South Africa not the only battleground

The fierce debate that has been raging in South Africa about the supremacy of the country’s Constitution, the role of an independent judiciary and its relationship to the executive is not unique to this country. In the United Sates a senior politician is even suggesting that president Barack Obama might be open to impeachment for violation of that country’s Constitution and the rule of law.

Republican congressman Ron Paul, running for his party’s nomination as candidate for next year’s presidential elections, has suggested that president Obama’s order for the targeted killing of American citizens based in Yemen by a drone attack, might be an impeachable offense.

Dr. John Cobin, an American writer living in Chile, in a letter to Business Insider gives a good overview of what is at stake. He writes:

The rule of law is one of the most important achievements in Western history, and its demise heralds the end of civilization. The US Constitution guarantees the rule of law in its Fifth Amendment, which states in pertinent part: “No person… shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

However, this rule was violated on 30 September 2011 when President Obama ordered the killing of two Muslim citizens of the United States: Anwar Awlaki and Samir Khan. While Bush tortured prisoners suspected of terror crimes, Obama has surpassed his predecessor by killing people who are “on his list of potentially problematic people” without complying with the “due process” clause of the Constitution.

According to a report from 30 September 2011, Awlaki was not convicted of any crime and President Obama has had a difficult time justifying the killing.

Awlaki was never charged with any crime. He was killed without even being formally accused or being stripped of his American citizenship.

The report also notes that the American Civil Liberties Union has condemned the drone attack on Awlaki. The ACLU believes that “it is a mistake to invest the President – any President – with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country.”

Khan just wrote an article in a radical Islamic, hateful magazine. So what? For doing that the government has the right to kill him? So what if Awlaki and Khan’s words inspired others to do evil? Do we use capital punishment now to combat hate speech? How can we be in favour of killing people that are merely accused and not convicted of any crime?

I’m not Muslim, I am a Christian. But I do not favour killing disagreeable people, whether they are citizens or foreigners, because of their religious convictions or their threatening words.

Sure, you can execute any person convicted of a capital crime. However, I cannot condone executing a person merely because the government has charged or blacklisted him. We in Western civilization supposedly have the rule of law to protect people from the omnipotent state. Or rather, we had it.

This notorious act of the executive branch of the United States has shown a frightening and sad reality: that the rule of law has died in the USA. Paul Craig Roberts just wrote a profound article about this watershed event that everyone should read, The Day America Died.

“This action is not the only incursion which has led to abrogate the rule of law. Can you recall some other examples? In Kelo vs City of New London (2005), for instance, the supreme court undermined strong individual property rights.

“We might also mention common drug seizures or government services handled primarily through legislative acts like the RICO Act (1970) and the Patriot Act (2001) which have had the same effect. Furthermore, we must not forget the legal annual slaughter of about 1.3 million unborn children since 1973, or the tortures of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in the past decade.

“This malicious trend shows that the demise of the rule of law has been gradual, a kind of death with agony, but undertaking deprivation of the life of American citizens without due process of law has now put the final nail in the coffin.”

In another article Gulf News writes: “Obama needs to clean up the legal authority for the American armed forces' actions. Bizarrely, the administration has not used the US commander in chief's inherent constitutional authority to defend the USA, but instead has used the resolution rushed through Congress in September 2001 authorising the president to use force against nations, organisations, or persons involved in the September 11 attacks, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the US.

“These sweeping powers do not acknowledge any geographical limit, and give Obama the authority to kill anyone, anywhere. He seems to be able to loose off missiles wherever he likes, so the next US attack could be in London or Paris, or even Manhattan. It also allows him to attack anyone, including American citizens.”

In another ironic twist to the Awlaki saga, he was a moderate American-Muslim cleric who at one time served as an advisor to the Bush administration after 9/11 on ways to counter Muslim extremism. It is said that he became radicalised by “Washington’s use of lies to justify military attacks on Muslim countries”.

This seems to lend weight to the argument of many expert analysts that the way the US has responded to the 9/11 attacks via its doctrine of war on terror has only succeeded  making more enemies and making the world a more unsafe place by radicalising thousands of Muslims.