The Awlaki Sanction: Who's Next on the List?

The links connecting Anwar al-Awlaki to anti-American terrorismwere entirely suppositious, forged through unsubstantiated official assertion. Hewas, at most, a clericalpropagandist who never exercised command authority. For that matter, noevidence has been presented that he ever had an operational role in a militaryforce of any kind. 

Awlaki -- an American-born cleric who was once courted by the Pentagon -- was accused of expressing support for armed attacksagainst U.S. military personnel and government interests. It is not terrorismto employ lethal violence against an invading and occupying army, nor is it acrime to express support for armed self-defense -- including armed interposition against the aggressive designs of the U.S. government.  

The administration asserted– without providing evidence – that Awlaki had an “operational” role inplanning terroristattacks against U.S. citizens. If evidence supporting that charge existed,the administration had the unconditional constitutional duty to indict Awlakiand put him on trial. 

Intelligence officials knew Awlaki’s location. Thegovernment of Yemen, which is headed by a pliant thug named Ali Abdullah Saleh,is a wholly owned subsidiary of Washington and would have eagerly cooperated inan effort to track down and extradite Awlaki. But this would not have validatedthe claim – madeby the Bush administration, and embraced by its successor – that thePresident of the United States isn’t bound by the Constitution, but rather is the Living Constitution. 

As a guarantee of individual liberty, a politicalconstitution is about as intrinsically valuable as a paper currency. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are irredeemable unless they are backed by a noble metal –lead, in the form of privately owned ammunition. Nonetheless, and for therecord, this must be said: 

There is nothing in the Constitution or laws of the UnitedStates of America that permits a president to order the summary execution ofany human being. Only Congress can declare war. Only a jury can find someoneguilty of a crime. Only a judge can impose a death sentence. Or such would bethe case, were we still living in a constitutional republic, rather than themilitarist empire into which that republic inevitably degenerated. 

The vertically integrated murder apparatus that killedAwlaki and fellowU.S. citizen Samir Khan is entirely autonomous – and increasingly automated.Awlaki was addedto a “kill list,” and hisexecution “sanctioned” by a secret legal memorandum, on the basis of thingshe had said in public. Within a few years, the machinery of mass murder will berefined to the point where people – including U.S. citizens – may findthemselves targeted for execution on the basis of behavior “patterns” thatsuggest unexpressed by impermissible thoughts. 

 As Thomas Englehardt points out:

“In 2007, [then-] CIA director Michael Hayden beganlobbying the White House for `permission to carry out strikes againsthouses or cars merely on the basis of behavior that matched a “pattern of life”associated with al-Qaeda or other groups.’ And next thing you knew, they weremoving from a few attempted targeted assassinations toward a larger air war of annihilationagainst types and `behaviors.’”

Unmanned, automated drones are an ideal instrument for this variety ofall-encompassing warfare against dissent. “They are capable of roaming theworld,” Englehardt continues. “Someday, they will land on the decks of aircraftcarriers or, tiny as hummingbirds, drop onto a windowsill, maybe even yours, orin their hundreds, the size of bees, swarm to targets and, if all goes well,coordinate their actions using the artificial intelligence version of `hiveminds.’”

Accordingto retired General Wesley Clark, the murder – or, to use his term, “takedown”-- of Anwar al-Awlaki heralds a “transformation” of the Regime’s strategy inwaging open-ended warfare. Awlaki’s death “makes his final legacy a proof ofthe effectiveness of America’s active defense against terrorists,” enthuses Clark. 

He goes on to emit one of the purest specimens of totalitarian agitprop everrecorded:

“For the United States, the journey continues: Awlaki’sdeath … moves us closer to the time when we must transition, psychologicallyand practically, from being a nation under threat to a nation that once againchampions its openness and welcome to the whole world.”

Mere acceptance of the presidential power to execute anybodyon a whim isn’t sufficient. It must be celebrated openly – nay, it must be extolledas a selling point to the rest of the world: Come visit this uniquely blessedland of killer drones and murder by executive decree! 

Inspired by Clark’s exhortation, and eager to display mypatriotic zeal to eradicate those who have aided and supported terrorism, Iwould like to submit two nominees for the next drone-inflicted counter-terrorist“takedown”: Retired Generals Wesley Clark and Michael Hayden. 

Clark (l.) with KLA chieftain Hashim Thaci (r).

As noted above, there is no evidence that Anwar al-Awlakiever actively collaborated in armed violence by Jihadists. Wesley Clark,however, was the commanding general during the NATO’s 78-day terror bombing ofSerbia. 

Hundreds of civilians were murdered in that act of internationalterrorism, which resulted in the installation of a criminal syndicate calledthe Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as the government of that Serbian province. 

