Am I the only one that finds it strange that, eleven years after 9/11, the government continues to hype up the never-ending “war on terror” more than ever in order to justify taking away more and more of our civil liberties? It seems that simply having to prove people are directly connected to Al Qaeda (our allies in Syria by the way), has become too much of a hassle for the hellfire missile happy Obama Administration, and they are now actively looking for easier ways to execute individuals without due process. The latest idea centers around the frightening concept of “associates of associates.” From the Washington Post:
A new generation of al-Qaeda offshoots is forcing the Obama administration to examine whether the legal basis for its targeted killing program can be extended to militant groups with little or no connection to the organization responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials said.
How convenient. When will Ron Paul supporters, OWS activists and hackers officially be classified as enemy combatants?
The Authorization for Use of Military Force, a joint resolution passed by Congress three days after the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has served as the legal foundation for U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda over the past decade, including ongoing drone campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen that have killed thousands of people.
But U.S. officials said administration lawyers are increasingly concerned that the law is being stretched to its legal breaking point, just as new threats are emerging in countries including Syria, Libya and Mali.
“The farther we get away from 9/11 and what this legislation was initially focused upon,” a senior Obama administration official said, “we can see from both a theoretical but also a practical standpoint that groups that have arisen or morphed become more difficult to fit in.”
The authorization law has already been expanded by federal courts beyond its original scope to apply to “associated forces” of al-Qaeda. But officials said legal advisers at the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies are now weighing whether the law can be stretched to cover what one former official called “associates of associates.”
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