John Brennan Faces the Issue of the Drone War (Updated)
Coming just a few days before Brennan is scheduled to appear before the Senate IntelligenceCommittee, this demand along with the leaked Justice Department summary report of the legal memos that are still classified put great pressure on Brennan, who is largely considered to be the major advocate of and architect of increased use of drones by the administration. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, told the paper that “the idea that the president has this extraordinary power that can be utilized in secret without any oversight or accountability, I think is wrong and detrimental to the public interest.” In addition to Wyden, the letter was signed by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee. In an age in which bi-partisanship is rare, this unity from both sides of the aisle puts great pressure on the White House, as well as on Brennan.
Today, the Post reported as well that the administration has fought hard to “keep [these memos] hidden from the public.” No wonder. I, and most Americans, have nothing but disdain and disgust for our fellow citizens who have become traitors to the country in which they were born, and work day and night to bring it to harm and kill as many of us as possible. But the great strength of our republic is that our Constitution affords us basic rights, including the right to a trial by our peers, and the right of legal counsel to present a strong defense of our actions. We are not talking about the likes of Osama bin Laden and other Islamist radicals who are not American, and who are hence not subject to the protection afforded our own citizens.
We may despise what they do, but we must realize that to allow for the violation of their rights harms not just the targeted individual but the rights of all of us. Once we make an exception to the liberties granted all U.S. citizens, a future White House can broaden the definition even further to limit more rights in the interest of national security. Moreover, although it is obviously more difficult to capture the individual U.S. citizen operating abroad who is part of a terror network, killing him by use of a drone means that he is no longer available as a source for more information, much of which could be extremely vital for gathering the kind of intelligence that would stop any future planned operation. Of course, it also means that the administration will not have to use the enhanced interrogation techniques that President Obama opposes, and which some might argue could be necessary to get the captured individual to cooperate. By killing the target instead, they have eliminated having ever to make such a judgment call.
Clearly, the memo shows a few different things. First, Barack Obama’s many campaign promises before the 2008 election were put by the wayside once he realized that the kind of actions he swore to stop were necessary in carrying out the war against terror, even though many of the measures had been implemented by the Bush administration. Second, the administration which came into power pledging to be the most transparent in our history has turned out to be no more willing to let its secrets be known by the American public than any before it. Third, Barack Obama has extended the powers of the executive and what used to be called “the imperial presidency” by liberals more than any other previous commander-in-chief, but this time his lofty rhetoric has succeeded in quieting liberal critics of past administrations, because they want him to succeed, and hence he has a green light to move forward untrammeled.
The president had a problem with Chuck Hagel after his disastrous testimony before a Senate committee. Although Hagel most likely will squeak through, albeit embarrassed and compromised, will John Brennan now face the kind of questions he cannot answer, and possibly be stopped from ascending to the post of CIA chief, which seemed to most observers at first to be a done deal? We will learn the answer soon.
Update: 11:15 a.m. EST, Feb.6, 2013
Some readers are upset to find, at a conservative website, a critique of the Obama administration’s legal reasons advanced in the cited memo for using drone attacks. They fear that it means one writer, myself, is soft on terrorism. I admonish readers to consider that this is a complicated issue, and by now, others have weighed in.
First, here is what Jim Geragthy writes in his “Morning Jolt” e-mail sent to National Review readers:
Let me throw you a curveball by quoting Adam Serwer of Mother Jones, reacting to the administration’s release of its legal justification to kill Americans believed to be involved with terror without a trial, by drone:
The Obama administration claims that the secret judgment of a single “well-informed high level administration official” meets the demands of due process and is sufficient justification to kill an American citizen suspected of working with terrorists. That procedure is entirely secret. Thus it’s impossible to know which rules the administration has established to protect due process and to determine how closely those rules are followed. The government needs the approval of a judge to detain a suspected terrorist. To kill one, it need only give itself permission.
Of course, the hypocrisy of most liberals doesn’t get us off the hook on the need to have a coherent view on this. Okay, conservatives, big question now: If this were President Romney, would we be shrugging, concerned, complaining or screaming? I think “concerned.” At the very least, you would want another set of eyes – the House or Senate intelligence committees, or some independent judges – taking a look at the presidential “kill list,” right? At least for the American citizens?
Our Charles C.W. Cooke: “In case my position isn’t obvious: I am appalled by any president possessing the unilateral power to kill American citizens extrajudicially.”
Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, puts it rather bluntly: “Every American has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them.”
That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Second, a major debate takes place at TNR. Read the two entries by its legal editor, Jeffrey Rosen, and the rebuttal by Jack Goldsmith, who served in the White House as a counsel during the Bush administration, but who resigned and who had differences with the opinions of other advisors. I find it interesting that TNR, the new very liberal TNR, has to go to someone who served in the hated Bush administration for a defense of the Obama administration’s legal arguments for use of drones.
I report, you decide. I think that Rosen has the best argument. You may disagree. But again, let’s avoid ad hominem remarks, and seriously look at the issues.
More from Scott Ott:
American Citizens Fair Game Under Obama Doctrine
These killing many very well be justified in extraordinary circumstances. We must do what is prudent to ensure our elected officials check and balance the process. There is no perfect answer to this dilemma. We will just have to muddle through.
To much power.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s war against the truth
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/02/06/u-s-attorney-patrick-fitzgeralds-war-against-the-truth/
This administration’s assassination doctrine is additionally chilling when one considers Obama’s rhetoric on what constitutes an “enemy” and what constitutes “terrorism”… Obama isn’t talking about AQ, nuclear equipped Pakistanis, Jihad funding Saudis, or other genocidal Muslims – he’s referring to Republicans, gun rights activists, white people, rich people, etc. All of these groups fall rhetorically under Obama’s rubric of “enemies”. Add the typical, often eliminationist rhetoric of his fellow travellers on the Left, their endless references to the “economic terrorism” of capitalism, “white privilege”, and other such notions straight out of Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot, and we’ve got a huge problem with this deranged president…
According to information from a source known on the internet as “White House Insider”, Obama spends much of his days watching a big screen TV, dressed in sweats and smoking. According to this source, Obama has the greatest enthusiasm for drone killing and watches the recordings of them over and over “like porn” and one doesn’t have to be Sigmund Freud to recognize a sick mind in that behavior.
Amazing that so many intelligent people still can’t see this.
Beyond that, there are several reports that we are not only careless about collateral damages, but we are doing what the IRA used to do – strike the first responders. Double tap drone strikes, as it were.
That is just plain wrong.
What’s even worse is this doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the US press. The left run media doesn’t want to say anything bad about Obama, and the right leaning press seems to be in favor or eternal war in the Middle East
If the President does it then it’s not illegal. – Barack Milhous Obama
Yes, there does seem to be a similarity between these two emerging, especially the isolation and paranoia. Creepy . . .
When a President acts outside the rule of law, he invites retaliation in kind. We may, one of these days, wake y=up to learn the the President has been assassinated by order of AlQaeda. Please remember that the word ‘assassin’ comes from the Hashashin of Persia, Hassan esSabah, Sheikh alJebal, was a free-lance master of sassassins. He men could be hired through him to take out whomever was desired. I would not be surprised if, among all the jihadi factions out there, the Assassins still existed, or have been revived. So, I would say to President Obama and his minions: Be careful what you order. It might be ordered against you. ‘Who lives by the sword, dies by the sword’—-or a red-handled dagger.
Maybe they’ll get really mad and fly some planes into two of our tall buildings.
The Left goes nuts over waterboarding foreign nationals who may be imminent threats but not assassinating American citizens who may be imminent threats.
If this was a Republican President there’d be big headlines. There is not one thing on the HuffPo about this. Not one.
There are 3 remonstrances among the bewildering variety of almost hopeless idiocy at the Daily Kos that are a liberal version of censure. The first says it’s wrong but if it were the GOP they’d embrace this memo with glee and that the opposition is “disloyal and insane.”
The second says it’s wrong but that Obama can be trusted with this but there may be a GOP President coming up.
The third says it’s wrong and invokes a watered down version of the second blogger. None of them could simply condemn it outright without dragging in non-existent GOP Presidents. Bush isn’t available for a third term on this one or he’d have been dragged in.
Whatever shadow of principles the Left has are either hopelessly compromised or simply non-existent. Particulars are all that matters to the Left. Who does it, not what they do. And the who are inevitably distributed morals according to gender, race and sexual preference. For example, if a white person wrote a regular column like Ta Nahesi-Coates does at the feeble Atlantic, they’d be fitted with a Swastika and hood in short order. He cannot stop thinking about white people, and never shuts up about them. Predictably, Coates is usually short on names and long on dates like 1956 or 1857.
