DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on May 23, 2010, 08:14:33 PM
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(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Media%20Logos/3afe0b5c.jpg)
Yemeni cleric advocates killing US civilians
By Associated Press Writer Maamoun Youssef
CAIRO: An American-Yemeni cleric whose Internet sermons are believed to have helped inspire
attacks on the U.S. has advocated the killing of American civilians in an al-Qaida video released Sunday.
Anwar al-Awlaki has been singled out by U.S. officials as a key terrorist threat and has been added to
the CIA's list of targets for assassination despite his American citizenship. He is of particular concern
because he is one of the few English-speaking radical clerics able to explain to young Muslims in America
and other Western countries the philosophy of violent jihad.
The U.S.-born al-Awlaki moved to Yemen in 2004 and is in hiding there after being linked to the suspects
in the November shooting at an Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, and the December attempt to blow up
a U.S. jetliner bound for Detroit.
"Those who might be killed in a plane are merely a drop of water in a sea," he said in the video in response
to a question about Muslim groups that disapproved of the airliner plot because it targeted civilians.
Al-Awlaki used the 45-minute video to justify civilian deaths "and encourage them" by accusing the
United States of intentionally killing a million Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
American civilians are to blame, he said, because "the American people, in general, are taking part in this
and they elected this administration and they are financing the war."
He added that the Prophet Muhammad also sent forces into battles that claimed civilian lives.
The video was produced by the media arm of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, though the exact nature
of al-Awlaki's ties with the group and possible direct role in it are unclear. The U.S. says he is an active
participant in the group, though members of his tribe have denied that.
For its part, al-Qaida appears to be trying to make use of his recruiting power by putting him in its videos.
Its media arm said Sunday's video was its first interview with the cleric.
In the months before the Fort Hood shooting, which killed 13 people, al-Awlaki exchanged e-mails with the
alleged attacker, U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki's Internet
sermons, and approached him for religious advice.
Yemen's government says al-Awlaki is also suspected of contacts with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,
the Nigerian accused in the failed attempt to blow up the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.
Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen late last year, and U.S. investigators say he told them that he
received training and his bomb from Yemen's al-Qaida offshoot.
In Sunday's video, al-Awlaki praised both men and referred to them as his "students."
Speaking of Fort Hood's Hasan, the cleric said, "What he did was heroic and great. ...
I ask every Muslim serving in the U.S. Army to follow suit."
Al-Awlaki appears in the video wearing a white Yemeni robe, turban and with a traditional
jambiyah dagger tucked into his waistband.
Al-Awlaki was born in 1971 in New Mexico. His father, Nasser al-Awlaki, was in the United States
studying agriculture at the time and later returned with his family to Yemen to serve as agriculture minister.
The father remains a prominent figure in Yemen, teaching at San'a University in the capital.
The younger al-Awlaki returned to the United States in 1991 to study civil engineering at Colorado State
University, then education at San Diego State University, followed by doctoral work at George Washington
University in Washington, D.C.
He was also a preacher at mosques in California and Virginia before returning to Yemen in 2004.
"We have had more freedom in America than in any Muslim country," he said in Sunday's video.
"But when America started to feel the danger of Islam's message, it tightened limits on freedom,
and after 9/11 it was impossible to live in America as a Muslim."
Al-Awlaki is believed to be hiding in Yemen's Shabwa province, the rugged region of towering mountains
that is home to his large tribe.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday on CBS television that the U.S. is "actively trying to
find" al-Awlaki. He added that the Obama administration will continue to take action directly against
terrorists like al-Awlaki, and keep the U.S. safe from what Gibbs calls "murderous thugs."
Yemen, which has cooperated with the United States in battling al-Qaida, says it is searching for the cleric.
Al-Awlaki said he was moving from place to place under the protection of his tribe.
Accusing al-Awlaki of involvement in planning and operations by al-Qaida, the Obama administration
placed him on a target list of terrorists to be killed or captured, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official
said last week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters.
"As for the Americans, I will never surrender to them," he said. "If they want me, they have to search
for me and God is the one who decides my fate."
http://tinyurl.com/37ude32 (http://tinyurl.com/37ude32)
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"We have had more freedom in America than in any Muslim country," he said in Sunday's video.
"But when America started to feel the danger of Islam's message, it tightened limits on freedom,
and after 9/11 it was impossible to live in America as a Muslim."
Hard to beleive that he admitted this so frankly.
That the effect of attacking America isn't positive for Muslims?
How come he still advocates more of the same when he seems to almost get the cause and effect relationship of all the previous effort?
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It is apparently NOT impossible to live in the US as a Muslim, as there are well over a million people doing it.
I imagine that one day we will hear that he had an unfortunate contact with a drone.
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<<Accusing al-Awlaki of involvement in planning and operations by al-Qaida, the Obama administration
placed him on a target list of terrorists to be killed or captured, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official
said last week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters. >>
Accusing is one thing, proving it is something entirely different.
If they feel that Awlaki planned criminal ops by al-Qaeda, let them put him on trial and prove it. Otherwise, he's presumed innocent. How the hell can they justify executing the guy because some fucking bureaucrat has decided that he planned or executed criminal operations?
You guys are really going backward at the speed of light. How much of the Bill of Rights are you prepared to sacrifice for this phony "War on Terror?" All of it?
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If he wants a trial , let him screw his courage to the sticking place and present himself to a US marshal, then nothing could prevent his trial.
If he stays on the lam he is liable to be brought in dead or alive , just as many other fugitives are liable to be.
Why are you pretending that this is new or unusual? What happens when the RCMP finds someone resisting arrest?
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I am slightly surprised that Michael Tee is the only one to address the title of the thread. No one else is bothered by it?
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I am slightly surprised that Michael Tee is the only one to address the title of the thread. No one else is bothered by it?
What is bothersome?
How was Clyde Barrow brought in for trial?
Pretty Boy Floyd?
"Baby Face" Nelson?
John Herbert Dillinger ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Boy_Floyd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Boy_Floyd)
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/babyface/babyface.htm (http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/babyface/babyface.htm)
http://www.famoustexans.com/clydebarrow.htm (http://www.famoustexans.com/clydebarrow.htm)
This guy is marked for death , no more or less than anyone elese that ever made the ten most wanted , if he wants a trial he can certainly get one , if he can make a trial impossible then what is possible will be done.
