oh i'm so arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture al qaeda is truck top recruiter and war l a law is dead at the very hands of the country which is of which he is a legal citizen and states of america and while a majority the nation is giving the president comes up on yet another terrorist six feet under some are wondering if the war on terror has officially crossed a dangerous line and despite efforts of the new york police department to break from momentum of the occupy wall street protest the movement is gaining support

from big name organizations the latest from manhattan in just a few notes. you need to know this a top al qaeda leader anwar al hakim was killed in the mountains of yemen today reports are that he was riding in a convoy targeted by a u.s. drone aircraft although that has yet to be confirmed by the white house al hakim was considered one of the most prominent members of al qaeda he was fluent in english which made him an effective recruiter for the terrorist network according to u.s. officials al hakim was also behind the failed christmas day bombing of two thousand and nine when young nigerian tried to blow up his underwear aboard a u.s. airliner here's what president obama said today about al walk is death. the death of all aki is a major blow to our kind as most active operational affiliate

a lot he was the leader of external operations for all qaeda in the arabian peninsula in that role he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent americans the death of a locking marks another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al qaeda and its affiliates furthermore this success is a tribute to our intelligence community and to the efforts of yemen and its security forces who have worked closely with the united states over the course of several years but what may make al locke he's death different from bin laden's is that our walk he was a u.s. citizen born in new mexico he was put on the cia's capture or kill list back in april of two thousand and ten making him the first u.s. citizen to be targeted for death in bush's so-called war of terror taking that into account republican presidential candidate ron paul weighed in on this earlier today

. i don't think that's a good way to do you probably the. reason you're here all off us with your use of europe since he was never tried or charged with crimes but he knows if you know you'll be pretty clear i know that he might have been a show here. we do underwear. but if you're in the deep woods if it is finally in casually like you know we now have an accepted practice with the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys i think it's safe so while we should be grieving a terrorist maybe we should be asking questions about the so-called war on terror and whether it's right that american citizens are being blown up with the process of law if assuming indeed that's what happened today joining me now to talk about this more is robert dreyfus independent journalist and contributing editor at the nation magazine in the jones magazine as well as national affairs correspondent for rolling stone magazine and from new york

a real good senior staff attorney for the center for constitutional rights robert maria welcome great to have you both with us thank you. robert l. ike he was a prominent al qaeda figure he was also a u.s. citizens so is this some kind of victory other words terror or whole new chapter in the war on terror actually i thought the administration stopped using the phrase war on terror when they have but i don't know if it's a new chapter it's an endless book if it's a new chapter i mean this has been going on for ten years now i thought maybe it would start to move our blood lust would be satisfied with the killing of bin laden but it hasn't been and if you look at what the obama administration is doing now they're building bases in the indian ocean they're they're creating drone programs for all over the horn of africa in the arabian peninsula the guy the general who's in charge of africa in the new african command says that he's worried about terrorists in algeria in nigeria and other parts of africa working together destroy

. they can out of state so this is a formula for endless war and endless drone attacks nine eleven was planned in hamburg germany. i mean the fact that he was an american citizen frankly to me has nothing to do with anything he he might have been he might not have been a bad guy we'll never know because we're not going to present any evidence of his guilt in any in any way shape or form they blew him to pieces and if that's our policy that we can decide somebody we don't like and then you know shoot a missile down his chimney then i don't know there's no end to this what about his deputy and his deputies deputy what about his cousin who's really angry at us now i mean where does this stop maria. how could you know assuming that there is. substantial credibility to the idea that this was a killing an execution executed by or at least ordered by the president and states of the united states government and and but even though the white house has been very very careful not to say that today they have said the past they've tried to

