[Peace-discuss] FBI Issues Death Threat in U.S. Citizen Interrogation

[C. G. Estabrook]

	FBI Issues Death Threat in U.S. Citizen Interrogation
	Written by Thomas R. Eddlem
	Thursday, 13 January 2011 15:13

An FBI agent reportedly issued a death threat against a U.S. citizen traveling 
abroad, according to the January 13 New York Times. The American, 19-year-old 
Gulet Mohamed, also alleges beatings and sleep deprivation in his interrogations 
since his arrest by Kuwaiti authorities in late December.
After he was detained by Kuwaiti authorities, "Mr. Mohamed said the agents began 
yelling the name 'Anwar al-Awlaki' at him," the Times reported, "prompting 
Kuwaiti officials to intervene and request that the agents end the 
interrogation." New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki is an American citizen and 
Islamic cleric who has emigrated to Yemen and advocated jihad against America, 
and President Obama has reputedly put him on an assassination list of U.S. 
citizens for when he is found.

Making a death threat against a defenseless prisoner is a crime of felony 
torture under the U.S. criminal code, and the jurisdiction of the crime for 
federal agents is anywhere in the world. The U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 2340 
defines felony torture as follows: "torture means an act committed by a person 
acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical 
or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful 
sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control," 
including "the threat of imminent death."

The New York Times story added that after Gulet Mohamed's arrest and while under 
FBI interrogation,

[H]e said ... he was severely beaten, deprived of sleep and questioned about his 
travels to Yemen and Somalia.... He said the agents never presented evidence 
that he made contacts with militants. "They wanted me to lie about myself, and 
pushed me to lie about things I had done," he said.

Although President Obama campaigned as a candidate against the use of torture, 
little has apparently changed in this regard since the Bush administration.

The President's assassination list of U.S. citizens has been public since the 
Washington Post reported it on January 27, 2010.  While the Washington Post 
later corrected a few details of its original story, the existence of the 
assassination list was verified when John O. Brennan, White House senior adviser 
on counterterrorism, told the Washington Times June 24, 2010 that

To me, terrorists should not be able to hide behind their passports and their 
citizenship, and that includes U.S. citizens, whether they are overseas or 
whether they are here in the United States. What we need to do is to apply the 
appropriate tool and the appropriate response.

Brennan then stressed:

If an American person or citizen is in a Yemen or in a Pakistan or in Somalia or 
another place, and they are trying to carry out attacks against U.S. interests, 
they also will face the full brunt of a U.S. response. And it can take many forms.

But the difference is that Anwar al-Awlaki has not been accused of participating 
in actual attacks against American forces abroad. He has been accused of merely 
justifying and encouraging them with his words.

Thus, it's perhaps surprising that CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC News' Jake 
Tapper back in June 2010,

Awlaki is a terrorist who has declared war on the United States. Everything he's 
doing now is to try to encourage others to attack this country[.]  [T]here's a 
whole stream of intelligence that goes back to Awlaki and his continuous urging 
of others to attack this country in some way. You can track Awlaki to the 
Detroit bomber. We can track him to other attacks in this country that have been 
urged by Awlaki or that have been influenced by Awlaki. Awlaki is a terrorist 
and yes, he's a U.S. citizen, but he is first and foremost a terrorist and we're 
going to treat him like a terrorist. We don't have an assassination list, but I 
can tell you this. We have a terrorist list and he's on it.

Panetta's ludicrous statement that one person can "declare war" against a whole 
country (Can a single person really "declare war"?) is emblematic of the 
absurdity to which government officials will go to rationalize their attack on 
the Bill of Rights. While Panetta denied that the Obama administration has an 
"assassination list," it's more than clear that the Obama administration has one 
and that Panetta was just contesting which term is most descriptive of that 
list. U.S. policy is to kill terrorists.

When he was still a candidate for President, Obama (in an interview with the 
Boston Globe) denied that the President has the power under the Constitution to 
detain U.S. citizens without trial — and yet Gulet Mohamed remains detained 
without trial in Kuwait.

The torture and detention without trial of U.S. citizen Gulet Mohamed at the 
hands of the Obama administration comes at the same time that the President is 
lecturing in favor of "more civility in our public discourse" and against 
"discourse [that] has become so sharply polarized -– at a time when we are far 
too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who 
happen to think differently than we do -– it’s important for us to pause for a 
moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not 
in a way that wounds."

But no true patriot can be civil about the blatantly unconstitutional torture 
(which violates the Eighth Amendment) and detention without trial (which 
violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments) of his fellow citizens at the hands of 
an executive who defines his powers outside the limits of the U.S. Constitution.

President Obama needs to be taught that only actions such as government torture 
wound, not words. In fact, only very uncivil words can lead to healing of the 
bodily wounds inflicted upon citizens and upon the U.S. Constitution.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/5879-fbi-issues-death-threat-in-us-citizen-interrogation