Won't happen in the U.S.
Is it just me think who its kinda funny when people who doesn't trust the government with healthcare etc. thinks its OK to give them the power to kill its own citizens?
Perhaps knowing the government has the power to kill its own citizens if what causes the people to not trust the government with health care.
No American citizen is suppose to have his life taken by the US government without due process.
Some secret committee reviewing actions by someone and then forwarding their name to be put on a "to be killed" list to the US President and it being automatically approved unless the President sends back a negative reply to that committee is not due process, but is murder.
Due process is a trial.
Sort of. Due process is dictated by law created by the legislature and balanced against rights the courts determine to supersede the legislation (constitutional or other rights bound in legal precedent necessary to maintain a just system). Congress can change due process at any point in time they want which is why the US constitution guarantees the government cannot take the right to trial, to have competent counsel in your defense, to confront witnesses against you, or to raise witnesses in your favor in a completely separate amendment of the constitution then the one talking about rights of due process. See the 6th amendment verses the 4th and 5th. That being said, I do not disagree that "No American citizen is suppose to have his life taken by the US government without a constitutional process.
Trials by absentia are not useless. Evidence has to be provided to the court, etc. And if the trial date is publicized the accused always has the choice of showing up to defend themselves.
This is another sort of. A criminal conviction in absentia is the easier conviction to get over turned. All you have to do is say you were not afforded and insert one of the rights protected by the 6th amendment. As for as notice, public disclosure of a trial is not enough to serve as notice any more then placing an ad in the LA times for a trial in New York City would be proper notice. The notice has to be in place where someone would reasonably be able to receive it. The laws and rules are a little more lax when it comes to civil trials- more specifically divorce but even these are not set in stone.
A conviction in absentia is beneficial in raising aditional resources in capturing the person for trial. For instance, some foreign government will not extradict someone on most non-capitol crimes unless there is a conviction already in place.
As far as Bush, no doubt he is a war criminal. He knew prisoners were being water boarded and he should have known that the US executed Japanese for water boarding after WWII. If he did not know all he had to do was listen to John McCain. McCain made it quite clear that water boarding was torture.
This is probably the biggest reason I edited my post to address yours. We are a country of laws and we have a constitutional protection against being prosecuted for laws created after the fact. You may not like it, but there was no clear legal definition of torture used in the US and just as Clinton was splitting hairs depending on what the meaning of is is, there really isn't anything the government can do about any torture that went on.
As for foreign government, I would support the US declaring an all out- no holds barred war- against against any foreign power that arrested a sitting or former president or elected official for acts they did in government unless they were impeached and removed from office for those acts. The US is a soverign nation and operates in it's own right of soverengty. The US congress has a constitutional right to not be arrested or charged for any act of legislation or speech they commit in their official capacity as the elected body of representatives. The presidential administrations have the same rights. Whether you think they deserve to be punished or not, the concept of a foreign power retaining superiority over our sovereignty is more frightening then anything that has happened by any president in office in the last 50 years.
IF it should ever happen that to pass that a foreign government or power arrests and presses criminal charges on any of our elected officials, The United State of America has a moral and ethical obligation to end that possibility forever with as much certainty we as a nation can muster. If that results in WWIII, then be it.
