Bush Detained Children, Obama Kills Them

Dear Mr. President,
A few comments on that 16-page unsigned, undated InJustice Department memo made public Monday. First, it’s not the really secret stuff, the “official” legal justification for assassinating American citizens without benefit of a trial; that’s still too “sensitive” for even your sycophants on the Senate Intelligence Committee to see. But it does shed a little light on the thinking that went into the justification for you to order the murder of anyone you want murdered. The most striking part is this: “But the document emphasizes that the decision to kill a citizen in certain circumstances is not one in which the courts should play any role, asserting that judges should not restrain the executive branch in making tactical judgments about when to use force against a senior Qaeda leader” (today’s NYT, p. A6). I’m not a constitutional law professor like you, Mr. President, but that strikes me as a clear violation of the Constitution and a disingenuous way to avoid the checks and balances necessary for democracy to function. It also gives you a free hand to finger anyone you want assassinated without clear evidence of wrongdoing or “imminent threat” or even that the person is a “high level member of Qaeda.” No oversight, no responsibility, no problem. So my question is this: What evidence was there that Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a high level leader of al Qaeda? What evidence that he was a member of al Qaeda? He was a 16-year-old boy, born in Denver, Colorado, searching for the father he had not seen in 2 years. His only crime was that his father, also an American citizen, was on your Kill List. How did you make the leap that Abdulrahman was an imminent threat to the United States? Where does your intelligence come from? Bush rounded up some 2,500 children and detained at least 500 in Iraqi detention centers, some at Bagram in Afghanistan and 15 - 20 in Guantanamo (one, a 15-year-old Canadian boy spent 10 years in Guantanamo before finally being released last year). Some of those children at Guantanamo were as young as 13 at the time they were detained. At least one child committed suicide, and one was found guilty of war crimes (none of the real war criminals have ever had to answer for their war crimes). But at least Bush didn’t kill them. You are responsible for the murder of hundreds of children, no less a war criminal than Bush. If they can strip Lance Armstrong of Tour de France medals, surely they can strip you of that Nobel Peace Prize.

Abdul Salam Ghetan,

citizen of Saudi Arabia 

detained at age 17, sent

to Guantanamo Jan. 2002

Released June 2006

Omar Ahmed Kadr

Canadian citizen

detained at age 15

sent to Guantanamo Oct. 2002

First child ever convicted as a

war criminal by military tribunal. 

Returned to Canada Sept. 2012