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<<If he wants a trial , let him screw his courage to the sticking place and present himself to a US marshal, then nothing could prevent his trial.>>
What bullshit. There aren't even any outstanding charges against him, what is he going to present himself to a U.S. marshall for, to find out what part of the "kill or capture" order the marshall decides to enforce?
They have no interest in bringing this guy to trial, because they'll never convict him of a God-damn thing, all he's been doing is expressing his Constitutional right of free speech.
There are international courts of justice that were good enough for the architects of the Rwandan genocide, which was a far deadlier crime than Awlaki's alleged misdeeds. His life wouldn't be worth a plugged nickel in the U.S. "justice" system, which tortures and murders alleged "terrorists" (i.e. anyone resisting U.S. hegemony) but if the U.S. is truly interested in prosecuting this guy in a fair trial (a joke since they never brought any charges against him anyway) why wouldn't they charge him in the World Court at The Hague, where he'd be far more likely to appear and defend?
<<If he stays on the lam he is liable to be brought in dead or alive , just as many other fugitives are liable to be.>>
Fugitive from what? There have to be charges laid and summonses issued before anyone becomes a "fugitive." And even if there were, why on earth would he turn himself in to a torturing, murdering American "security" apparatus?
<< Why are you pretending that this is new or unusual? What happens when the RCMP finds someone resisting arrest?>>
Reasonable force is used to apprehend. But never deadly force unless the arresting officers' lives are in immediate danger from the suspect. Even then the object of deadly force is self-defence, not executing the arrest warrant. Orders to "capture or kill" are NEVER issued, not in this country and not in the U.S.A. What's unusual is that (a) an order to kill or capture is issued, (b) there has been zero attempt to have this guy brought to trial, no charges, no summons, no warrant, (c) there has been no extradition request to the host country (since there are no charges) and (d) this is a U.S. citizen.
OF COURSE, this is "new or unusual." It's a clean and total break with the entire legal history of the Republic. Execution of a citizen by bureaucratic fiat? Get real, plane, this has NEVER been done before.
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at this very moment it`s not illegal,but if lives are endangered then free speech will not protect him.
it`s still illergal to say fire in a crowded area or threaten the president.
this can easily go to that area of free speech.
like those two student against southpark- if people died at comedy central then those guys should be in a world of trouble.
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Tee is right here: the US government has not executed a citizen by fiat, ever. At least not officially. I believe that some Confederates might have been assassinated here and there, but presumably, they had renounced their citizenship.
The government could probably keep this guy's views off the Internet with help from Yemen. They could trace those who are listening to him and watch them very carefully. But I expect that their might be a drone in his future as well.
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What is bothersome?
The fact that (apparently except for me) no one but Mr. Liquidate the Enemies of the People seems to see anything wrong with the idea of assassinating an American citizen without any attempt at due process. Michael Tee, I would expect to be for it, but he seems to be arguing against it. And everyone else seems to be giving it a pass as if the idea were no big deal. You, Plane, even tried to justify it to me. What is bothersome? This whole situation.
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Would al-Awlaki qualify as a justified target if he were not a US citizen?
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You should know better than to ask me questions, BT.
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Tee is right here: the US government has not executed a citizen by fiat, ever. At least not officially. I believe that some Confederates might have been assassinated here and there, but presumably, they had renounced their citizenship.
In Yemen in late 2002...I believe the CIA assassinated US Citizen Kamal Derwish.
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That was for the rest of the board.
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Would al-Awlaki qualify as a justified target if he were not a US citizen?
BT i wouldn't care if he was my own brother, if he is the enemy,
actively involved in the agenda of killing Americans then i say
smoke em! i love to see those losers come flying out of the
vehicle when we hit 'em with the hellfire missle!
Ghostriders Fire A Hellfire Missle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmGHwlhzAP0#)
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Would you also love to see your brother come flying out of a car if he was an evil terrorist?
Or as a conservative, would you enjoy it if they sent you a bill for the $80,000 that the missile cost?
Offing your brother with an expensive missile and then hitting the family for the cost sounds a bit like something Sheriff "Arpy" Arpaiao might do. Or perhaps the Israeli Defense Force. You have, I believe, expressed admiration for both.
Maybe they'd sell you the rights for the video: but it would have to be better than the one you put on here, because, as you can see, you don't really get to see any airborne body parts, and it should really be in color.
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Would you also love to see your brother come
flying out of a car if he was an evil terrorist?
Did you not read my post?
Go read it again!
I stated I dont care if it is my brother...if he
is involved in killing Americans...SMOKE HIM!
Or as a conservative, would you enjoy it if they sent
you a bill for the $80,000 that the missile cost?
Uh...ummmmm...lets see... $80K for a missle
or another 9/11 attack costing billions...
or some other attack like the wussy diaper bomber
blowing up a plane full of civilians
ummm lets see?
yeah....as a conservative.....i like the math and the logic of killing the enemy
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<<Would al-Awlaki qualify as a justified target if he were not a US citizen? >>
That's a whole nuther issue. IMHO, no, because I don't believe in the War on Terror. I think it's absurd to elevate this conflict to the status of a war, which is always between nation-states. "War" is at most a metaphor, like the "war" on drugs, the "war" on poverty, etc. The "terrorists" who attack the American homeland are in fact criminals in the eyes of American criminal law and the problem is one which the criminal law can adequately deal with. The allocation of "war" status is a purely political gimmick serving various political purposes. As a non-citizen, anyone doing what Awlaki allegedly does can be a criminal, advocating criminal actions against American citizens, but those are allegations only and the government has the burden of proving them in a court of law.
Of course, if you believe in a "War on Terror," then a non-citizen doing what Awlaki allegedly does might well be a justified target. Hell, if it's OK to smoke a kindergarten full of little Nazi babies, it must be OK to kill enemy participants in the course of a war. That would include radio broadcasters and propagandists, whose only function is to encourage the fighters.
However, as a U.S. citizen, war or no war, Awlaki has a Constitutional right to a fair and open trial and that right has NEVER been violated by any American government preceding the last Bush administration. Either you respect your own Constitution, or it's OK to piss all over it in the name of "War on Terror." I'm amazed that there isn't a real shitstorm of public outrage at this blatant desecration of the Constitution. It's an indication of how far the MSM have sunk into corporate ownership and how tightly concentrated that ownership has become. It's also an indication of the hollowness of the idea of a "two-party" system - - there's really only ONE party, with two wings for fighting the culture wars and preserving the illusion of "freedom" and "free elections." What bullshit.
