'EXECUTION BY SECRET COMMITTEE'
Britain's Fascist Coup Plot
Against the United States
by Nancy Spannaus and Edward Spannaus
Oct. 12—In a far-away country, a secret Committee appointed by the Leader, is meeting in the regime's capital. The members of the committee are not known to the public, but include representatives of the Nation's intelligence and police apparatus. Likewise, whatever guidelines or rules the Committee may follow—if any—are known only to a few.
The Committee has received information, vague at best, that a citizen of the Nation, call him Citizen A, has joined with the Enemy and is issuing propaganda on the Enemy's behalf. Quickly, the Committee decides that Citizen A must be eliminated. The Committee's verdict, once ratified by the Leader, as it soon will be, is sufficient to issue the death warrant for Citizen A. Nothing more is needed, than the Leader's word.
True, the Nation has a constitution, but the regime's paid lawyers quickly dispense with that, showing why its provisions are irrelevant. The Nation has a court system, but the courts seldom dare to interfere with the Leader's decisions on important questions of National Security. The Nation also has a legislature, some members of which may timidly raise a question or two, but any such annoyance will be quickly buried by claims of "National Security" and "Secrets of State." As Citizen A is currently residing in another country, a bullet to the back of the neck isn't practical, but a missile will do the job, and if it kills others along the way, well, let that be a lesson to them.
That, of course, is not some far-away country; it's not the Soviet Union or North Korea, but the United States of America today. It is President Barack Obama who has created a secret committee that decides which Americans should be placed on a "kill or capture list," according to a report by veteran investigative reporter Mark Hosenball, published by Reuters on Oct. 5. There is no public record of the committee's operations or its decisions, nor "is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is to operate," Hosenball reported. It was this secret committee, a subset of the Obama White House's National Security Council, which issued the death warrant for U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen on Sept. 30.
As we reported last week, the al-Awlaki execution immediately triggered a sharp response, from both so-called liberals and conservatives, warning of the danger of allowing a U.S. President to exercise such unchecked power.
Now, EIR has learned that the leaking of the story of the secret committee, was part of an effort to stop the moves toward a police-state dictatorship, which was well underway during the Bush-Cheney Administration, but which has in fact been accelerated under Barack Obama. The Presidential "kill list" is only a reflection of the preparations of a long-standing British-backed apparatus in the United States to carry out a Hitler-style coup here. Now, in a panic about the blowout of their financial system, the British have decided to act.
LaRouche Warns of Coup Threat
Speaking to associates on Oct. 8, American statesman Lyndon LaRouche warned that British-backed forces are on a drive to carry out their long-standing plan for a fascist coup against the United States (see Editorial). Measures are being put in place for a coup precisely like that of Adolf Hitler in 1933; the assassination of al-Awlaki and another American citizen at the same time, is a hint of things to come.
While British puppet Barack Obama will be a leading instrument of this coup, LaRouche charged, the apparatus in motion involves fascists from both parties, notably the Bush family and former Vice President Dick Cheney. The apparatuses that were set up beginning with George H.W. Bush's Presidency—from private armies to intensive police-state surveillance—after being interrupted under the Clinton Presidency, have escalated to the point of an imminent threat, under the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations.
In this context, it is notable that Republican Congressman Darrell Issa (Calif.) sent a letter Oct. 4 to President Obama, demanding explanations for the dramatic growth of private armies (contracted mercenaries) in Iraq and Afghanistan, under the Bush and Obama administrations. The expanded use of private armies goes together with more "civilian" fascist measures, such as the set-up of the Super Committee for budget cuts, and Obama's Hitler health-care bill, which targets "useless eaters" for denial of care under the pretext of saving money.
LaRouche emphasized that the defeat of this planned coup must begin with the removal of Obama from office, through either the launching of the impeachment process, or imposition of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.
Secret Process, Secret Evidence
The Hosenball/Reuters story reveals the secretive process under which an American citizen can be killed by his own government: "American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the President of its decisions, according to officials."
"There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said," Hosenball added. "Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate."
While Obama and Administration mouthpieces have claimed that Awlaki had gone from being an "inspirational" figure, to playing an "operational" role in various terrorist plots, Hosenball cites unnamed officials as saying that the intelligence on which this claim is based, was partial and "patchy." But from the description provided, it could hardly justify a misdemeanor arrest, much less an execution warrant: There were voice intercepts involving "a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was [underwear bomber] Abdulmutallab." In another case, a British Airways employee was jailed for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. He apparently discussed the plot via e-mail from Britain with his brother in Yemen, and "there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother's side when the messages were dispatched."
Discussing the nature of secret evidence, Constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, pointed out that, "As any lawyer will tell you, anyone can make a case for anything when they're in exclusive possession of all the relevant evidence," and when they are the only ones presenting it. "All evidence becomes less compelling when it's subjected to adversarial scrutiny."
Greenwald is particularly caustic toward the "good Democrats" who blindly support the Awlaki execution because it was done by a Democratic President. He asks if they would be as supportive if the hit list were being made up by the Bush White House, or a Rick Perry White House. And further, Greenwald asks:
"If you're willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret—with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency—and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren't you willing to support?"