The KLA has a remarkable pedigree: It is descended on one side from thenotorious WWII-era Skanderbeg militia organized by the Nazi SS; the other halfof its heritage is Stalinist. It received material and technical assistancefrom the CIA , and financial aid from Osama bin Laden -- who were partners in supporting jihadist elements during the wars of Balkan secession.

As CIA director under George W. Bush, Michael Hayden wasdeeply involved in recruiting, arming, and supporting a large number ofunreconstructed jihadist, among them an enchanting Somali warlord named IndhaAdde, who now refers to himself as Gen. Yusuf Mohammad Siad.

In an on-the-sceneaccount, Jeremy Scahill of The Nationobserves that Siad has “pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda” and “openly admits tohaving sheltered some of the most notorious Al Qaeda figures—including FazulAbdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 bombings of the USEmbassies in Kenya and Tanzania….”

Stipulating that the term “al-Qaeda” is, in effect,shorthand for “any group of Muslims Washington has not succeeded in bribingyet,” the critical point here is that Siad openly admits doing the kinds of thingsAwlaki was accused of doing. Hayden and Clark, on the other hand, have committedcrimes well beyond Awlaki’s capacity: As heads of military and intelligencebureaucracies, they offered material aid and support to terrorists. In fact,they – and a number of other veterans of the military-intelligenceestablishment – continue to do so in retirement.

Retired Generals Clark and Hayden are among the War Partyluminaries who are on the payroll of the Iranian Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), orthe so-called “People’s Mujahadeen,” which is listed as a terrorist group bythe State Department. Clark and Hayden, along with former chairmen of the JointChiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton and Peter Pace, former NATO commander James L.Jones, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Attorney General MichaelMukasey, former 9-11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton, Rudolph Giuliani, Michele Bachmann, andseveral other luminaries have been hired by the MEK to lobby the StateDepartment to remove the group from its list of Foreign TerroristOrganizations. 

MEK Flag.

The MEK was created in 1965 as part of a Soviet-sponsoredinternational terrorist network that waged wars of "nationalliberation" throughout the developing world. Human Rights Watch, whichdescribes the MEK as an "urban guerrilla group," points out that thegroup's ideology is a Muslim variation on "liberation theology." 

In his July 7 testimony before the House Committee on ForeignAffairs, Ray Takeyh, who is (of all things) a Senior Fellow at the Council onForeign Relations, pointed out that the MEK “sought to … amalgamate Islam andMarxism. Islam was supposed to provide the values while Marxism offered apathway for organizing the society and defeating the forces of capitalism,imperialism, and feudalism…. [F]rom Lenin they embraced the importance of avanguard party committed to mass mobilization, and from Third World revolutionariesthey took the primacy of guerilla warfare as indispensable agents of politicalchange.” 

In 1970, 13 members of the MEK received training (mostlikely under Soviet supervision) at PLO campsin Jordan and Lebanon. Upon their return, the PLO-trained MEK cadres sharedtheir newly acquired skills with their comrades, and the group embarked on awave of attacks and bombings intended to bring down the Shah. During onerampage, MEK terrorists killed several U.S. military personnel – including ColonelLewis Hawkins, the Deputy Chief of Military Mission in Tehran. 

Although the group suffered some attrition in its conflictwith the SAVAK, the Shah’s hideous secret police, it survived long enough toparticipate in Khomeini revolution. MEK cadres were involved in the seizure of Americanhostages in October 1979. But the MEK’s ambitions and ideology made it a poorfit for Khomeini regime, so the group was purged from the ruling coalition in1981 and much of its leadership was driven into exile in Iraq. There it was, inTakeyh’s words, used “as Saddam’s Praetorian Guard.”

Following Saddam’s U.S. supported invasion of Iran, the MEK began a hit-and-runguerrilla war against the Iranian regime in the hope of triggering a popularuprising. When that proved unsuccessful, the group set up a political frontgroup called the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) in Paris. In1985, notes Human Rights Watch, the MEK's "leadership was transformed whenMasoud Rajavi announced his marriage to Maryam Uzdanlu.... The husband and wifeteam became co-leaders" of the MEK and announced an "ideologicalrevolution." 

Everyday life in Camp Ashraf.

All of the group's members were required to undertake an individual"ideological revolution" by engaging in Maoist-style"self-criticism" sessions. Adherents were expected to listen raptly"to radio messages and explanations provided by [their] commanders"in order to "gain a deep insight into the greatness of our new leadership,meaning the leadership of Masoud and Maryam.... To believe in them as well asto show ideological and revolutionary obedience to them." 

