PRESS RELEASE
Al-Awlaki Assassination Raises
the Question: Is Obama Insane?
Oct. 2, 2011 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee.
As more and more details come out on the premeditated extra-constitutional assassination of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and a second American citizen in Yemen, in a CIA drone attack on Friday, the issue of President Obama's urgent impeachment is really now center stage. But beyond the issue of impeachment, a second urgent question, raised prominently by Lyndon LaRouche in his Friday night address, is also before us: Is President Obama insane and therefore subject to immediate removal from office under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment? How long can the nation survive as a Constitutional Republic if a mentally unbalanced President is running around with the self-proclaimed authority to order the military and the CIA to hunt down and assassinate American citizens, with no due process and no public accountability?
The assassinations of al-Awlaki and the second American citizen, Samir Khan, were in gross violation of the Fifth and First Amendments, putting President Obama, who authorized the assassinations, in violation of the Constitution and subject to immediate impeachment. Lyndon LaRouche decried the killings as "Hitler-style operations," and urged a serious review of President Obama's mental capacity to serve as President.
"There is a pattern of evidence that suggests that President Obama is not mentally fit to serve as President. With the assassinations on Friday in Yemen of at least two American citizens, this issue takes on a degree of deadly urgency. It cannot be ignored for another moment without putting all Americans at risk."
From a variety of public sources, it becomes clear that President Obama assembled an assassination list, including American citizens, as early as January 2010. A month later, then-Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair told a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that in the event that direct action against terrorists involved killing any Americans, the intelligence community would be sure to first get permission. In April 2010, President Obama approved a "kill on sight" order targeting al-Awlaki. The effort to hunt down and kill al-Awlaki was even given a code name: "Objective Troy." The first failed attempt to kill al-Awlaki came in May 2010, when an early rocket attack against him failed.
By late in 2010, the issue of the Obama Administration's plans to assassinate the New Mexico-born cleric had become so public that al-Awlaki's father filed a Federal court suit in Texas seeking an injunction against his son's assassination. In December 2010, Federal Judge John Bates issued an 83-page ruling, dismissing the case on technical grounds, arguing that this was first a matter to be taken up by the executive and legislative branches. The ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights, the organizations representing al-Awlaki's father, next filed a law suit under the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain the secret documents prepared by the Obama Administration to authorize the killing. The Obama Administration's lawyers, defending the hit order, had invoked "State Secrets" in refusing to disclose the basis for the assassination order.
According to the scant news coverage of the Obama Administration's arguments justifying the killing of American citizens without due process, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department prepared a classified finding at some point, arguing that an assassination of al-Awlaki would constitute sufficient "due process in time of war," citing American-born Japanese who fought against the United States in World War II. According to several news accounts, ultimately, Obama cited the Sept. 14, 2001 "Authorization for Use of Military Force," signed by President George W. Bush right after 9/11, as the justification for the assassination.
While the assassination of al-Awlaki and Khan on Friday was carried out by a CIA-deployed drone, operating from a newly established secret base somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, news reports indicated that U.S. Air Force planes were also involved in the operation and were prepared to launch missile strikes if the drone attack failed. The lines of separation between military operations and intelligence operations are now also being willfully blurred by the Obama Administration.
No matter how you cut it, LaRouche is absolutely right in calling this a "Hitler-style operation," and demanding Obama's removal from office by impeachment or invoking of the 25th Amendment.