Former Defense Intelligence Agency official Col. Patrick Lang (ret.) comments that the use of a secret committee to authorize the killing of an American, does not comport with the legitimate conduct of warfare or even of counter-terrorist operations. "It seems to be exactly the kind of arbitrary 'law' and judicial practice that caused our ancestors to rebel against the 18th-Century British government," Lang writes.
Just Like Cheney-Bush
After it was disclosed that the Justice Department had issued a secret memorandum justifying the assassination program, and as pressure was growing for its release, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage was fed what purported to be a detailed summary of the memo, which had been written by the Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The memo remains classified, but the Times wrote: "The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis."
The lawyerly dancing around each of these prohibitions—under the guise that the U.S. is at war—does bring to mind the infamous "torture memoranda" concocted in the OLC by the Bush-Cheney lawyer-flunkies, which provided sophistical rationalizations for detention without any due process and for physical and psychological abuse of prisoners (who were labelled "detainees" to try to circumvent the Geneva Convention protections which are obligatory for prisoners of war).
That similarity should not be a surprise. The Obama Administration has not only embraced the Unitary Executive (i.e., Hitlerian) philosophy of former Vice President Cheney, but has taken it several steps further, without so much as a blink of the eye. The continuity is so great that Cheney, in a recent TV appearance promoting his memoirs, not only lavished praise on the Obama White House for adopting his methods with the assassination of American citizen Awlaki, but also demanded that the President apologize to him for the criticisms of Cheney that Obama made during the election campaign.
As numerous leaks from the military-security establishment suggest, and much public evidence documents, neither the intention for a fascist police state, as was evident under the George H.W. Bush Administration, nor the apparatus, has ever disappeared. It was Cheney, as Bush I's Secretary of Defense, who proceeded to implement the plans elaborated by fascist centers such as Middlebury College in Vermont, for privatization of the military.
The Clinton Administration represented a setback for the fascist push, and, not long after, came 9/11, the British-Saudi attempt at a "Reichstag fire" that was aimed at ushering in a fascist dictatorship in the United States. This did not fully work—and now the Obama Administration, led by a President who is not only a malignant narcissist in the Hitler tradition, but also a British puppet, is charged with finishing the job.
Indeed, the British financial interests, faced with the imminent collapse of their system, are absolutely desperate to destroy any potential for the United States to take the positive actions necessary to destroy their power. They tried it in 1933, with an assassination and a coup plot against President Franklin Roosevelt, but it didn't work. Instead, British money and influence put Hitler into power—a move toward global fascism which ultimately backfired and failed.
But will American patriots rise to the occasion, and stop the Hitler-style coup planned today?
Facing the Bitter Truth
There is no possible excuse for any American citizen, with even medium intelligence, to deny the anti-Constitutional, dictatorial character of the Obama Administration's actions. Obama has blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution in the cases of the launching of the Libya War (still ongoing), and the assassination of an American citizen. He has also violated the principles of that Constitution with his Hitler health bill (built on the idea of "saving money" by denying care to those considered to have lives not worthy of being lived), and his Super Committee—although in those cases he succeeded in getting a corrupt Congressional leadership to ratify his actions.
True, some significant figures are speaking out. In addition to Lang, mentioned above, we have Paul Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the U.S. intelligence community.
Pillar, who retired in 2005 as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, lambasted the Awlaki murder in an Oct. 1 article in "The National Interest" (http://nationalinterest.org). "The difference between the United States and the dictatorships," he wrote, "is that the United States requires something more, procedurally and legally, than mere observations by the executive authority that someone poses a threat. The foundation for that requirement is the clause in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S Constitution that states that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The requirement is all the more acute with U.S. citizens, as both al-Awlaki and Khan were. What happened on Yemen on Friday was essentially a long-distance execution without judge, jury or publicly presented evidence."
Yet, as of this writing, only Republican maverick Congressman Ron Paul (Texas) has stated clearly that the Awlaki assassination is a "criminal act," and a violation of the Constitution, which constitutes an impeachable offense, and that the plethora of liberals and conservatives who have attacked the blatant Constitutional violation in the Libya case are sticking to court action—rather than taking the action they must.
Why no action? It seems that when it comes right down to it, our leading representatives do not want to face the implications of what they see right in front of them.
The first question to be understood is that of intention, specifically the British intention which lies behind the actions of their puppets or willing followers, like the Bushes, Cheney, and Obama.
A Small Taste
The City of London's weekly The Economist set out its policy on the Obama Administration's arbitrary killing methods this week in an editorial statement. The Economist editorial cheers the fact that "the use of drones has increased dramatically, especially under Barack Obama"; a tenfold increase in frequency of drone strikes in Pakistan over the reign of Bush, Jr., according to an accompanying article. "Many people find the computer-games aspect of what the Pentagon likes to call Unmanned Aerial Systems creepy, but drones are much better than manned aircraft at hunting fleeting targets," in its view.
The Economist suggests one change needed to secure this "potent new weapon," however: the establishment of "secret courts" charged with determining "whether the evidence against someone is sufficiently strong to make that person a target for assassination. One American commentator, Harlan Ullman, has suggested using the secret courts that meet to authorize domestic surveillance as a model," The Economist wrote.
Could the British intention be any more clear? The first step to stopping it is to get rid of their key tool, Obama—and then bankrupt their gambling casino with Glass-Steagall. No alternative is even worth considering.