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"that right has NEVER been violated by any American government preceding the last Bush administration"
Times have changed...obviously...when President Bush and President Obama
both approve and authorize the CIA to kill a select few US citizens that have
become allied with terrorists waging war on the United States. The rule of law
is not a suicide pact for Western civilization.
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However, as a U.S. citizen, war or no war, Awlaki has a Constitutional right to a fair and open trial and that right has NEVER been violated by any American government preceding the last Bush administration. Either you respect your own Constitution, or it's OK to piss all over it in the name of "War on Terror." I'm amazed that there isn't a real shitstorm of public outrage at this blatant desecration of the Constitution. It's an indication of how far the MSM have sunk into corporate ownership and how tightly concentrated that ownership has become. It's also an indication of the hollowness of the idea of a "two-party" system - - there's really only ONE party, with two wings for fighting the culture wars and preserving the illusion of "freedom" and "free elections." What bullshit.
Where were you when that monster Lincon shot thousands of Americans in sight of their homes for the sake of an illusion of freedom? Without benefit of trial of course.
You would have been very usefull to the side that had little illusions about freedom. War or no war Lincon was starting a bad precident.
Or did Jackson set that precident ? Or Washington?
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<<Times have changed...obviously...>>
Times have changed? Bullshit. STANDARDS have changed. War has always been with us. Treason (or alleged treason) has always been with us.
<<when President Bush and President Obama
both approve and authorize the CIA to kill a select few US citizens that have
become allied with terrorists waging war on the United States. >>
You mean "authorize the CIA to kill a select few US citizens that have allegedly become allied with alleged "terrorists" allegedly waging war on the United States."
You don't seem to get that until the government's accusations are tested in court in a fair and open trial, they remain ONLY accusations, not crimes. As long as the government has the power to kill without trial those whom it chooses to accuse, there is no citizen that is safe from arbitrary execution. This is unprecedented. It is outrageous. It is a direct assault on the Constitution and on the Constitutional rights of each and every American citizen. This never happened before. Never.
If the Founding Fathers had faith in the government's ability to determine who should live or die without any trial, they would never have bothered to insert the right to a fair trial into the Constitution in the first place. The simple fact is that they never put that much faith in the government or its bureaucracy and neither should you
<<The rule of law is not a suicide pact for Western civilization.>>
That is patently ridiculous. Western civilization is going to self-destruct unless Awlaki is hit by a drone? Bullshit, bullshit AND bullshit. He is not that important. A thousand guys like him are not that important. Never have been and never will be. The whole "not a suicide pact" is a smart-ass buzz-phrase used by the enemies of the rule of law to belittle the rule of law and make it appear dangerous and subversive. The real danger and subversion of course coming from the enemies of the rule of law, who are willing to use any pathetic "threat" they can find (and Awlaki is certainly a prime example) to scare and panic those who uphold the rule of law. If they have their way, Awlaki will be dead, the Bill of Rights will be dead, and America will not be one per cent safer because there have always been guys like Awlaki and there always will be.
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You mean "authorize the CIA to kill a select few US citizens that have allegedly become allied with alleged "terrorists" allegedly waging war on the United States."
Don't worry they are only alledgedly going to kill him , then he will only alledgedly be dead.You don't seem to get that until the government's accusations are tested in court in a fair and open trial, they remain ONLY accusations, not crimes. As long as the government has the power to kill without trial those whom it chooses to accuse, there is no citizen that is safe from arbitrary execution. This is unprecedented. It is outrageous. It is a direct assault on the Constitution and on the Constitutional rights of each and every American citizen. This never happened before. Never.
The Civil War ,may I remind you, did not start with a trial for each of the American citizens that the government was about to stack like cords of wood. Every war is like this Never diffrent .
Awlaki has declaired himself a soldier of the war , he should expect to be treated as a soldier of the war , since when have soldiers demanded trials before battle?
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That's a whole nuther issue. IMHO, no, because I don't believe in the War on Terror. I think it's absurd to elevate this conflict to the status of a war, which is always between nation-states.
My bullshit detector goes off every time this gets said.
How can I pay attention to the rest of any arguements while the bullshit decetor is makeing such a racket?
Since when has "war" been defined as always between nation-states?
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<<The Civil War ,may I remind you, did not start with a trial for each of the American citizens that the government was about to stack like cords of wood. Every war is like this Never diffrent .>>
Speaking of bullshit detectors, mine went off like a house on fire in regards to one of your previous posts in this thread, which I meant to answer, but never got around to, and now this. Are you actually claiming that Lincoln made up hit lists of Southerners to be assassinated without charges or trial? Because I really was not aware of this. Please elaborate.
<<Awlaki has declaired himself a soldier of the war , he should expect to be treated as a soldier of the war , since when have soldiers demanded trials before battle?>>
Since when can Awlaki's status be determined by his own statements? Had he claimed to be the Messiah, would that mean that he could expect to be treated as the Messiah? Even if his words amount to a renunciation of US citizenship, that renunciation would have to be proved in a court of law, it is not up to you or some government bureaucrat to determine "Well, that's it! He's just renounced his citizenship by those words, so he's predator fodder now." You don't even trust the fucking bureaucracy to regulate the health insurance industry, but here you are giving it the power to decide whether an American citizen lives or dies. How come?
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<<Awlaki has declaired himself a soldier of the war , he should expect to be treated as a soldier of the war , since when have soldiers demanded trials before battle?>>
Since when can Awlaki's status be determined by his own statements? Had he claimed to be the Messiah, would that mean that he could expect to be treated as the Messiah? Even if his words amount to a renunciation of US citizenship, that renunciation would have to be proved in a court of law
Tee has really gone where no man has gone before, with that tripe ::)
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Are you actually claiming that Lincoln made up hit lists of Southerners to be assassinated without charges or trial? Because I really was not aware of this. Please elaborate.
............................................
Since when can Awlaki's status be determined by his own statements? ................