Similarly, the Left never shuts up about the GOP, even when they aren’t involved, have no names or faces. Just their shadow will do. The entire pack mentality of the Left lives in an alternate world. If you applied so-called Leftist “principles” to any professional sport, it would collapse of its own weight in confusion over identity rules. Sadly, the Left IS applying their bizarre world views to America, and America is worse for it, not to say confused. We essentially bicker over whether water is wet, in sad displays of intellectual and philosophical bankruptcy by people who are convinced their minds are bright lights.
Marxist terrorists like Bill Ayers have advocated killing Americans for years. Now that Ayer’s boy, the monster Hussein, is preezy, the killing has begun. Why is this surprising? What I want to see is for the Americans who are being targeted by our tyrannical Marxist terrorist government to finally get a clue and start to fight back.
Here is where the American public and media needs to have a case of collective Amnesia. No problem. When Obama and Holder decide that killing someone is OK well then it is ok. US citizen? No problem. Anyone within 50 feet of this unlucky terrorist? No problem.
If the GOP wants an issue, this is it. But again our keystone cops are too busy strategizing how to legalize illegals or take away our 2nd amendment without us noticing it, to give a crap.
This pronouncement is an outrage. Anyone remember what Bush had to go through. The US Governement set up an entire court FISA to supervise how we collect information on terrorists without violating privacy rights. Now with nothing but the word of the two biggest liars in history (Obama and HOlder) we are going to let them kill US citizens and all the innocent people who may be with them.
We are under seige from this president. Impeachment proceedings should already be underway given “fast and furious” and the sordid Benghazi affair. But hey “What difference does it make?” So we can either let US citizens die in plain sight at an abandoned embassy or we can blow up US citizens on a whim.” What difference does it make?”
God help us if we don’t go after this rogue government. Someone wake up the GOP and the American public.
Why all the hand ringing for illegal enemy combatants? Imagine an American traitor during WWII encamped with the Germans and giving them valuable information about Allied forces. Do you really think that General Patton would have given a rat’s a$$ about blowing the guy, and everyone within a quarter mile, to bits?
Oprah is not the G3 of today’s operation. Islam is fighting a war against the West. Rules of engagement are going to be quite different in this war.
Hussein’s idea of an enemy combatant differs quite a bit from yours.
My hand wriniing is not over the Muslim traitors or the guilty scum around them when they explode – it’s the power and wanton disregard for law and the Constitution which this imperious bastard exhibits. All the signs are there of a potential maniac – the extremely brittle ego, the malignant narcissism, the need to lie and exaggerate and fabricate to impress, (composite girlfriends, claiming to be a “constitutional scholar”, lying about shooting skeet), the scapegoating and the demagoguery and the deliberate targeting of his “enemies” for punishment and destruction. Obama may have no limits in his twisted mind to act against those he hates and projects his loathing onto. He is amenace on so many levels.
During the Second World War the American commander of the air war waged against German cities objected to this obvious targeting of civilians which is and always will be immoral. In those days there were actually Americans who had a moral sense of right and wrong, amazing. Today the superbowl addled American public has no concept of what moral and immoral mean; they elected a president and vice president who are silly men who also have no sense of what is evil and what is entertainment. So the neo Americans have a culture that they created where killing people is no big deal unless it is done with a so called assault rifle. Okay children get this Obama lesson now, killing with a rifle is evil but massacring with drones is good and wholesome and a wonderful topic for our tv and movie industry. O tempora O mores.
Time too put up or shut up !! I could lead an army of citizens, well-armed and ready, against Obama and his gang of thugs, in my wheel-chair, carrying the flag. Since Congress and the Supreme Court are too stupid or lazy to act, perhaps the time has come, sadly, that the people ourselves, must do what our paid and heretofore trusted employees will not or cannot do. I feel the shame of doing nothing to halt the destruction of our once-great nation.
Time too put up or shut up !! I could lead an army of citizens, well-armed and ready, against Obama and his gang of thugs, in my wheel-chair, carrying the flag. Since Congress and the Supreme Court are too stupid or lazy to act, perhaps the time has come, sadly, that the people ourselves, must do what our paid and heretofore trusted employees will not or cannot do. I feel the shame of doing nothing to halt the destruction of our once-great nation. Please omit the extra o in “time too etc…”
So, you’re advocating insurrection against the lawful government of the United States here? That usually doesn’t turn out well, for the savior or the savee.
