“Let Justice Flow Like a River…”

Resisting Drone in Missouri

by Brian Terrell, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence

The United States District Courthouse in Jefferson City, Missouri, is a modern and graceful structure sitting on a bluff over the Missouri River. Less than one year old, it is a virtual temple in white marble, granite and glass, its clean lines all the more immaculate in contrast to its nearest neighbor, the crumbling 19th century hulk of the derelict and empty Missouri State Penitentiary, now a tourist attraction and occasional movie set. Set into the floor of the courthouse rotunda, executed in marble and bronze, is the image of the Great Seal of the United States, the eagle with arrows in one talon and olive leaves in the other, circled by a quote from the Bible, from the prophet Amos, “Let Justice Flow Like A River.”
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Nullify the NDAA

From the Tenth Amendment Center:

Los Angeles Event shows how States and Local Communities Can Stop NDAA Indefinite Detention

As Congress focused last week on the so-called “indefinite detention” provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), organizers of the “Nullify the NDAA” event in Los Angeles say that it’s states and local communities, and not Congress, who will ultimately put a stop to such powers.
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Liberal Demands Assassination Orders Be Filed in Triplicate

On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder finally explained why it’s legal for him to annihilate you on a hunch. The nation’s liberals arose as one to condemn this brazen attack on American principles of…

Hehe, just kidding. The nation’s liberals were all listening to Rush Limbaugh during Holder’s speech, but a few of them skimmed it later. And, boy, were they ever pretty much OK with it. Mother Jones‘s Kevin Drum, who has raised being “pretty much OK” with things to the status of serious analysis, sighed and shrugged a little more vigorously than usual:

I’m glad Holder gave this speech. I’m glad that he expanded (a bit) on the three circumstances that govern the Obama administration’s decisions to kill U.S. citizens abroad. I’m glad he agrees that these decisions are “extraordinarily weighty” and “among the gravest that government leaders can face.”

Nonetheless, even more than a thousand words of throat clearing can’t hide the fact that Holder simply provided no evidence that the rigor of the executive branch’s due process procedures matches his rhetoric; no evidence that these procedures are consistently followed; and negative evidence that there’s any reasonable oversight of the process. Merely informing Congress is the farthest thing imaginable from rigorous, independent oversight.

Holder’s job, of course, was an impossible one. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has made a deliberate decision that actions like this are authorized by a combination of the 2001 AUMF and the president’s inherent commander-in-chief powers.

Now you need to know that this Bush comparison isn’t meant to be as damning as it sounds; Drum was pretty much OK with Bush killing whomever he wanted (see the first link above). But process is somewhat kind of semi-significant to liberals, so Drum appended this postscript:

This post wasn’t about my own position on this topic, but here it is. I agree that we’re at war. [Drink! – Ed.] Like it or not, the AUMF is an extremely broad grant of authority. I agree that stateless terrorists pose unique challenges. I agree that targeting them for killing is sometimes necessary, even if they’re U.S. citizens. I agree that Holder’s three principles form a good starting point for deciding when a targeted killing is justified.

But it’s simply not tolerable to take the view that the entire world is now a battlefield, and therefore battlefield rules of engagement apply everywhere. If you want to kill a U.S. citizen outside of a traditional hot battlefield, there needs to be independent oversight. The FISA court performs this function for surveillance, and we know from experience that it rarely gets in the government’s way. But at least it’s technically independent and forces the executive branch to follow its own rules. It’s the absolute minimum that we should require for targeted killings too.

And here we have the American liberal’s ideal form of government oversight: the kind that generates a lot of paperwork (and civil service man-hours) but “rarely gets in the government’s way.” It’s the absolute minimum we should require — if by “absolute minimum” you mean “absolute maximum” and if by “require” you mean “quickly suggest then never mention again.” Only crackpots really give a damn about this stuff.

Clearly, There’s No Question That If You’re Right, You’re Right

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta responds to a question about the legality of assassinating Anwar al-Awlaki:

This individual was clearly a terrorist. And yes, he was a citizen, but if you’re a terrorist, you’re a terrorist. And that means that we have the ability to go after those who would threaten to attack the United States and kill Americans. There’s no question that the authority and the ability to go after a terrorist is there.Legal eagles.

Usage guru Bryan A. Garner writes of the word “clearly,”

Exaggerators like this word, along with its cousins (obviously, undeniably, undoubtedly, and the like). Often a statement prefaced with one of these words is exceedingly dubious. (The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, Oxford University Press, 2000.)

Indeed, take a look at “Anwar al-Awlaki’s Suspected Ties to Terror Plots.” Notice that in only one of the eight plots is there any mention of al-Awlaki’s participation; all the others involve “inspiration” or religious instruction, often of people al-Awlaki never met. But let’s not dwell too much on details. Leon Panetta doesn’t. He follows his “clearly” statement with a tautology (“if you’re a terrorist, you’re a terrorist”). Then comes an equivocation about the administration’s “ability” to do what it did. If Panetta means the physical or mental power to perform the act, then this is self-evidently correct and irrelevant. If he means the legal authority, then he has, in the words of The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, “assum[ed] what is at issue in an argument,” or begged the question (yes, that phrase actually means something). He wraps up with a wordier version of undeniably (“there’s no question”), makes the preceding equivocation plain by distinguishing “authority” from “ability,” and again begs the question.

Panetta was once a practicing lawyer. I see now why he prefers extrajudicial methods.

Join Kelley B. Vlahos for Antiwar Panel at Students for Liberty Philadelphia Regional Conference

Kelley B. Vlahos along with military veterans Daniel Lakemacher and Students for Liberty’s Peter Neiger will be appearing at an Antiwar Break Out Session at the 2011 Students for Liberty Philadelphia Regional Conference. The conference will be held Saturday, October 8th. Register here.

Vlahos is a contributing editor for The American Conservative magazine, a Washington correspondent for the DC-based homeland security magazine, Homeland Security Today, a long-time political writer for FOXNews.com, and weekly columnist for Antiwar.com.