So you don't think of the President of the US who presided over trhe most ruinous war the US has ever had to be a bloodthirsty scaliwag? Why not ? Lincon was completely right on the question of abolition of slavery , and had a good point to make on the preservation of the union , it is good that he won out. However, every casualty of the Civil war is on his hands because he had oppurtunity to do otherwise and allow the divorce. The Civil war ws an elective war a war of choice , as very few other wars ,the choice of an individual.
By the way , has anyone ever broken Lincons record for hanging the most persons on a single gallows at one time? This record might last a while.
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So he can't confess to treason and present evidence against himself and commit even more crime in view of the public and every Marshall who owns a TV AND join forces with the soldiers of Al Queda but cannot do or say anything that makes him vunerable to executive action?
Lots of soldiers get shot on sight , lots of criminals get shot while trying to evade arrest, what is the uncommon element of this?
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By the way , has anyone ever broken Lincons record for hanging the most persons on a single gallows at one time? This record might last a while.
When and where was that?
Lincoln was not responsible for hanging the various people involved in the conspiracy to assassinate him, by the way.
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FIRST you say that Lincoln was right to free the slaves and to preserve the Union.
THEN you say that he was wrong to have not just allowed the South to secede. So hoe, pray tell, would he have freed the slaves and preserved the Union by allowing the Secession?
I agree that since the states voluntarily decided to join the Union, they also logically had the right to leave it. That makes logical sense, but it hardly makes geopolitical sense. One could envision a WWII with the Brits allied with the Union and the Germans with the Confederacy, though had the US never gotten involved with WWI, there might have been no Nazi movement later on. Maximilian and the French Emperor Napoleon III had the intention of invading the US once they subdued the Mexicans, by the way. Certainly the Union and the Confederacy, once separated, would have been unlikely to have rejoined at some later date: a divided US was to the advantage of every concerned European power.
I decided long ago that at some point in the Spring of 1861, had I been alive at that time, I would have struck out for Idaho. There was a modest gold rush, and I would have known where to dig.
No way I would die for either side in the Civil War. Mark Twain had the right idea about this. He didn't even have to pay the $300 to hire someone to replace him in th4e ranks, as did Theodore Roosevelt's father.
One more or one fewer soldier would not have made a difference, like one vote. I always vote, but voting is never fatal, as is being a soldier.
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<<So you don't think of the President of the US who presided over trhe most ruinous war the US has ever had to be a bloodthirsty scaliwag? >>
You are avoiding answering my question, which did not in any way involve the "issue" of whether or not Lincoln was a "bloodthirsty scallawag?" Personally, I think that the more racist bastards he killed, the better a man he was. Consider each one of those evil, slaving, racist, immoral bastards to be a sacrifice laid on the altar of God Almighty, who hates slavers and slavery. As Jews we pray every year at Passover to thank God for freeing us from Egyptian slavery. Do we consider our God to be a "bloodthirsty scallawag" for slaying the firstborn sons of the Egyptians or drowning their fucking army in the Red Sea? Fuck 'em. If they offended God by enslaving their fellow human beings, they deserved the worst that could befall them. Their deaths are a source of rejoicing, not recrimination.
<<Lincon was completely right on the question of abolition of slavery . . . >>
Wow, you must be a man of the New South I used to read about. How progressive.
<< . . . and had a good point to make on the preservation of the union , it is good that he won out. >>
Yeah, imagine those fucking racist bastards winning? They'd have joined forces with Hitler 80 years on down the road. White Power!!!
<<However, every casualty of the Civil war is on his hands . . . >>
God-damn right it is, and it's too fucking bad he didn't kill ten times as many, maybe then the Jim Crow of the next hundred years would not have had to happen.
<< . . . because he had oppurtunity to do otherwise and allow the divorce. The Civil war ws an elective war a war of choice , as very few other wars ,the choice of an individual.>>
Well, a lot of black folk are plenty happy that he chose what he chose, just like a lot of white racist bastards in the South are really pissed off about it. I bet every time they pull their hoods over their heads, they curse that bastard Lincoln.
<<By the way , has anyone ever broken Lincons record for hanging the most persons on a single gallows at one time? This record might last a while.>>
I dunno, are you ever going to answer my question, did Lincoln produce a hit list of Southerners to be targeted for assassination or did he not?
..............................................................
<<Lots of soldiers get shot on sight . . . >>
I guess they do, in combat. Did Lincoln ever produce a list of Southerners or Southern sympathizers or supporters to be assassinated, or did he not?
<< . . . lots of criminals get shot while trying to evade arrest>>
Yeah, when there's an arrest warrant or they're caught in the act and fleeing. Always with an inquiry to ensure that reasonable force was applied and no other alternative existed. Did Lincoln ever produce a list of Southerners or Southern sympathizers or supporters to be assassinated, or did he not?
<<what is the uncommon element of this?>>
Once again, this is a list of U.S. citizens to be killed. A hit list. It's not an arrest warrant, it's not use of reasonable force in the course of pursuing a fleeing suspect caught in the act, it's not one soldier shooting another on the battlefield, it's not a guy dodging a warrant (there hasn't been a warrant cuz there haven't been any charges) - -
Geeze, plane, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were running out of false analogies. But that would be selling you short.
Anyway, you gonna answer my question or not? (I highlighted this in red for you to make it easier to find.)
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.......I agree that since the states voluntarily decided to join the Union, they also logically had the right to leave it........
...... you say that Lincoln was right to free the slaves and to preserve the Union.
Yep, Lincon had to cheat the rules severely in order to do a good thing.
He also suspended Habeis corpus and refused to exchange prisoners of war.
You are pretty close to getting my point , no way President Obama has twisted the constitution into knots as much as Lincon did , we generally want the Constitution respected but Lincon gets a lot of forgiveness in this question.
Obama will too, if he is as successfull at getting good done.
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<<You are pretty close to getting my point , no way President Obama has twisted the constitution into knots as much as Lincon did , we generally want the Constitution respected but Lincon gets a lot of forgiveness in this question.>>
We gotta really get this straight. Obama has authorized the assassination of American citizens without charges, without judge or jury trial, without proof of anything beyond what some faceless bureaucrat has determined.
Yet without giving one single example of such a drastic measure taken by Lincoln, Lincoln was somehow the worse and the more radical of the two Presidents.
There you have it, folks - - Southern "logic" at work
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Until Onbama suspends Habeas Corpus, i would think Lincoln has him beat.
