oh i'm so arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture al qaeda is trying 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 thumbs up and yet another terrorist six feet under some are wondering if our war on terror has officially crossed and dangerous on and despite efforts of the new york police department to break the momentum of the occupy wall street protest movement is gaining support from big

name organizations lives from manhattan in just a few minutes. 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 u.s. drone aircraft although that has yet to be confirmed by the white house al hakim was considered to be one of the most prominent members of al qaeda he was fluent in english which made him an effective recruiter for their terrorist network or to u.s. officials al rocky was also behind the failed christmas day bombing a 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 rocky's death. the death. imo locky is a major blow to al qaida as most active operational affiliate

a lockie was the leader of external operations for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and that role he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent americans the death of a lock 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 made make al-lah he's death different from bin laden's is that al 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 with this earlier

today. i don't think that's a good way to do you probably. wish you were here talking with your use of american citizen if he was never tried or charged with crimes but he knows that we have to deal with anybody that i know that he might just want to show here the way. we do underwear. but if he were comedic which if it is flying the casually like you know we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys i think it's sad 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 without due 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 of the nation magazine in the jones magazine as well as national affairs correspondent for rolling stone magazine and from new york

a real live good senior staff attorney for the center for constitutional rights robert maria welcome good to have you both with us and thank you robert elahi was a prominent al qaeda figure he was also a u.s. citizen so is this some kind of victory of the war on terror or all new chapter in the war on terror actually i thought the administration stopped using the phrase war on terror well 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 we would start to maybe 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 nigeria and other parts of africa working together

destroy. united states so this is a a formula for endless war and endless drone attacks nine eleven was planned and homburg 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 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 or does this 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 what 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 strikes strikes so it's a reasonable assumption how could this come from a president who's a former pro a professor of constitutional law and 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 but 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 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 to what extent does this afternoon in concert with yemen the government of yemen feed a perception. and i'm frankly more concerned about the perception in yemen among the many opposition were no best buds with the president who they tried to assassinate just got back from saudi arabia being patched up there were officially our state department official who told me to step down and now today

from the rose garden the president graduated i mean i do this is going to be totally disorienting to the people involved in the arab spring in 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 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 work 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 that 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 more 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 fellow 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 citizens civilians but that is absolutely forbidden that was law from one thousand nine hundred sixty seven or whenever it was passed in the late eighteenth sixty's or early early eighteenth seventies there was basically law from then until just a few years ago during the bush administration when it got repealed and i believe in 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 us are we

back to the old wild west lot of dead or alive sort of thing where you put out a watered post somebody an offer to take a bounty on him dead or alive even before a trial. well that is why that would be what's next i mean we have 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 for a time robert both the daily mail and fox news are reporting that. in the days after 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 ladin the stated purpose for nine eleven was to get us to start a war given the george w. bush told his biographer in ninety ninety four years elected that if he was elected the first thing you want to do is start a war only in iraq because it would get him political capital it seems that bin laden's goal of our being in a war in the middle east and bush's war goal of our being in a war in the middle east. were kind of a lie and although i'm not trying to create a 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 from who was horrified that this guy who was being brought into the pentagon without being any security video so they vetted people politically and showed indifference toward security and intelligence advice. could it be that a lockie being in the pentagon right after nine eleven and encouraging us to go to war we were just totally playing into the hands of bin ladin i mean we just have

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 he 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 way prepared to go into this are occasions he would bleed us to death with a war i don't know i know what he says but he says a lot of things that but also i don't think that a locking necessarily went into the pentagon and was pushing for war in fact at the time at least his public we 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 he was going to that was the birth of the bush administration's response it's agen 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 him it radicalized tens of thousands of other people you created a lot more terrorists than existed before a lot of muscle groups we have just a minute left maria last question to you where do we go from here how does 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 open to us in and we tried to stop killing beforehand saying that the u.s. government couldn't kill him unless they showed he was an eminent 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 that you're to sherry 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 real thank you very much for being with us that there are still a lot of questions unanswered here which i fortunately seems to be a common theme in this decade long the so-called war on terror. the people have spoken after the break find out just for americans the g.o.p. are really looking out for our weekly rubble. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of people who can you trust no one who is in view with the global machinery to see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

fridays are you ready to rumble it's time for this week's big picture around where i sit down with three expert political commentators to debate the week's top stories on our pals and i know mccabe editor of the guns and patriots column at human events on line karl frisch a democratic strategist and founding partner of bullfight strategies and brian darley columnist at 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 row of n.r.l. alok he'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 you all 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 and killing americans in afghanistan in iraq and here domestically in the united states but it's troublesome that this individual is an american citizen and i think you know ron paul made some very strong points that we really need to have due process before americans are killed by the american government at the moment no

