Downsize.org calls for Impeachment of President

A man strangling a child in Hoboken is no less subject to that jurisdiction than al-Awlaki was, and it would be no less idiotic to accuse the police sniper who rectifies that situation of violation of due process than it is to accuse government agents of the same when they terminate an at-large enemy of the US.

I'm sure that's all very compelling to constitutional illiterates.

I guess no one should be surprised at this point that you have less regard for the sovereignty of the US than for that of Yemen.

 

Just because a US citizen is not in the US does not mean they lose their US rights. That would be ridiculous. Everytime you got on a plane to fly out of the country the US government is no longer bound to treat you like a citizen?

Exactly..."arguably". Something that is done in a court of law.

 

"A man strangling a child in Hoboken" is commiting a criminal act and can be indicted for that act. There were no criminal indictments for al-Awlaki because the US government had no evidence that he'd broken any US laws including the laws related to international terrorism or conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism. The fact is, based upon the actions of the US government prior to murdering al-Awlaki, he had broken no laws and was instead simply exercising his Right to Freedom of Speech which is protected under the First Amendment. He was murdered by order of the President just because the President didn't like what he was saying.

All nations have an equal right of national sovereignty. How would Americans react if Yemen sent someone to the US to murder someone like John Hagee because of his televised anti-Islamic hate sermons or the members of the Westboro Baptist Church? We would be more than a little outraged if this was to happen.

 

Which of course is of no moment whatsoever if the sniper cuts him down IN the act.

Doesn't matter, any more than it would for the hypothetical child strangler.

Depends on how one defines "American". In such a case I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see you defending the murderer.

 

Please explain how driving down a road in Yemen is a criminal act.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/30/us-born-terror-boss-anwar-al-awlaki-killed/

 

Here's a couple of sound bites for you:



"For the record, I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen -- with a drone or with a shotgun -- without due process."

-Barack Obama

"When the Government reaches out to punish a citizen who is abroad, the shield which the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution provide to protect his life and liberty should not be stripped away just because he happens to be in another land."

"Once the president accuses you of being a Terrorist, a decision made in secret and with no checks or due process, we can do anything we want to you, including executing you wherever we find you."

-Leon Panetta

 

if an American can be brought to justice for crimes commited abroad (like pedo-sex tourism), they take their rights with them too.

 

The use of deadly force is extremely limited and below is the typical criteria which is applied before deadly force can be used.

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0074.htm

There had never been any evidence that al-Awlaki had participated in or was a co-conspirator related to any feloneous act. There had never been any criminal indictments that would lead anyone to believe that al-Awlaki was a criminal. What the White House didn't like was his political rhetoric and nothing more. He was murdered because he expressed his political and religious beliefs and not because he'd committed any criminal act such as conspiring to commit an act of terrorism.

The founders of America would turn in their graves if they knew that today we kill people because they express a political or religious opinion that we disagree with.

So I will ask again, how is driving down a road in Yemen presenting any threat to anyone that would warrant the use of deadly force?

 

That's a solid explanation of why this is nonsense. If somebody commits an act of treason or leaves the country and takes up arms against us, and calls for attacks on us, I'm afraid he's forfeited any rights that he may have had as a citizen of this country. That's my view on it, and I'm not sure what the law would have to say on it, but I suspect any impeachment ideas based on this are dismissed pretty quickly.

 

I was under the impression that our war was with terrorism. Under the Bush Administration I believe our policy was to hunt down terrorists and deliver justice. Anwar al-Awlaki did not have to be a member of the Yemani military to be considered an "enemy combatant", and killing an "enemy combatant" in any so-called "war on terrorism" does not require a conventional "battlefield" since it's never going to amount to anything resembling a conventional war. The Battlefield was redefined to enable us to deal with asymmetric warfare which is exactly what terrorism is. So I would like for you to name the logical fallacy that is being applied here. For example is it Circular Reasoning? Is it Argumentum Ad Hominem? Argumentum ad Vericundium? Petitio Principii"? Dicto Simpliciter? You're calling it a logical fallacy. What logical fallacy are you saying that the argument displays? I understand that you would move heaven and earth to impeach the president, but on what grounds? Isn't it really that you want to impeach him for being...Obama? I don't think that's going to be sufficient grounds. Maybe you'd better give up on this nonsense.