kill him with drone strike strikes so it's a reasonable assumption how could this come from a president who's a former pro a professor of constitutional law i mean is it possible that there was this secret judicial proceeding of some sort in which he was actually convicted of crimes and given the death sentence and that we will learn about this at some point the future or have we crossed a rubicon of some sort. no i don't know how he could do this a former professor of constitutional law violate the constitution so blatantly that no there's no chance that a judge actually had a trial an abstention we don't even know that there have been charges as far as we know there have been no charges by the u.s. government against a much less trial so i mean i agree on the point that you know the constitutional standard and the international law standard are the same the fact that he's a u.s. citizen just means that obama also violated the constitution because you cannot

kill someone. outside of an armed conflict without due process unless they're an imminent threat and it's a last resort and here the entire world is not a battlefield we're not at war in yemen there's clearly no due process that was given and we have no indication that there is an imminent threat in fact i'll look it has been on a list a kill list for almost two years now so it seems like there has been a violation of both the constitution and international law robert to what extent is this acting in concert with the governor yemen feed a perception. and i frankly am more concerned about the perception in yemen among the many opposition were no best buds with the president that they tried to assassinate just got back from saudi arabia being. there were officially our state department officially telling to step down and now today from the rose garden

the president congratulated i mean this is got to be totally disorienting to the people involved the arab spring in the middle east you know if they send congratulations to the government of yemen i really wonder what address the they use they have not said that they worked with president saleh who as you know we didn't mention his name but he said we work with the government of yemen but technically that's maybe the vice president it could be the military we. i don't know who it is it could be some gang in the middle of the desert in yemen we don't know there really is no government of yemen. if if we worked with president saleh if we work with his military if we work with i mean the military has fractured there are generals fighting generals so it really stretches credulity to think that we actually work with the with the yemeni government i should point out that john brennan who's the president's chief advisor on counterterrorism and someone who i've interviewed and i know work is really has been our liaison to president saleh all through the yemen crisis and the arab spring and before that he's worked very

closely with the saudi government and with the with president saleh on issues like going after bad guys in yemen for the past three years so they're very close maria back to this issue of the significance of this whole being a u.s. citizen during the bush administration the posse comitatus law that was passed after the civil war which said never again will american soldiers on american soil turn their guns on american citizen civilians but that is absolutely forbidden that was law from eight hundred sixty seven or whenever it was passed in the late eighty's and sixty's or early early eighteenth seventies it was basically law from then until just a few years ago during the bush administration when it got repealed and i believe one of the military appropriations does this mean you know it's almost a what's next i mean you know targeted killings within the borders of the u.s.

are we back to the old wild west wanted dead or alive sort of thing where you put out a lot of post somebody an offer to take a bounty on him dead or alive even before a trial. well that is that would be what's next i mean we've reached an all time low as it is which is you know our government executing us citizens abroad based on suspicion now it could be in the united states there's there's really no reason to distinguish the constitutional right of a citizen is the same regardless and you know i guess the ability of our government to violate it would be the same which is horrifying. both the daily mail and fox news are reporting that. in the days immediately after nine eleven was brought into the pentagon to meet with senior pentagon officials because he was perceived as a moderate muslim who would support bush's plan to invade afghanistan.

given that osama bin laden's stated purpose for not eleven was to get us to start a war given the george w. bush told his biographer in ninety nine before he was elected that if he was elected the first thing he wanted to start a war only in iraq because it would give him political capital it seems that bin laden's goal of our being in a war in the middle east bush's war goal of our being in that you know we're in the middle east. we're kind of aligned although i'm not trying to create any kind of grand conspiracy theory here just an interesting confluence and one of the people in this article is a former intelligence officer here's the quote who was horrified but this guy who was being brought into the pentagon without being any security. they vetted people politically and showed indifference toward security and intelligence advice. could it be that the law keeping in the pentagon right after nine eleven and encouraging us to go to war we were just totally playing into the hands of been log i mean that