Lawful government?
That was a particularly poor choice of a word, wasn’t it? Let’s just say elected, with a small asterisk for certain voting irregularities.
If one believes the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the powers not delegated to the Federal government are reserved by the states, we are way past lawful.
I never expected, outside the pages of Mad magazine, to see a government that believes it is unlawful to assassinate the head of an enemy state, but lawful to assassinate an American citizen.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
King George was ‘lawful.’ We created new laws. One of them included no kings.
It’s the remake of Animal House – we now have the double super secret death penalty, courtesy of a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Words cannot express my contempt.
Much stranger than fiction.
As long as the drone attacks are confined to largely lawless areas: Afganistan, Somalia, and parts of North Africa and Pakistan, I have no problem with it. It’s not like we can extradite people from there. Moreover, if we are not going to seriously interrogate people like al-Awlaki, what’s the point of capturing them alive?
The government sees everything as a nail.
You keep giving it bigger hammers.
Now, you’re bitching because the government is using hammers.
Re-posted from the Scott Ott site:
“I’m thinking back to 1972…..Jane Fonda is cavorting with the enemy, in enemy territory where our men are being slaughtered, wearing the uniform of the enemy, she supports all the bomb-throwing Bill Ayers-types of America…..would Obama agree a drone strike would have been perfectly acceptable then? Would someone please ask him THAT question?”
Hi Barbara,
Permit me to provide a humble though perhaps unsatisfying answer to the question. In a fair world, traitors such as Jane Fonda would have been convicted in a federal court of treason and given the maximum penalty. Personally, I find it awful that Fonda provided comfort to the enemy while our men were being killed and maimed on the battlefield. However, as my grandmother once told me, we do not live in a fair world. I am continually reminded of the truth of this pithy saying, especially when I read articles such as the present one.
In any case, we can rest assured that although the perpetrators may manage to live out their natural lives without due punishment from the courts, like everyone else they will eventually suffer the ravages of old age before they pass from this world. For example, the late Ted Kennedy enjoyed tremendous celebrity status, wealth, and worldly power, in spite of his past misdeeds, yet even all that was not enough to save him from cancer – a few of his own cells essentially committing treason against the body. Have no illusions: medical technology, though advancing due to biotechnology, is still pretty lacking when you see and experience it first hand, as the aging Baby Boomer generation is about to find out.
Oh please…….lets start out with my background: I strongly supported the war in Iraq and STILL do.
Nothing in that memo…..NOTHING…….advocates ANYTHING that is remotely illegal or unconstitutional in a war. Many French joined and formed the Charlemagne division of the Waffen SS during World War 2. The French resistance had no ethical or moral qualms about slaughtering their countryman when the time was right. History is full of such instances of countries slaughtering their own citizens who join the enemy. Many Americans fought for Germany and Japan during World War 2. They too were slaughtered without compunction or hand-wringing.
I have absolute no sympathy….NONE WHATSOEVER……with droning Americans who “vacation” in Yemen in order to “study” graduate-level coursework in Islamic terrorism. I also have absolutely no sympathy for the “civilians” who seem to be ever present when these monsters are assassinated. We hear constant cries of outrage from Pakistanis in the lawless tribal areas regarding the drone attacks. Puleeze….6 years ago, they were excitedly accepting Al Quaeda funds for harboring terrorists and bragging about how they were untouched by the law. You have made your bed, now lie in it, idiot.
And now, on a conservative website, we have handwringing about killing traitors during a wartime.
With whatever respect is due, you’re missing the point. It’s not the killing of traitors, it’s the killing of traitors who have not been adjudicated as such without and process at all and under vague, unlimited and arbitrary standards. These people happen to be us citizens – are you really nonplussed that senior figures in the us executive branch have appointed themselves secret judge, jury and executioner, in standardless fashion and without any congressional or judicial input? If so, you’re meek anough to tolerate any dictatorial abuse and about as far away from our founding ideals as possible.
Obama’s presidency really is a Kim Jong Sung one, both for his economic ruin and amoral tyranny. And nothing captures the rot in America more than this standardless assassination policy. All of his harm just because Obama and his far left allies in power don’t want to confront the lesser moral problem of detaining and interrogating these terrorists. It’s amazing how low this country has sunk.
Thank you for your comments. I don’t understand the hand wringing, either.
