The Obama Administration let out a sort of trial balloon when they revealed recently that they are in the middle of discussions on the possibility of killing an American citizen in another drone strike.
The plan was poorly received, and has sparked another round of criticism of Obama’s claim to be able to execute American citizens without trial or evidence. Since then, the White House and others involved have clammed up.
Officials now insist the soon-to-be-victim’s name is “classified,” an effort to keep anyone from even theoretically being able to contest the killing in court before it happens. Rather, they have only given some vague “impressions” of the person, putatively al-Qaeda linked and called Abdullah al-Shami in reports.
Abdullah al-Shami was indeed the name of an “al-Qaeda leader,” but a Syrian-born one that the US confirmed was killed in an air strike in 2006. The refusal to identify him beyond that raises many questions, and they’re questions the administration simply refuses to answer.
Bizarrely, President Obama has managed to con most of the American public into believing that he can kill them whenever he feels like it with total impunity, and the excuse “he’s a really bad guy” seems as good as evidence to many. The fact that the victim is in Pakistan is actually the source of a secondary controversy, as Pakistan has demanded an end to US drone strikes against their territory, and likely won’t accept the excuse that he’s “a really bad guy.”
So now the Obama administration can kill people without us even knowing who they are, let alone having a public trial.
Is Abdullah al-Shami the code word for "Edward Snowden?"
Is it you?
Are you sure?
What about the next time?
Meet the Nu boss…. same as the old boss.. is represented by Victoria Nuland, wife of Robert Kagan………. Handing out cookies for WWIII………
(In 1983, Robert Kagan was foreign policy advisor to New York Republican Representative Jack Kemp.
Between 1984 and 1986, he worked at the State Department Policy Planning Staff and was a speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz. From 1986 to 1988, he served in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs at the State Department. ["Cocaine smuggling and arming the "Contras" leading to death of 30,000"] [4] In 1997, he co-founded and served as a director for the now-defunct Project for the New American Century. Wikipedia) ["laying out the neocon plan for nine 11?']
More Wikipedia: Edgar Chamorro, a former Contra and member of the FDN's political directorate who later became a critic of the Contras, stated that during his time with the Contras, he frequently received reports about atrocities committed by Contra troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners: "As time went on, I became more and more troubled by the frequent reports I received of atrocities committed by our troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners. The atrocities I had heard about were not isolated incidents, but reflected a consistent pattern of behaviour by our troops. There were unit commanders who openly bragged about their murders, mutilations, etc."[81]
A Sandinista militiaman interviewed by The Guardian stated that Contra rebels committed these atrocities against Sandinista prisoners after a battle at a Sandinista rural outpost: "Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off. They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit."[82]
Americas Watch – which subsequently became part of Human Rights Watch – accused the Contras of:[83]
targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination[84]
kidnapping civilians[85]
torturing civilians[86]
executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat[87]
raping women[84]
indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses[85]
seizing civilian property[84]
burning civilian houses in captured towns.[84]
Human Rights Watch released a report on the situation in 1989, which stated: "[The] contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners."[88]