we just had played as suckers for ten years i i'm not sure i accept that premise i don't believe that bin laden wanted us to go to war i think that's a convenient story that was developed. in the aftermath of what actually happened i think you wanted to strike a blow at america and he did that. and may have thought that we were too weak to go to war or we'd pass it off like we parody of those are occasions he would bleed us to death with a war well i know what he says but he says a lot of things that and also i don't think that are locking necessarily well into the pentagon and was pushing for war in fact at the time at least his public he stated views were that the united states should not retaliate by going to war over the deaths of civilians here. he was somewhat of a moderate then the bush administration just didn't have a map of who the muslim community know anything about so most of the most of the burden of the bush administration's response it's a muslim country is what radicalized. that could very well be the could very well

be the case and in fact if you didn't rattle guys name it well. tens of thousands of other people you created a lot more terrorists than existed before a lot of muslims around the world would have just a minute left maria last question to you where do we go from here how does how to how does the american legal community respond to this what's the center for constitutional rights to for example well we need to we need to look at our options and see what kind of challenges are opened. in and we try to stop killing beforehand saying that the u.s. government couldn't kill him unless they showed he was an imminent threat and the judge there decided that his father didn't have standing to bring the case and that it really was up to the chin up to the executive and not the judiciary to decide whether it could unilaterally kill someone in hiding abroad who is determined to be an operational member. but they're you know we have to look at our options and see

what kind of challenges are available ok maria thank you very much for being with us today there are still a lot of questions unanswered here which are unfortunately seems to be a common theme in this decade long so-called war on terror. the people have spoken after the great find out just what americans the g.o.p. are really looking out for in our weekly rubble. and. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through it if it made who can you trust no one who is you with a global machinery to see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

fridays are you ready to run it's time for this week's big picture of all right sit down with three expert political commentators to debate the week's top stories on our panel tonight neil mccabe editor of the guns and patriots column at human events on line karl frisch a democratic strategist and founding partner bullfight strategies and brian darley columnist and human events contributor to red state dot com and big government dot

com and director of government studies at the heritage foundation and let's get started death war of n.r.l. rocky's the leader of al qaeda but he's also a u.s. citizen i don't know to what extent or how much of the conversation we just had heard but. is his death a victory in this so-called war on terror or is this a troubling new turn in the way the united states reacts to its own says this guy was a u.s. citizen we killed him without a court hearing well i think. i have mixed feelings about it i mean i really think that it is important for us to go after al qaeda and make sure that they don't reconstitute themselves and and provide yet another threat to our national security you know killing americans in afghanistan in iraq and here domestically in the united states but it's troublesome that this individual was an american citizen and i think you know rep ron paul made some very strong points that we really need to have due process before americans are killed by the american government for them as

no person knows no person i just knows that was no person shall be denied of life without due process if there is sort of an idea that maybe president obama was disappointed that he didn't have a sustained pull number bum from killing bin laden and maybe he needed to kill another terrorist so you got to travel as well i think if one wanted to see lower poll numbers he'd have to go to the last subway. it's always. good dog and when democrats do something internationally or in the war on terror i think it was a victory in the war and care but we you know he was an american citizen and it was an unjust victory he should have been tried by a jury of his peers he's an american and if that's a principle that we stand up for for people here at home. even you know child molesters murderers that's a principle that we have to stand up for you know that the reason that it is a principle i don't understand what even the situation didn't hold a trial in absentia i mean it's not that complex something to do if they're going

to kill that in new york city right now but tom i don't understand you were beside yourself upset that dick cheney justified the waterboarding of foreign terrorists you should be foaming at the mouth if your believe in your liberal beliefs and believe that what the president did was wrong that this president should be subject to impeachment brad if you're going to stand up for the constitutional rights of this guy i hope you'll come out for gay marriage and i hope you come out for all the other constitutional rights that are denied for millions of americans you know gay marriage in the constitution you show it to me i have a problem because it's on their what it in this thread what it was a favors. ron paul said the sort of bad bad precedent here's what gary johnson another republican presidential candidate to say. this is the first u.s. citizen that has ever been targeted for death by the united states government so this is this is unprecedented and. certainly at best have mixed feelings about