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So you think that suspending habeas corpus trumps ordering assassinations?
That's obviously crazy - - once the guy's assassinated, ALL his rights (including habeas) are gone for good.
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Assassination or locking him up forever, what's the difference? At least with assassination there is an end point.
And I still don't see why his citizenship status gives him immunity. Wouldn't have stopped Stalin or Il Sung.
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<<Assassination or locking him up forever, what's the difference? At least with assassination there is an end point. >>
I really hope that you are not serious in asking the above question.
There are, of course, important differences between the two; one's reversible, one's not. Lots of revolutionaries have been locked up for long periods of time, Nelson Mandela for one. Many Communist leaders served long sentences, some indefinite. You can organize classes in prison, learn, study, conspire. There's a lot to do in prison. There's nothing to do in the grave. See the difference?
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So you personally would prefer life in prison to a death sentence swiftly carried out?
Don't know if I would.
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Your choice, my friend.
Dostoevsky said, "Even in prison, life is life." I used the quote before in this group. He meant that even a prisoner has challenges, defeats and triumphs. It's still life, albeit in a new environment.
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Lincoln has been treated very well by history, because (1) he preserved the Union, and the country advanced as a result in almost every way, and (2) he was martyred. When a president gets killed in office, his critics tend to shut up. Lincoln is generally criticized only by Southerners, and far less than Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy thanks to his being the first "martyred" president.
Still, if we accept that slavery was legal and Lincoln has no right to abolish it, and that the Southern States had every right to succeed, and at the same time acknowledge that the Union should have been preserved and slavery should have been abolished, there is a serious contradiction, as you are saying that what was wrong had no moral justification for being set right.
It would be fun to invent a Wayback machine and stuff Rand Paul into it, just to hear how he would have solved this crisis in US history. Slaves were legal property, how could the government confiscate them without remunerating their owners? Property rights are not to be messed with. And how to prevent the South from seceding, since it clearly had the right to do so?
Mr. Paul? Mr Paul?
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Lincoln has been treated very well by history, because (1) he preserved the Union, and the country advanced as a result in almost every way, and (2) he was martyred. When a president gets killed in office, his critics tend to shut up. Lincoln is generally criticized only by Southerners, and far less than Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy thanks to his being the first "martyred" president.
Still, if we accept that slavery was legal and Lincoln has no right to abolish it, and that the Southern States had every right to succeed, and at the same time acknowledge that the Union should have been preserved and slavery should have been abolished, there is a serious contradiction, as you are saying that what was wrong had no moral justification for being set right.
It would be fun to invent a Wayback machine and stuff Rand Paul into it, just to hear how he would have solved this crisis in US history. Slaves were legal property, how could the government confiscate them without remunerating their owners? Property rights are not to be messed with. And how to prevent the South from seceding, since it clearly had the right to do so?
Mr. Paul? Mr Paul?
There is an important point.
We want very much a nation of laws not men , yet our laws were not doing well at solveing the moral contradiction that slavry was produceing.
Lincon operated on the fringe of the rules went beyond them and made a bloody mess , but even southerners (four generations along)can forgive his rulebending because the contradiction we had imbedded in our rules was causeing a moral dissonance destructive of everything anyway.
Lincon didn't do quite enough to set everything right , but he helped us survive our leaveing the ruts we were stuck in and which set us on the path twards fixing the rest over the following century. His other choices would have produced a smaller less influential US. He chose rule breaking and a bloody elective war , time has proven this the right choice but, this wasn't clear to everyone at the time.
Lincon also signed death warrants in the Indian wars that carried on simultainious to the Civil War the Indians didn't evaporate those four years , they just didn't get as much attention.
http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/hanging.html (http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/hanging.html)
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<<Lincon also signed death warrants in the Indian wars . . . >>
I doubt if the Indians were American citizens, thus no violation of the Constitution. I'd also like to know if the death warrants resulted from any judicial proceeding completed before Lincoln signed them.
Hundreds of thousands of third world citizens have been blown to pieces in Bush's wars of choice, what are a few death warrants signed against a few Indians in comparison? (Don't get me wrong, a crime's still a crime, but many American Presidents are international war criminals.) The targeted assassination of American citizens is definitely breaking new ground.
There is STILL no prior case of an American President authorizing the assassination of an American citizen without a trial.
None.
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Google search for the term in quotations
"American President authorizing the assassination "
First result "Did you mean: American "President authorized the assassination " "
Hahahaha
Oh man , first three hundred are about Obama , I didn't wish this one on him.
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<<Oh man , first three hundred are about Obama , I didn't wish this one on him.>>
Yet you persist in claiming there's nothing novel in Obama's actions. Man, you got yourself a tough row to hoe. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
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Is Assassination an Option?
By Bruce Berkowitz
Is assassination a legitimate tool of American foreign policy? If so, under what circumstances? By Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.
Soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. officials announced that they had evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the attacks. As Americans began to recover from their initial shock, many of them asked, "Why don?t we just get rid of the guy?"
The terrorist tragedy reopened one of the most controversial issues in national security policy: assassination. Few topics raise more passion. Yet, despite the intense emotions assassination raises, assassination rarely gets the kind of dispassionate analysis that we routinely devote to other national security issues. That is what I will do here. When it comes to assassination, four questions are key: What is it? Is it legal? Does it work? And when, if ever, is assassination acceptable?
What Is It?
One reason assassination?or, for that matter, banning assassination?provokes so much disagreement is that people often use the term without a precise definition and thus are really arguing about different things. One needs to be clear. Depending on the definition, one can be arguing about activities that are really quite different.
"The unintended result of banning assassinations has been to make U.S. leaders perform verbal acrobatics to explain how they have tried to kill someone in a military operation without really trying to kill him."
For example, is killing during wartime assassination? Does assassination refer to killing people of high rank, or can anyone be the target of assassination? Does it matter if a member of the armed forces, a civilian government official, or a hired hand does the killing? Depending on the definition, killing a military leader during a bombing raid might be "assassination" but killing a low-level civilian official with a sniper might not.
For what it is worth, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines assassination by referring to the verb assassinate, which is defined as "to injure or destroy unexpectedly and treacherously" or "murder by sudden or secret attack usually for impersonal reasons." In other words, assassination is murder?killing a person?using secrecy or surprise. Assassination stands in contrast to murder without surprise (e.g., a duel). Also, assassination is not murder for personal gain or vengeance; assassinations support the goals of a government, organization, group, or cause.