Congress already did that years 10 years ago. Where were you? We were arguing that you can't declare war on a tactic back when Bush declared a War on Terrorism, and everyone said we should shut up, and we were terrorist sympathizers. It's like waging a war on hiding in the shadows. Or a war on foul language. That's a never ending war. Wars have endings to them. You can't win a war against a tactic. Terrorism is something you do. It's not a state that you can defeat. You're about 10 years too late with your argument. Now, suddenly you want to claim that terrorism is a tactic??

 

To paraphrase William Muny in The Unforgiven, he shoulda done something criminal.

 

International acts of terrorism are a criminal act under US Statutory Law (USC› Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 113B › § 2331) and are to be addressed as a criminal act based upon the US Constitution. They are not an act of war.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331

While I've only been a member of Political Forum since 2008 I've been fighting against this since 2001 when I opposed the invasion of Afghanistan and even earlier when I opposed US involvement in the Gulf War.

President Obama's actions are much more recent and addressing them today is valid. Extra-judicial executions are, by definition, outside of the authority of law and the killing of any person outside of those specific conditions established for the "use of deadly force" by our government is murder under the laws of the United States. A president is supposed to be impeached and removed from office for the commission of "high crimes and misdemeanors" according to the US Constitution and there is no crime higher that murder.

President Obama has authorized the murder of persons and based upon the US Constitution and US law should be impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted for his crimes. No person in the United States, including the President, is exempt from the laws of our nation.

 

This simply isn't an impeachable offense.
Let me preface this argument by stating that wearing a plaid tie with a checkered sport coat can be an impeachable offense, if and only if you can get a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate to agree.

By the same token, using nerve gas to wipe out the Boy Scout Jamboree isn't an impeachable offense, if you can't get the votes in Congress to make it one.
That's how the constitution defines an impeachable offence, it can be anything that garners the required votes, there is no appeal, there is no review, the decision of Congress is final.

This issue just isn't going to do that, even if only Republicans were allowed to vote, this issue wouldn't pass the House.


It should also be pointed out that the OP is misleading.
A) there is no "Downsize.ORG", it's downsizeDC.org.

B) descibing it as "non-partisan" is like describing "Moveon.org" as non-partisan, it's got a hard right wing agenda.

So a truthful title for the thread would be "Hard Right web site calls for impeachment, (Yawn)"

 

Then why call it a "war on terrorism"?

I didn't oppose the Gulf War, or the action in Afghanistan after 9/11. The Iraq War, I totally opposed. The entire concept of a war on a tactic was bogus and ridiculous. You can't win something like that, and you open the door to perpetual war. As long as there are humans on the planet there will be acts of terrorism.

I disagree. The person(s) killed in that kind of action are not in this country, and are committed to attacking the US, and as far as I'm concerned they've renounced their citizenship. If they think they can wage their private war against this country from abroad, and then claim rights as US citizens if they're found, they're delusional. There will never be any action against a US president for hunting down a terrorist committed to attacking US interests and killing him, regardless of his citizenship, unless he's inside our borders. If he's conducting his activities outside the country, he's fair game.

Clearly nobody has found your argument compelling enough to attempt impeaching the President, and it would be useless and damaging to the party attempting it. He'd never be convicted in the Senate and I doubt seriously if the Speaker of the House would ever entertain such an idea. It would be seen as another partisan attempt to go after this president, and the public reaction would be brutal on the party that tried it.

 

Dunno where in Hell you got that idea, but it wasn't from the Constitution.

 

As I noted USC› Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 113B › § 2331 establishes that international acts of terrorism are a criminal act under US statutory law and the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th Amendments all are applicable to criminal cases and equal protection under the law.

 

And they're not also acts of war because...?

 

This is the absurd proposition that a crime has not occurred unless there is prosecution and conviction for the crime. That would imply that a bank has not been robbed if the person responsible is never caught, prosecuted, and convicted. The crime exists whether it's prosecuted or not.

Back to this case. The laws of the United States are specific when it comes to the use of deadly force,

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0074.htm

The fact it that al-Awlaki was not a suspect in any criminal case, there was no indictment against him, and there was no indication that his driving down the highway represented any attempt to commit a felony that would endanger a person. The criteria for the "use of deadly force" under the laws of the United States had not been met in the case of al-Awkaki, a US citizen, and under the law the premeditated taking of his life is murder under the laws of the United States.

Murder is arguably the highest crime in the United States and certainly meets and exceeds the minimum standard of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" that require the impeachment of the president.