this this is why this country was a stablished was you can't have a government going through the countryside rounding up citizens because they're a threat to the to the country and then putting them to death now at the same time we had rick perry say i want to congratulate the united states military and intelligence communities and president obama for sticking with the with the government's long standing aggressive anti-terrorism is forgetting another key international terrorist the death of american raised al-qaeda leader anwar locky is . an important victory in the war on terror and mitt romney came out and said the killing of anwar al is a major victory in our fight against islamic terrorism and proper justice for the numerous attacks and plots he inspired or planned against america i commend the president and members of our intelligence community our service members and our allies for their continued efforts to keep americans safe says brian you're in opposition to the two leading republican candidates neal i'm still not sure i understand your has tried to work it out but you know it's unfair that michele bachmann said that this this that causes mental retardation of little girls

apparently say it's unfair to quote mitt romney because we have no idea what he's going to say tomorrow if. you really have to be honest about this do you feel that he should be hauled before the hague for war crimes and of oh yes and should he be subject to impeachment hearings for killing an american citizen i want to hear what liberals have to say about it yeah i wouldn't go that far but i think that there's a serious question here that needs to be asked and needs to be addressed and i would like to hear this see it as i said we may there may well have been a trial that we don't know about there may have been things that happened behind october eleventh we're going to hear from the other republican presidential candidates there's another debate coming up. my only fear is that will it's in new hampshire my only fear is that we'll hear them cheer the or die portion of the state motto before they ever get to this issue and of course ron paul and the former governor of new york's new mexico drugs and they'll be marginalized just like they have been for most of it all ok whether it was your comedy or leave it

had a formal declaration of war instead of what would be right from day one and i think that it was fortunately in the hysteria and to protect the insurance companies who were the two in check to protect people who have insurance policies we didn't declare war because insurance companies don't have to pay if it's an act of war and that's that nuance has created all of these problems that would have been cleared up really that's you think that the reason why we didn't declare war was. so that the victims of nine eleven could could could claim insurance i'm not saying totally open help i'm like no no sir i'm not saying the victims of nine eleven i'm saying any property owners because who knew what was going on and so this was a that's a new theory i've heard that but anyhow let's switch gears like you are so i mean it's. great i get it good stuff and yesterday ben bernanke said our nation is in a crisis in a very particular type of crisis here's what he had to say. this unemployment situation we have the job situation is really

a national crisis. we've had now you know close to ten percent unemployment now for you know a number of years and of the people who are unemployed about forty five percent have been unemployed for six months or more this is unheard of this is never happened in the post-war period in the united states and. so he didn't say we have a debt crisis then say a word about the president's job bill has been sitting there for a few months since two thousand and nine two years on now the republicans have blocked every single effort to stimulate the economy the one bill that they allowed to get through they watered down substantially and it sure looks to me like those are sociopathic bank stories we saw this guy on b.b.c. the other night on i dream of a great depression if the republicans are dreaming of the same thing not because it will make the money like the banks but because it will win them in election well you're fervor to blame republicans for everything you've ignored the fact that democrats had a filibuster proof majority in the senate for quite

a period of time they passed the stimulus bill it was almost a trillion dollars it didn't create any jobs million jobs you're going to admit we did since really you know promise to be elected on the second i'm sorry sworn in we've lost two million jobs in this country beck's a fact and when president obama was sworn in we were losing jobs at a clip of seven hundred thousand per month that's not happening anymore is it no we're losing them by just a little bit less than that hasn't persons fourteen everything to us it's been flapping hardy's afternoon up there because the obviously the guy has no clue what's going on here's a guy whose whole academic career was built on i'm the only one in the world to understand what went wrong during the stock market crash he wrote papers describing the mistakes that they made he said i'm the guy i'm the genius they know how many years on you know stands up and says i don't have a clue what's going on or what he's going to do was when we have a jobs crisis and congress keeps refusing to address its deflection he should just resign in reality i have no idea what was in congress and will not allow anything

