently suppress opposition protesters for months. For an update on the situation in Yemen and the U.S. military campaign there, I spoke to Gregory Johnsen, a respected Yemen analyst and a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern studies at Princeton.

There’s a Wall Street Journal piece this week saying unnamed U.S. officials are worried about al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula staging attacks outside of Yemen. What’s your read on how much of a threat this group is?

With regards to the Wall Street Journal story, I’m not sure how much of that is new. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has for quite some time been really explicit in talking about targeting both Western and Yemeni government interests within the country as well as going after regional targets — as well as of course going after the United States, as was shown on Christmas Day 2009 and in the parcel bomb plot last year.

The situation right now is very murky. There has been a great deal of fighting in the southern province, Abyan, which has been going on throughout most of the summer. There’s a group that calls itself Ansar al-Shariah, or the supports of Shariah (Islamic law), that have been fighting with the Yemeni military in the capital of the province. There have also been a number of U.S. airstrikes targeting these militants. The belief is that Ansar al-Shariah is affiliated with or linked to al-Qaida, but most of that comes from a single interview, so we don’t have a lot of information to back it up. Al-Qaida itself has not put out a great deal of publication materials since the protests in Yemen really got started. So at the moment we have a lot more questions than we have answers.

Do we know how many people there actually are in this al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula group?

A couple years ago, the foreign minister of Yemen came forward with the idea that there were 300 individuals in the group. Since he said that, many in the media have picked up on that and run with it, but I think it was really just his best guess. This year, for example, the Yemeni government has announced it has killed 200 or 250 members of al-Qaida since the fighting began earlier this spring. And we see on the ground that there are still people fighting for the organization and carrying out attacks in Abyan. So we don’t have a very good sense of the numbers.

My reading of the situation is that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has actually gotten stronger in recent years, largely because of U.S. airstrikes. The U.S. has managed to kill some key mid-level commanders, but many of these individuals have been replaced quite quickly. And as the U.S. has killed them, there has been a significant amount of what’s often referred to as collateral damage. That is, innocent women and children or unaffiliated civilians who are killed in these airstrikes. That tends to not only fit into al-Qaida’s argument that Yemen is a legitimate theater of jihad, but also the people that have died tend to have brothers and uncles and cousins. We’re seeing more and more people becoming radicalized.

Who exactly is being killed by all this American bombing? Is it clear to anyone what’s really happening?

It’s not at the moment. The problem is that the town of Zanjubar, where a lot of the fighting is going on now, has many internally displaced people. We’ve seen some video coming out of the city but it’s really hard to confirm. There aren’t a lot of journalists working on the ground. And the Yemeni government has of course sort of eroded away in the face of the protests in the last couple months, so it’s hard for international journalists to work on the ground. Most of what has come out is either official statements by the Yemeni government or very sketchy unverified reports that are being passed through several intermediaries.

How intense is the American military campaign?

We know that the U.S. is certainly carrying out air and drone strikes. We know that the U.S. tried to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric, on May 5, and they missed. We know another individual who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list was targeted about a week ago, and they missed him as well. We’re not always sure who is doing the bombing. There have been a number of instances where the Yemeni government falsely claimed to have carried out an air raid on a particular militant hideout. For instance there was a case where the militants had taken over a police station in a particular town, and the government claimed it had carried out an air raid on the station. It later turned out that it had actually been U.S. missiles that were fired. So it’s become very difficult for outsiders to piece together what’s going on because there is a lot of misinformation.

Earlier this month, President Saleh appeared on TV in a badly burned state from Saudi Arabia, a few weeks after a bombing at his palace. With all the protests and fighting, what’s the state of the regime right now?

Essentially the military has switched. Large portions of it have defected and have joined what’s broadly being called the protest movement. The other half of it — the Republican Guard and other parts that are commanded by Saleh’s relatives — remain loyal to their commanders. This is the standoff. The government doesn’t have a great deal of control over large portions of the country. It’s only really in some urban areas where the Saleh government continues to carry out attacks against protesters.

Taking a step back, what we have is a very large anti-Saleh coalition made up of different interest groups within Yemen. Many of them have been opposed to one another but are currently being held together in an alliance against President Saleh. It’s a very fragile, creaky alliance. There’s a lot of bad blood and mistrust among the various actors. It’s a very tense political stalemate while the president is out of the country. Everyone is sort of waiting around to see what happens next.

What role is the Obama administration playing besides the bombing?