Although people associate assassinations with prominent people, strictly speaking, assassination knows no rank. Leaders are often the targets of state-sponsored assassination, but history shows that generals, common soldiers, big-time crime bosses, and low-level terrorists have all been targets, too. Also, it does not seem to matter how you kill the target. It does not matter if you use a bomb or a booby trap; as long as you target a particular person, it?s assassination.
For our purposes, assume that assassination is "deliberately killing a particular person to achieve a military or political objective, using the element of surprise to gain an advantage." We can call such a killing "sanctioned assassination" when a government has someone carry out such an action?as opposed to, say, "simple assassination," killing by an individual acting on his own. Then the question is, should we allow the United States to sanction such activities? And, if we allow the government to sanction assassination, when and how should do it?
Is It Legal?
You might be surprised to learn that there are no international laws banning assassination. The closest thing to a prohibition is the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, Including Diplomatic Agents. This treaty (which the United States signed) bans attacks against heads of state while they conduct formal functions, heads of government while they travel abroad, and diplomats while they perform their duties.
The Protected Persons Convention was intended to ensure that governments could function and negotiate even during war. Without it, countries might start a war (or get drawn into one) and then find themselves unable to stop because there was no leader at home to make the decision to do so and because their representatives were getting picked off on their way to cease-fire negotiations.
But other than these narrow cases, the Protected Persons Convention says nothing about prohibiting assassination. Even then it applies only to officials representing bona fide governments and "international organizations of an intergovernmental character." So presumably the convention shields the representatives of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Red Cross, and, probably, the PLO. It does not protect bosses of international crime syndicates or the heads of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.
Another treaty that some might construe as an assassination ban is the Hague Convention on the "laws and customs" of war. The Hague Convention states that "the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited." (This was a bold statement in 1907, when the convention was signed.)
The Hague Convention tried to draw a sharp line between combatants and noncombatants; combatants were entitled to the convention?s protections but were also obliged to obey its rules. For example, the Hague Convention tried to distinguish combatants by requiring them to wear a "fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance." Wear the emblem while fighting, and you are entitled to be treated as a POW if captured; fail to follow the dress code, and you might be hanged as a mere bandit.
"According to the available information, every U.S. effort to kill a high-ranking official outside a full-scale war has failed."
Alas, maintaining this definition of a "combatant" proved a losing battle throughout the twentieth century. Guerrilla warfare transformed civilians into soldiers. Strategic bombing transformed civilians into targets. Headquarters staff, defense ministers, and civilian commanders in chief today are all more likely to wear suits than uniforms. Teenage paramilitary soldiers in Liberia are lucky to have a pair of Levis to go along with their AK-47s, let alone fatigues or insignia. That is why, practically speaking, a "combatant" today is anyone who is part of a military chain of command.
Yet the Hague Convention may be more interesting not for what it prohibits but for what it permits. The closest the convention comes to banning assassination is when it prohibits signatories from killing or wounding "treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army." But when it refers to "treachery," it is referring to fighting under false pretenses (e.g., flying the enemy?s flag or wearing his uniform to lure him to death). The Hague Convention specifically permits "ruses of war." Snipers, land mines, deception, camouflage, and other sneaky tactics are okay. In fact, one might even argue that, since the convention prohibits indiscriminate killing, state-sanctioned assassination?the most precise and deliberate killing of all?during war is exactly what the treaty calls for.
The third international agreement that is relevant to assassination is the Charter of the United Nations, which allows countries to use military force in the name of self-defense. If a country can justify a war as "defensive," it can kill any person in the enemy?s military chain of command that it can shoot, bomb, burn, or otherwise eliminate. And it can use whatever "ruses of war" it needs to get the job done. As a result, the main legal constraints on sanctioned assassination other than domestic law, which makes murder a crime in almost all countries, are rules that nations impose on themselves.
The U.S. government adopted such a ban in 1976, when President Ford?responding to the scandal that resulted when the press revealed CIA involvement in several assassinations?issued Executive Order 11905. This order prohibited what it called "political assassination" and essentially reaffirmed an often-overlooked ban that Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms had adopted for the CIA four years earlier. Jimmy Carter reaffirmed the ban in 1978 with his own Executive Order 12036. Ronald Reagan went even further in 1981; his Executive Order 12333 banned assassination in toto. This ban on assassination remains in effect today.
Even so, there has been a disconnect between our policy and practice. The United States has tried to kill foreign leaders on several occasions since 1976, usually as part of a larger military operation.
For example, in 1986, U.S. Air Force and Navy planes bombed Libya after a Libyan terrorist attack against a nightclub frequented by American soldiers in Berlin. One of the targets was Muammar Qaddafi?s tent. During Desert Storm in 1991, we bombed Saddam Hussein?s official residences and command bunkers. After the United States linked Osama bin Laden to terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, we launched a cruise missile attack at one of his bases in Afghanistan.
In each case, U.S. officials insisted that our forces were merely aiming at "command and control" nodes or at a building linked to military operations or terrorist activities. In each case, however, the same officials admitted off the record that they would not have been upset if Qaddafi, Saddam, or bin Laden had been killed in the process.
More recently, according to press reports, presidents have also approved so-called lethal covert operations?operations in which there is a good chance that an unfriendly foreign official might be killed. For example, the press reported a CIA-backed covert operation to topple Saddam in 1996 that probably would have killed him in the process, given the record of Iraqi leadership successions (no one has left office alive). After the September 11 terrorist strikes on New York and Washington, former Clinton officials leaked word to reporters that the CIA had trained Pakistani commandos in 1999 to snatch bin Laden. Given the record of such operations, bin Laden would likely not have survived.
In short, the unintended result of banning assassinations has been to make U.S. leaders perform verbal acrobatics to explain how they have tried to kill someone in a military operation without really trying to kill him. One has to wonder about the wisdom of any policy that allows officials to do something but requires them to deny that they are doing it. We would be better off simply doing away with the prohibition, at least as it applies to U.S. military operations.
Does It Work?
The effectiveness of assassination has depended much on its objectives. Most (but not all) attempts to change the course of large-scale political and diplomatic trends have failed. Assassination has been more effective in achieving small, specific goals.
