We won't be fooled again

The president of the United States has acquired the power to assassinate people, including Americans, a power that is exercised through the military and the CIA. Assassination is official policy and not to be called to account for it.

Of course,  the president will say, “ The people we choose to assassinate must be terrorists. If they’re not terrorists, we don’t have the power to assassinate them.”

But who makes the call on who is a terrorist? The national-security officials of the president does. It has the only say in the matter. The president do not let Congress interfere with whom they choose to assassinate because they say that that would constitute interfering with the president’s war-making powers. While the judiciary will defer to the judgment of the military and the CIA on matters relating to “national security.”

An example of this policy was the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki’s teenager son. With the father, they could say, “Oh, we had evidence that he was conspiring to commit acts of terrorism against the United States.” Of course, some would argue that suspicions and accusations are still not a sufficient ground for the government to assassinate people, including its own citizens. But they can’t say that about the teenage son, who was also an American citizen. They had nothing on him, and they killed him anyway. Is there an investigation into the boy’s murder? Have grand jury indictments issued? No

Thus, as a practical matter the president now wields the extraordinary power to assassinate his own citizens. It’s extraordinary because it’s a power that the most brutal tyrants and dictators in history have wielded. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, wielded the same powers. Think about that: the president of the United States now wields the same powers that one of the most brutal dictators in the world wielded while he was in power. In fact, one of the principal demands made by the Egyptian protestors was the lifting of those powers. But Mubarak knew that the powers were essential to his dictatorial rule. He not only refused to relinquish them, he employed them against people who were challenging his dictatorship. Unfortunately, after his ouster the Egyptian military dictatorship has refused to relinquish those “emergency” powers, just as President Bush did and President Obama has.

Americans now live in a country in which the military and the CIA wield the authority to round up American citizens, keep them in jail or military camps indefinitely without trial, torture them. Think about American citizen Jose Padilla. They removed him from the jurisdiction of a federal district court and carted him away to a military dungeon, where they brutally tortured him. They were going to hold him in jail for the rest of his life without ever according him due process of law and trial by jury. They could have even executed him and nothing would have happened to the killers, as we have learned from the immunity from prosecution granted to the unidentified CIA and military officials who have already killed prisoners in their custody.

It’s also extraordinary because the Constitution fails to grant such a power to the president or the executive branch of government. It’s also extraordinary because it’s perpetual, given the fact that the war on terrorism itself is endless. It’s also extraordinary because the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life without due process of law. When a government wields the power to assassinate its own people and to arrest, incarcerate, torture and execute people without due process of law and trial by jury, that society cannot be genuinely considered a free society.

Regardless of who is elected — Obama or Romney — when it comes to civil liberties, America will remain similar to the many brutal military dictatorships which exist world-wide. It is time to wake up. Millions of Americans will soon vote for either the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate not because they deeply believe that he is the best possible president. No, they are compromising and choosing the lesser of two evils, mainly because most people know that both major parties and their candidates stink. But the lesser evil is still an evil. American voters appear to be delusional, whether on the left or right, based on a refusal to see the ugly truth.  Both Obama and Romney lie compulsively, endlessly and persuasively, tailoring their messages to their audiences. Informed American should not vote for either Obama or Romney. The better choice is to not vote for a president at all and help to delegitimize the corrupt and dysfunctional political system. Another choice is to employ the write-in option where possible and vote from conscience. This much is certain. If you vote for Romney or Obama, and if your choice wins, you will be painfully disappointed.

Adapted from here