The criticism that a lot of people have is that the U.S. is only looking for someone who is willing to partner with them to attack al-Qaida. Officially the U.S. has come out and said it’s time for President Saleh to step down and it would like to see a very orderly political transition. But this has been difficult. There was a Gulf Cooperation Council proposal that was put forward three times during the spring. President Saleh each time said he would sign it; each time he balked at the last minute and did not sign. I think it’s become clear that Saleh isn’t going to step down unless he’s really forced out. What we’re seeing is that the U.S., as well as Saudi Arabia, either doesn’t have or isn’t using the proper amount of leverage with which to force President Saleh out. So now we have a situation where the country is crumbling: There are very severe problems with water shortages, with electricity, with gas shortages. The U.S. can fire as many missiles as it wants to against militants, but the situation in Yemen and the situation combating al-Qaida is not going to get any better until there’s some kind of political transition. But we haven’t seen the kind of creative diplomacy that would require — either from the U.S. or from Yemen’s neighbors.

: Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott

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Officials have not revealed when Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah will leave

By Munir Ahmed, Associated Press

FILE - This undated image taken from video released by Al-Jazeera television on Oct. 5, 2001, shows Osama bin Laden at an undisclosed location. A cellphone of bin Laden's trusted courier recovered in the U.S. raid last month that killed both men in Pakistan contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan's intelligence agency, The New York Times reported late Thursday. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Al-Jazeera via APTN, File) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden, Yemen

Officials in Pakistan say the country has agreed to let Osama bin Laden’s youngest widow return to her native Yemen. But they would not reveal when she’ll leave.

Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, two other widows and eight of bin Laden’s children were detained following the May 2 U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida chief in the northwestern Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

A Pakistani security official said Friday that Pakistan has granted Abdullfattah permission to go home. An official at the Yemeni embassy in Islamabad confirmed an agreement had been reached on her deportation.

Both officials requested anonymity because of the topic’s sensitivity.

The security official says Abdullfattah has fully recovered from a bullet that struck her leg during the raid.

: More Munir Ahmed

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Updated: Incident is the latest sign that the country's upheaval has emboldened members of the terrorist group

By Ahmed Al-haj, Associated Press

Anti-government protestors hold up their national flag, bearing the words "The people want a transitional council" in Arabic, during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Taiz, Yemen, Monday, June 20, 2011. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets of the capital, demanding that the president's son leave the country. Ahmed Saleh, 42, is a one-time heir apparent who commands the elite Yemeni Presidential Guard. The force has been leading the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators since the uprising began in February. (AP Photo/Anees Mahyoub) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Yemen, Al-Qaida

Security officials say 57 militants, mostly from al-Qaida, have escaped from a prison in southern Yemen.

They say the 57 were among 62 inmates from the Mukalla jail in the Hadarmout province who escaped Wednesday through an underground tunnel.

Bands of gunmen attacked the prison simultaneously, opening fire on the guards from outside to divert their attention away from the escape.

One guard was killed and another wounded in the attack, said the security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Wednesday’s escape was the latest sign that Yemen’s months-long upheaval has emboldened al-Qaida militants to challenge authorities in the country’s nearly lawless south.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The head of Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation warned Tuesday in a letter to the Saudi king that Yemen could plunge into civil war if President Ali Abdullah Saleh is allowed to return home.

Saleh is currently in Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving treatment for serious injuries from a blast early this month at his palace in the Yemeni capital that left him with severe burns and chunks of wood in his chest.

In his message to King Abdullah, Sadeq al-Ahmar, the influential tribal chief who was an ally of Saleh before switching sides to join the opposition, appealed to the Saudi monarch to prevent Saleh from returning to Yemen.

“His return will lead to sedition and civil war,” al-Ahmar said, according to an aid to al-Ahmar. Saudi Arabia is a key player in Yemen, and has pressed Saleh in the past to negotiate a settlement to Yemen’s political turmoil.

Late Tuesday, al-Ahmar had his first meeting with Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi since Saleh departed, a possible step toward resolving the conflict. Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a general who defected to the opposition and deployed his units to defend protesters, took part in the meeting. Hadi is the acting president. He is under pressure to agree to a new government that effectively freeze Saleh out.

The tribal chief’s aide said that they discussed steps to implement a cease-fire and withdraw forces from the streets. They also discussed “possible means to exit the current crisis,” according to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Mideast, have been protesting daily since late January, demanding the ouster of Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for nearly 33 years. Their campaign has been largely peaceful, but fighting erupted in Sanaa between Saleh loyalists and fighters from al-Ahmar’s powerful tribal confederation, the Hashid, after troops moved to attack al-Ahmar’s residence.

