White House "Star Chamber" recommended killing US citizen al-Awlaki; evidence of operational role "patchy"

I'm not going to make a big deal of this by writing a ton; it makes a big deal of itself by existing, and Glenn Greenwald has done a better job than I could ever do of exposing this fetid flower. So just a bunch of quotes to make a simple point.

You know already that the U.S. military-CIA complex killed American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki on President Obama's orders. CBS/AP:

U.S. counterterrorism forces killed two American citizens who played key roles in inspiring attacks against the U.S., U.S. and Yemeni officials said Friday.

U.S-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who edited the slick Jihadi Internet magazine, were killed in an air strike on their convoy in Yemen by a joint CIA-U.S. military operation, according to counterterrorism officials. Al-Awlaki was targeted in the killing, but Khan apparently was not targeted directly.

I've cut out the propaganda about "he needed killing" — see below for why. Also note that U.S. citizen Samir Khan was apparently just along for the ride and not covered by Obama's order.

In the same piece, Obama is saying that he killed these men in order to "build a world in which people everywhere can live in greater peace, prosperity and security." (Ahem.)

So what was the process by which this "targeted killing" (how is that not assassination) was decided? Reuters (h/t Greenwald, who supplied the emphasis):

Secret panel can put Americans on kill list

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions . . . . There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council . . . . Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate. . . . The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

There you go. Star Chamber, with the president the decider, the one to pull the trigger (so to speak). Here's what a Star Chamber was (and became):

[Star Chamber] Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts. ... The power of the Court of Star Chamber grew considerably under the House of Stuart, and by the time of King Charles I, it had become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the King and his circle. [my emphasis]

And for the information of Mr. Constitutional Law Professor:

The historical abuses of the Star Chamber are considered a primary motivating force behind the protections against compelled self-incrimination embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[9] The meaning of "compelled testimony" under the Fifth Amendment—i.e., the conditions under which a defendant is allowed to "take the Fifth"—is thus often interpreted via reference to the inquisitorial methods of the Star Chamber.

Greenwald adds this up (swallow that coffee; this isn't fun):

So a panel operating out of the White House — that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates — is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider.

It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that; I genuinely wonder whether the Good Democrats doing so actually first convince themselves that if this were the Bush White House’s hit list, or if it becomes Rick Perry’s, they would be supportive just the same.

Seriously: if you’re willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret — with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency — and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren’t you willing to support?

Of all the things I’ve seen over the past several years, easily one of the most repellent has been the number of people — especially journalists — who are running around definitively asserting that Awlaki had an “operational role” in Terrorist plots and had “taken up arms” against the U.S. even though they have no idea whether that’s actually true[.]

(Politico‘s Roger Simon: “U.S. citizen living overseas and plotting the death of American citizens from, let’s say, Yemen, you can say hello to our little friends, the 100-lb. Hellfires”; Josh Marshall: Awlaki was “a key leader of an international terrorist group, organizing and inspiring terrorist attacks within the US”). [my emphasis and paragraphing]

Et tu, Democrats? You just handed that power to the next R president.

And what about evidence of "operational role"? Reuters again, quoting the government (anonymously):

The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki’s hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.

Secret and patchy.

I've said many times that Obama is crossing lines of conscience, one Democrat at a time. In this Occupy Wall Street world, this is getting lost. Thus this post. Your president can now order your death.

GP