Indeed, past U.S. assassination attempts have had great difficulty in even achieving the minimal level of success: killing the intended target. According to the available information, every U.S. effort to kill a high-ranking official since World War II outside a full-scale war has failed. This record is so poor that it would be hard to find an instrument of national policy that has been less successful in achieving its objectives than assassination (although price controls or election reform may come in a close second).
According to the Church Committee investigations of the 1970s, the CIA supported assassins trying to kill Patrice Lumumba of the Congo in 1961 and repeatedly tried to assassinate Fidel Castro between 1961 and 1963. In addition, American officials were either privy to plots or encouraged coups that caused the death of a leader (Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic in 1961, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963, General Ren? Schneider of Chile in 1970, and, later, President Salvador Allende in 1973). And, as noted, in recent years the United States has tried to do away with Qaddafi, Saddam, and bin Laden.
What is notable about this record is that it is remarkably free of success. Castro, Qaddafi, Saddam, and (at least at this writing) bin Laden all survived. (As this is being written, U.S. forces are hunting bin Laden as part of the larger war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.) What is more, Qaddafi continued to support terrorism (e.g., the bombing of Pan Am flight 103). Saddam has managed to outlast the terms of two presidents who wanted to eliminate him (George Bush and Bill Clinton), while continuing to support terrorism?and developing weapons of mass destruction.
One might have predicted this dismal record just by considering why American leaders have resorted to the assassination option. More often than not, assassination is the option when nothing seems to work but officials think that they need to do something. When diplomacy is ineffective and war seems too costly, assassination becomes the fallback?but without anyone asking whether it will accomplish anything.
This seems to have been the thinking behind the reported U.S. covert operation to eliminate Saddam in the mid-1990s. Despite a series of provocations?an assassination attempt against former president George Bush, violence against Shi?ite Muslims and Kurds, and violations of U.N. inspection requirements?the Clinton administration was unwilling to wage a sustained, full-scale war against him. Diplomacy was also failing, as the United States was unable to hold together the coalition that won Desert Storm. Covert support to Saddam?s opponents in the military was the alternative. It was an utter failure.
True, some other countries have been more successful in that they have killed their target. For example, after the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israeli special services tracked down and killed each of the Palestinian guerrillas who took part (they also killed an innocent Palestinian in a case of mistaken identity). In 1988 Israeli commandos killed Khalil Al-Wazir, a lieutenant of Yasser Arafat?s, in a raid on PLO headquarters in Tunisia. More recently, Israel has killed specifically targeted Palestinian terrorist leaders?for example, Yechya Ayyash, who was killed with a booby-trapped cell phone.
Other countries have also attempted assassinations with some degree of tactical success. During the Cold War, the KGB was linked to several assassinations. Most recently, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was suspected of being involved in the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance opposition.
But even "successful" assassinations have often left the sponsor worse off, not better. The murder of Diem sucked the United States deeper into a misconceived policy. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln (carried out by a conspiracy some believe to have links to the Confederate secret service) resulted in Reconstruction. German retribution against Czech civilians after the 1942 assassination of Nazi prefect Reinhard Heydrich by British-sponsored resistance fighters was especially brutal. The 1948 assassination of Mohandas Gandhi by Hindu extremists led to violence that resulted in the partition of India.
"More often than not, assassination is the option when nothing seems to work but officials still think they need to do something."
In short, assassination has usually been unreliable in shaping large-scale political trends the way the perpetrators intended (though the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Zionist extremist in 1995 may be the exception). When it accomplishes anything beyond simply killing the target, it is usually by depriving an enemy of the talents of some uniquely skilled individual. For example, in 1943 U.S. warplanes shot down an aircraft known to be carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto?the architect of Japan?s early victories in the Pacific. His loss hurt the Japanese war effort. The same could be said of the loss of Massoud to the Northern Alliance.
The problem is, picking off a talented individual is almost always harder than it looks. One paradox of modern warfare is that, although it is not that hard to kill many people, it can be very difficult to kill a particular person. One has to know exactly where the target will be at a precise moment. This is almost always hard, especially in wartime.
Should We Do It, and If So, How?
This is the most complex issue, of course. The morality of sanctioned assassination depends mainly on whether and when one can justify murder. Most religions and agnostic philosophies agree that individuals have the right to kill in self-defense when faced with immediate mortal danger. This principle is codified in American law. And, as we have seen, even international law seems to allow killing?even killing specific individuals?when it can be justified as armed self-defense.
Although most Americans do not like the idea of deliberate killing, they do not completely reject it, either. Most would agree that their government should be allowed to kill (or, more precisely, allow people to kill in its behalf) in at least two situations.
"The problem is, picking off a talented individual is almost always harder than it looks."
One situation is when a police officer must eliminate an immediate threat to public safety?for example, shooting an armed robber or apprehending a suspect who has proven dangerous in the past and who resists arrest. The other situation is when soldiers go to war to defend the country from attack. In addition, many?but not all?Americans believe that the government should be allowed to kill in the case of capital crimes.
It is probably not a coincidence that the U.S. Constitution also envisions these three?and only these three?situations in which the federal government might take a life: policing, going to war, and imposing capital punishment. Logically, then, assassination must fit into one of these three tracks. Assassination can be considered a police act, in which case it must follow the rules for protecting accused criminals. Or it can be considered a military act, in which case it must follow the rules that control how the United States wages war. Or it can be considered capital punishment, in which case it must follow the rules of due process.
Given this, when would we want to allow government to kill a particular foreign national? Clearly we should not use assassination as a form of de facto capital punishment. Unless the intended target presents a clear and immediate threat, there is always time to bring a suspect to justice, where we could guarantee due process. Similarly, although police should be able to protect themselves and others while making an arrest, we would not want police to pursue their targets with the expectation that they would routinely kill them.
The only time we should consider assassination is when we need to eliminate a clear, immediate, lethal threat from abroad. In other words, assassination is a military option. We need to understand it as such because the United States will face more situations in which it must decide whether it is willing, in effect, to go to war to kill a particular individual and how it will target specific individuals during wartime. Two factors make this scenario likely.