The fighting has tapered off since Saleh left for Saudi Arabia. Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi became acting president following Saleh’s departure.

The opposition on Tuesday accused Saleh’s inner circle and family of hindering the opposition’s dialogue with Hadi.

“Saleh’s sons are not helpful in solving the problem, and they don’t help the acting president to exercise his constitutional powers,” opposition spokesman Abdullah Oubal said.

Yemen’s opposition parties have sought to persuade Hadi and Saleh’s ruling party to join them in a transitional leadership that would effectively shut out Saleh, who has resisted tremendous pressure at home and abroad to step down.

The president’s son Ahmed, who commands the country’s best trained military forces, the Republican Guard, and is the main force maintaining his father’s grip on power, opposes such discussions.

Saleh’s close aide and adviser, Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, arrived Tuesday in Riyadh for talks with Saleh, who requested the meeting. A leading member of the ruling party, commenting on reports that Saleh and al-Iryani were discussing a transfer of power, said he expected “very important decisions” to come out from the meeting.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The United States fears that Yemen’s power vacuum will give even freer rein to al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which Washington believes is the terror network’s most active branch. Already, Islamic militants — some suspected of ties to al-Qaida — have taken control of at least two areas in the rebellious southern province of Abyan.

Late Monday and early Tuesday, government warplanes bombed suspected militant hideouts in Abyan, killing at least 22 al-Qaida-linked fighters, a defense ministry official said on condition of anonymity in line with ministry regulations.

: More Ahmed Al-haj

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Saleh is currently in Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving treatment for serious injuries

By Ahmed Al-haj, Associated Press

Anti-government protestors hold up their national flag, bearing the words "The people want a transitional council" in Arabic, during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Taiz, Yemen, Monday, June 20, 2011. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets of the capital, demanding that the president's son leave the country. Ahmed Saleh, 42, is a one-time heir apparent who commands the elite Yemeni Presidential Guard. The force has been leading the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators since the uprising began in February. (AP Photo/Anees Mahyoub) (Credit: AP)

Topics:Yemen

The head of Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation warned Tuesday in a letter to the Saudi king that Yemen could plunge into civil war if President Ali Abdullah Saleh is allowed to return home.

Saleh is currently in Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving treatment for serious injuries from a blast early this month at his palace in the Yemeni capital that left him severely burned with severe burns and chunks of wood in his chest.

In his message to King Abdullah, Sadeq al-Ahmar, the influential tribal chief who was an ally of Saleh before switching sides to join the opposition, appealed to the Saudi monarch to prevent Saleh from returning to Yemen.

“His return will lead to sedition and civil war,” al-Ahmar said, according to a statement from his office. Saudi Arabia is a key player in Yemen, and has pressed Saleh in the past to negotiate a settlement to Yemen’s political turmoil.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Mideast, have been protesting daily since late January demanding the ouster of Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for nearly 33 years. Their campaign has been largely peaceful, but fighting erupted in Sanaa between Saleh loyalists and fighters from al-Ahmar’s powerful tribal confederation, the Hashid, after troops moved to attack al-Ahmar’s residence.

The fighting has tapered off since Saleh left for Saudi Arabia, and vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, became acting president following Saleh’s departure.

The opposition on Tuesday accused Saleh’s inner circle and family of hindering the opposition’s dialogue with Hadi.

“Saleh’s sons are not helpful in solving the problem and they don’t help the acting president to exercise his constitutional powers,” opposition spokesman Abdullah Oubal said.

Yemen’s opposition parties have sought to persuade Hadi and Saleh’s ruling party to join them in a transitional leadership that would effectively shut out Saleh, who has resisted tremendous pressure at home and abroad to step down.

The president’s son Ahmed, who commands the country’s best trained military forces, the Republican Guard, and is the main force maintaining his father’s grip on power, opposes such discussions.

Saleh’s close aide and adviser, Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, arrived Tuesday in Riyadh for talks with Saleh who requested the meeting. A leading member of the ruling party, commenting on reports that Saleh and al-Iryani were discussing a transfer of power, said he expected “very important decisions” to come out after the meeting.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The United States fears that Yemen’s power vacuum will give even freer rein to al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which Washington believes is the terror network’s most active franchise. Already, Islamic militants — some suspected of ties to al-Qaida — have taken control of at least two areas in the restive southern province of Abyan.

Late Monday and early Tuesday, government warplanes bombed suspected militant hideouts in Abyan, killing at least 22 al-Qaida-linked fighters, a defense ministry official said on condition of anonymity in line with ministry regulations.