By 1987, the MEK had acquired "all the main attributesof a cult," writes Iranian scholar Ervand Abrahamian, with Masoud Rajaviclaiming the titles Rahbar (leader) and Imam-i hal (the Present Imam), and theforerunner to the impending second advent of the Mahdi. In 1994, the HouseForeign Relations Committee described the group as a violent,Marxist-influenced cult. The Committee Chairman at the time was Congressman LeeHamilton (D-Indiana), who is now on the group’s payroll.

“Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden” to those recruitedinto the MEK, writes Elizabeth Rubin of the NewYork Times magazine, who has spent time at the group’s headquarters at Camp Ashraf, 40 miles north of Baghdad. “From the time they are toddlers, boys andgirls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp Ashraf you hadto report your dreams and thoughts.” Maoist “struggle sessions” and severepunishment for “deviationism” are commonplace. 

Expelled from France in 1986, Masoud Rajavi was welcomed inBaghdad, where he and his followers built a "NationalLiberation Army" that joined the Iran-Iraq war on Saddam'sside. The MEK's plan was to recruit a huge army of suicide commandos whosesacrifice would inspire the “liberation” of Iran.

“We will not be fighting alone; we will have the people onour side,” proclaimed Rajavi. “They are tired of this regime, and ... they haveevery incentive to get rid of it forever. We will only have to act as theirshields, protecting them from being easy targets for the [revolutionary]guards. Wherever we go there will be masses of citizens joining us, and theprisoners we liberate from jails will help us lead them towards victory. Itwill be like an avalanche, growing as it progresses.”

When the war ended in 1988 without victory for Iraq or the"National Liberation Army," the MEK leadership imposed yet another"ideological revolution" on its followers, this one including compelledmass divorces and widespread torture of those suspected of espionage or ideologicaldeviation. Following the first Gulf War, the MEK collaborated in Saddam'scrackdown on Shi'ites and Kurds.

In its campaign to build support for the invasion of Iraq, the Bushadministration mentioned MEK camps in Iraq as evidence of Saddam’s support forinternational terrorism. Following the invasion, U.S. forces disarmed MEKfighters who operated several camps within 60 miles of the Iranian border.Rather than treating them as terrorists, the Bush administration designated theMEK fighters as "protected" persons under the GenevaConvention. 

In fact, the Bush administration was so intent on shelteringthe MEK – which, recall had killed Americans and taken part in the seizure ofAmerican hostages – that it rebuffed an offer from Iran to exchange MEK leadersfor al-Qaeda suspects being held in Tehran. In exchange for protection, the MEKbegan to produce a series of lurid – and entirely fabricated – “intelligence”reports regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

The MEK has no support among reform-minded Iranians; in fact, the group is immensely useful to the incumbent regime as a way of discrediting its opposition, which in official propaganda is depicted as allies of the bizarre Islamo-Leninist cult. The current Iranian government is awful; if it were to seize power, the MEK -- which is the Persian equivalent of the Khmer Rouge -- would be dramatically worse. 

As the redoubtable Glenn Greenwald has observed, the retired U.S. officials who have become paid propagandists for the MEK are providing material support for an international terrorist organization. Staten Island resident Javed Iqbal, who operated a cable TV company, was recently convicted of that charge and sentenced to 69 months in federal prison for the supposed offense of carrying programs produced by a television network owned by Hezbollah. And of course, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were summarily executed without trial for allegedly rendering the same service to al-Qaeda. 

Clark, Hayden, and the MEK's other American courtesans are members of the American nomenklatura, which means that they are on the "who" side of Lenin's "who does what to whom" formula. The murder of Anwar al-Awlaki was intended as an object lesson to those of us on the other side of that dichotomy, demonstrating what can and will be done to anyone who is identified by the Regime as what the Soviets used to call a "socially dangerous person." 

An Update, and an Urgent Appeal 

"For the second time this year, Americans can celebrate the elimination of another enemy of the state," proclaims columnist Mark Paredes in Utah's Deseret News. No, seriously -- he really wrote those words. See the blog at LewRockwell.com for my reaction to that Stalinoid screed.

During the past couple of months, I've been doing some editorial work and writing for Republic magazine (and some related properties); this explains why my output here at Pro Libertate has declined during that period. This is very much a full-time job -- but, in all candor, it pays next to nothing, which is pretty typical of activist-oriented publications. It is the first regular paying work I've had since getting thrown under the bus by TNA five years ago today, and I'm certainly grateful for it -- but it's not enough to support a family of eight. 

I recognize that there is nothing unique about our predicament, and that many of you are in similar straits. I would be deeply and abidingly grateful for any help you can provide. 

Thanks so much for your help in keeping Pro Libertate on-line! God bless. 

Dum spiro, pugno!