First, technology often makes it hard for one not to target specific people. Weapons are so accurate today that, when one programs their guidance systems, you aim not just for a neighborhood, or a building in the neighborhood, but for a particular room in a particular building. In effect, even bombing and long-range missile attacks have become analogous to sniping. You cannot always be sure you will hit your target?just as snipers often miss and sometimes hit the wrong target?but you still must aim at specific people.
"The only time we should consider assassination is when we need to eliminate a clear, immediate, lethal threat from abroad."
Second, the nature of the threats we face today will likely require us to target specific individuals. Terrorist organizations today use modern communications to organize themselves as worldwide networks. These networks consist of small cells that can group and regroup as needed to prepare for a strike. This is how the bin Laden organization has operated. Seeing how successful these tactics have been, many armies will likely often adopt a similar approach. To defeat such networked organizations, our military forces will need to move quickly, find the critical cells in a network, and destroy them. This inevitably will mean identifying specific individuals and killing them?in other words, assassination.
But when we do so, we should be clear in our own minds that, when the United States tries to assassinate someone, we are going to war?with all the risks and costs that war brings. These include, for example, diplomatic consequences, the danger of escalation, the threat of retaliation against our own leaders, the threat of retaliation against American civilians, and so on.
Because assassination is an act of war, such activities should always be considered a military operation. American leaders need to resist the temptation to use intelligence organizations for this mission. Intelligence organizations are outside the military chain of command. Intelligence operatives are not expected to obey the rules of war and thus are not protected by those rules. At the same time, intelligence organizations are also not law enforcement organizations. In many situations, having intelligence organizations kill specific individuals looks too much like a death sentence without due process.
Indeed, there is reason to question whether intelligence organizations are even technically qualified for assassination. In every publicly known case in which the CIA has considered killing a foreign leader, the agency has outsourced the job. In most cases, it has recruited a foreign intelligence service or military officials with better access. In some of the attempts to kill Castro, the CIA recruited Mafia hit men. Even in the more recent reported cases of lethal covert actions, foreigners would have done the actual killing. It is hard to maintain control and quality when you subcontract assassination services?as the record shows.
The United States did not ask for the threats we currently face, and killing on behalf of the state will always be the most controversial, most distasteful policy issue of all. That is why we need to use blunt language and appreciate exactly what we are proposing. Sugarcoating the topic only hides the tough issues we need to decide as a country. But if we do need to target specific people for military attack, it is important that we get it right.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/4477731.html (http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/4477731.html)
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<<Oh man , first three hundred are about Obama , I didn't wish this one on him.>>
Yet you persist in claiming there's nothing novel in Obama's actions. Man, you got yourself a tough row to hoe. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Maybe I am wrong , perhaps I have been watching too many spy movies .
I am going to look again.
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http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/2856-cia-has-program-to-assassinate-us-citizens
Bush era.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/index.html (https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/index.html)
Chile was a mess
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen)
A 1981 Executive Order signed by Ronald Reagan provides: "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." Before the Geneva Conventions were first enacted, Abraham Lincoln -- in the middle of the Civil War -- directed Francis Lieber to articulate rules of conduct for war, and those were then incorporated into General Order 100, signed by Lincoln in April, 1863. Here is part of what it provided, in Section IX, entitled "Assassinations":
The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.
Ok so it is not nearly as common a tactic as I had thought , not totally without prescident but fraught with problems I didn't see as I started looking.
I thought that human beings lives should not be taken lightly whether they were a citizen or not, the citizenship may make more diffrence than i had expected.
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<<not totally without prescident >>
You linked to some pretty lengthy material, plane. As far as I could determine, as regards the assassination of U.S. citizens, there is no precedent for assassination of a U.S. citizen by his own government apart from the precedent set by Dubya and now followed by Obama. No other Presidents went that route.
Is that a correct reading of the material you posted?
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<<not totally without prescident >>
You linked to some pretty lengthy material, plane. As far as I could determine, as regards the assassination of U.S. citizens, there is no precedent for assassination of a U.S. citizen by his own government apart from the precedent set by Dubya and now followed by Obama. No other Presidents went that route.
Is that a correct reading of the material you posted?
I could look some more , I suspect something could be there.
But I suppose the point of dimishing returns is near , or past .
I admit being wrong on this point.
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That's OK. Nobody's right all the time. Not even me. But what about Honest Abe? Is he still a "bloodthirsty scallawag?"
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That's OK. Nobody's right all the time. Not even me. But what about Honest Abe? Is he still a "bloodthirsty scallawag?"
Oh yes , and a lot of his favoriate generals were butchers too.
That is what it took , a bit less might not have been enough.
The Civil war had an alternative , the ameable divorce that Chechoslovachia performed. The very hard Civil war had an alternative too the endless- neither side has enough to really win- civil war that Yugoslavia is not quite through with yet.
So Lincon made hard choices , choices he knew were bloody , with a little less success he would be remembered as a monster.
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The Civil war had an alternative , the ameable divorce that Chechoslovachia performed. The very hard Civil war had an alternative too the endless- neither side has enough to really win- civil war that Yugoslavia is not quite through with yet.
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There were no slaves involved in either part of Czechoslovakia. Both nations joined the EU and property rights of Czechs and Slovaks were respected. The US Civil War was not an ethnic struggle like those of the European nations. Slovakia is rural, poorer and more Slavic. The Czech Republic is industrial, more prosperous and more like Germany culturally. The Czechs got tired of subsidizing the Slovaks. The Slovaks were outvoted by the Czechs and got tired of Czech domination. Both sides gained by the separation. Miami has a Czechoslovakian Club, and they have not seen any reason to divide, as nearly all of them are Czechs.
Brazil abolished slavery in the 1890's, and became a Republic at the same time. There was a gradual end: they first declared that no one would be born a slave after a specified date, and then abolished it for older people about 20 years afterward. At that time, the older slaves' value had declined due to their age. Something similar happened in Cuba and the rest of the Spanish Empire.
This was not done in the US, mostly because the Southern Plantation slaveholders were such dogmatic assholes. This is easy to see by reading the literature of the time. The general tone was that the Plantation owners were actually protectors of the childlike slaves, and that slavery was GOOD for the poor darkies. Frederick Douglass and other literate Blacks were generally seen as exceptional, because they had some White blood.
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There were no slaves involved in either part of Czechoslovakia.
What is your point?
Lincon did not have to prevent the secession, he had a hard choice.
The Civil war was elective , that is my point.