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In reply to the discussion: Russ Feingold: Obama Super PAC Reversal Will Lead To 'A Legalized Abramoff System' [View all]boppers
(16,588 posts)"killing an American citizen without trial, without presentation of charges, while unarmed, riding in a jeep in the desert are ever acceptable"
1. Unarmed? Nope. Outgunned? Yes.
2. No charges? He couldn't be bothered with responding to warrants and charges. Neither could the nation he was in.
3. "Riding a jeep in the desert" is a funny way of saying "waging war from foreign soil".
Sure, process matters, if there is uncertainty about outcome. If there is no uncertainty, it's a mere pomposity, worshiping at the altar of bureaucratic routine, paying for the paper-pushing. Hussein was brought to trial, for example.
"If someone, somewhere, gets to decide who receives due process and who doesn't, who decides that? What are the criteria?"
In US matters, that would be the Supreme Court.
....Who authorized much of what you're railing against, long, long, before Obama.
Tap without a warrant? Totally legal to do (but cannot be used as evidence in court). Kill without due process? Totally legal on foreign soil, or in combat situations. Hold somebody as a war prisoner until hostilities cease? Also legal.... and most of the decisions on this are over 100 years old, and some date back to the US civil war.