that's going to stimulate the economy out of the house of representatives with the title politically for it said they prefer to stimulate. the top of the here rather than the follicle. they believe it is that it means that you love giving the money to the people that are. now you take a dip during these economic struggles it rather than help you know if you will see michele bachmann and mitt romney and and rick perry and the conservative base rally against unemployment benefits for people that have been looking for jobs for two years that's not how you solve the job. we do it we just go on and on of it benefits creates we don't just get applauded for laying off fifteen thousand people i mean this and to that point here's a couple of charts this i found this really interesting twenty four states have cut funding twenty fourth these are all red states these are these are states run by republican governors or congressman and these twenty four states when they cut

spending the economies have shrunk by an average of three percent unemployment has increased by an average of one percent and in these twenty four states twenty five states red blue states have increased spending increased taxes and the increase in spending grew their economies by half a point their unemployment was dropped by two tenths of a point in these twenty five states you see so math the numbers and those have a verify we have a laboratory in our states and right what are states are telling us is that over the last three years if you spend a little bit of government money and you're a little taxes in those twenty five states if you spend a little bit of money in your raise taxes you get a better economy and in those republican states you cut taxes you cut spending you get a worse a come see me what it is about raising taxes on people who have money to invest in . the economy grow better what is it about taking money from people that makes a jobs happen the last time i was putting money in swiss banks did not create these are not job creators these are dropped they're not reinvesting in anything but

their own bottom line so you're saying that if the government doesn't take their money it's going to go to a swiss bank you know this i am i am saying that in fact i can tell you from my own experience back in that back in the one nine hundred seventy s. before the bush tax cuts or before the reagan tax cuts we could blame things on bush before the reagan tax cuts i was making enough money that i was hitting well. into the forty percent tax range and my c.p.a. set me down with my small business of eighty employees and said stop taking money out of your own company you know you need to reinvest that money in your company which i did and we grew that business and people and that's the time that was the time when c.e.o.'s took thirty times with their employees to now the taking five hundred times what their employees can take because they can gamble with that hot money because they can put that money in swiss banks it is not creating jobs it is doing the exact opposite and why is the money sitting in corporate treasuries right now waiting because they can make more money there than they can make hiring people because there's no do right because i poll don't have money because they're so greedy they'd rather years of reaganomics has brought us another great they're so greedy that they don't want to build

a new factory. yes what you what we know is that when you invest in people that are of moderate means or low means they reinvest in the economy at a much higher percentage than these people who are getting these tax cuts they certainly have it's only when they bank that money that actually means that there's more money to loan out i mean it isn't as if people are sort of a big lottery they're not stuffing money into a mattress and hiding it from the economy it actually goes somewhere these rich people buy a yacht is i split isn't from the economy it's hidden in other countries but you know would you support that repatriation bill that would bring the money home that's insane would you support that filling up still enough ok so you're content to let it sit overseas i think that i think that setting up trade policies that in son of companies to make money overseas and keep it overseas is nuts and i think that when nancy pelosi passed legislation on the how to house representatives and said companies that have been getting tax breaks for breaking down factories who lost fifty thousand factories in the last ten years companies are getting tax

breaks for that are no longer going to get tax breaks for sending jobs overseas and companies that are manufacturing things overseas we will give them a tax incentive to bring those jobs back if they bring the jobs back they can bring the money back but no i think it's insane to say that we're going to we're going to say to a company a transnational company you've been absolutely disloyal to america you have been trashing america you've been taking your money overseas and now we're going to give you a gift but we're going to trillion dollars sorry but we're going to the economy know it's a trillion dollars right into the hands of a lot of people it's you don't see any need for you to say that you think the government can invest it better we've seen this scandal missile launcher and all of these green energy companies are in the bush administration push for two years so yeah and they should not push the green energy program that it does that green energy program has a ninety nine percent success rate that one percent failure is which is a lot of the role they want to be at the fed all they needed was that one source said why are the banks lining up to make all that money on that ninety percent guarantees that all too well actually that they the thirty thirty billion dollars

in private lives but then we don't need tax money will be you know that's that's back it up we'll be back with more of the big picture rubble just a moment. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is in view with a global mission a region where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.