person knows no person i just knows that is no person should 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 bomb from killing bin laden and maybe he needed to kill another terrorist you're going to threaten the lives of well i think if one wanted to see lower poll numbers he'd have to go to the wall 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 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 why the administration didn't hold

a trial in absentia i mean it's not that complex of them to do it they're going to build it in new york city right you've got tom i don't understand you were beside yourself upset that dick cheney justified the waterboarding of foreign terrorists and 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 brite 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 of the other constitutional rights that are tonight for millions of americans you know gay marriage and the constitution you show it to me i have a problem because your candidates and their what in the senate we're going to listen to. ron paul said this sort of bad president here's what gary johnson another republican presidential candidate would 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 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 government's longstanding and aggressively anti terror policies 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 lockheed is a major victory in our fight against islamic terrorism and proper justice for the numerous attacks and plots he inspired a plan 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 neil i'm still not sure i understand your i was trying to work it out but you know it's unfair that michele bachmann said this this that causes mental

retardation and 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're. not if you really didn't have to be honest about this do you feel that he should be hauled before the hague for war crimes yes and should he be subject to impeachment hearings for killing an american citizen i don't 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 you 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 in 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 next new mexico drugs and they'll be marginalized just like they have been for most of the ok let me know if you're going on in your leader to

have a formal declaration of war instead of what were the right from day one and i think that was fortunately in the hysteria and to protect the insurance companies who can who are 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 new why it's has created all of these problems that would have been cleared up really but that 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 don't play it but i'm not 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 later so i mean it's ok that's a great big 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 of been unemployed for six months or more this is unheard of this is never happened in the post-war period in the united states. 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 going i dream of a great depression that the republicans are dreaming of the same thing not because it'll make money like the banks but because it will win them an election well in your fervor to blame republicans for everything you have 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 didn't see this really you know promise to be elected on a second i'm sorry sworn in we've lost two million jobs in this country that'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 of that has increased since fourteen everything to us it's been flat what is your body'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 who understands 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 and you know how many years on you know stands up and says i don't have a clue what's going on or what he thought it was and we have a jobs crisis and congress keeps refusing to address its deflection he should just

resign in reality i have no idea what although he has a congress that will not allow anything that's going to stimulate the economy out of the house of representatives but it is vital politically for to say they would prefer to stimulate. the top of the hair rather than the follicle. they believe it is that it means that you love giving the money to the people that. and there even taking a dip during these economic struggles rather than help you know 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 running out of 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 find this really interesting twenty four states have cut funding twenty four of these are all red states these are these are states run by republican governors or congresses and these twenty four states where they've 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 a half a point their unemployment was dropped by contents of a point in these twenty five states you see so math and numbers and those have been verified we have a laboratory in our states and right what our states are telling us is that over the last three years if you spent a little bit of government money and you were a little taxes in those twenty five states if you spent 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 to come see me what it is about raising taxes on people who have money to invest in. the economy will better be what is it about taking money from people that make such as happened last time i would put the money in swiss banks did not create jobs or not job creators these are jobs 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 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 reforms 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. sat me down with my small business of eighteen employees and said stop taking money out of your own company you need to reinvest that money in your company which i did and we grew up business and people and bats the time that was the time when c.e.o.'s took thirty times what their employees take 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 so 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 to his i don't have money because they're so greedy rather years of reaganomics has brought us another great they're so greedy that

they don't want to build a new factory. is 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 that they certainly have it only with a 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 the big money loaning they're not stuffing money into a mattress and hiding it from the economy it actually goes somewhere he's rich yadav it is nice polish 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 selling absolutely not ok so you're content to let it sit overseas i think that i think that setting up trade policies that incentivize companies to make money overseas and keep it overseas is nuts and i think that when nancy pelosi passed legislation on the how to run a house of representatives and said companies that have been getting tax breaks for breaking down factories who lost fifty thousand packages in the last ten years and

it's 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 a. you've been trashing america even taking your money overseas and now we're going to give you a gift but we're truly also a start but we're a year into the economy you know it's a trillion dollars right into the hands of a lot of. it's you don't see any before you just say that you think the government can invest it better we've seen this scandal missile launcher and all of these green energy problems for the bush administration push for two years so you know and they should not push the green energy program there and then to business every melchior program has a ninety nine percent success rate that one percent failure is a lot of role they want to read all they needed was that one why is the banks lining up to make all the money on that ninety percent guarantee is that all too well actually that they've thirty thirty billion dollars in private loans but then

we don't need tax money will be no that's a that's bad about we'll be back with more of the big picture rubble just about. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through who can you trust no one who is you view with a global mission where we had a state controlled capitalism score satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.