The author said: “We are not talking about the likes of Osama bin Laden and other Islamist radicals who are not American, and who are hence not subject to the protection afforded our own citizens.”
To that I ask: what’s the difference? Osama bin Laden was a civilian, just like Anwar al-Awlaki. Both were making war on America in the name of Islam. Anyone near these people when they were hit are legitimate collateral damage. Awlaki, if he wanted his son to live, should have left him in America. The people who are hitting us are civilians, being supported by civilians. THEY are violating the laws of war.
I don’t think the actually killing is the issue. It’s how the decision is made to do so. These legal papers say, in effect, that the President can kill anyone he thinks is dangerous – period. Now, this President might not decide YOU’RE dangerous, but another one might. Do you really want to give him that power? I don’t.
Exactly. If American Taliban Boy got wasted in Afghanistan on the battlefield, you’d hear no argument from me. In fact, if he was captured out of uniform fighting against American soldiers, and stood up against the nearest wall and shot, you’d still get no argument from me.
I don’t trust a government that armed Mexican Drug cartels. We’ve got a dead Border Patrol agent and hundreds of dead Mexican citizens and nobody is accountable?
Where do you draw the line? What happens when some innocent is killed by mistake? What happens when some innocent is killed through negligence? Do you think Congress is still capable of effective oversight, or is it a polarized body incapable of acting on behalf of the country anymore?
You’re wrong – we’re complaining about the double standard of Bush’s waterboarding of foreign nationals out of uniform, a far lesser affair than the extra-legal murdering of Americans. It’s a simple comparison. Since principles are defunct on the Left, an almost impossible comparison for them to make.
Will this raise a furor on the Left? You know it won’t. They’ll spin and hem and haw until all is settled as before. That’s what Leftist’s do – rearrange reality to suit them.
And I must’ve missed the history book about American brigades fighting for the Empire of Japan.
How preposterously HYPOCRITICAL are the USURPER and his REGIME.
According to them and their moonbat supporters it is vile evil torture to drip water on a Terrorists face but its OK to shoot a missile at them from 30,000 feet and kill them along including American CITIZENS without due process of Law and of course anyone else in the vicinity . But if they are taken prisoner they must be given their MIRANDA rights and Halal meals and prayer mats and allowed to grow their beards and to consort freely together.
There is only one word for such a disfunctional HYPOCRITICAL REGIME and that is INSANE.
The girl killed by Barack Obama – she never saw it coming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqqz_KLU4Ys
This is bad policy. With Obama cracking jokes about killer drones, the John Lennon song Instant Karma pops in my head.
Pause for a moment and ask what the liberal community and the political Left would be saying if such a memo had been released during the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Oh, please. As soon as the 110th Congress was sworn in, the Democrats would have begun impeachment proceedings.
I look forward to seeing the administration’s interpretation of “due process” reviewed by the courts. SCOTUS ruled long ago that different processes can be legitimate in different circumstances. Let’s see how far that ruling can be stretched.
CIA Agent Exposes How Al-Qaeda Dosen’t Exist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GARE6NcxdcY
Hillary Clinton Admits the U.S. Government Created al-Qaeda Published on Apr 10, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZK6SVlQ1Y&feature=related
Why would the left rage on the drone issue? Obama is not Bush…so sugar plums water-boarding and drones are swirling, as they sleep in their beds, as dreams of hellfire missiles go dancing on conservative Christian Tea Party Members heads.
20 Dec 2012 Reported sex assaults leap 23 percent at US military academies
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/20/16039249-reported-sex-assaults-leap-23-percent-at-us-military-academies?lite
After reading the NBC leaked report, I believe (due to its vagueness) serves as a warrant to kill — any where, any time, and any one. It is utterly disgusting, anti-American, and apropos only for Thirld World potentates. I believe Obama is so overstepping his constitutional powers, that only an impeachment hearing can stop him.
So the Prez can blow things up and kill people based on scanty evidence, huh? Sounds a lot like what George Bush, according to the left, did in Iraq. Think they’ll change their minds about “Bush lied, people died” now?
Just a few years ago, in the former times, these same people were screaming about granting U.S. Constitutional Protections to enemy combatants.
Hormonal government?
The willingness by Americans confident of their own good standing to selectively abrogate the rights of others does not bode well. We can’t just vote each other off the island folks. Wasn’t anyone paying attention in school? To say we’ve become a nation of retards is an insult to retards.
This is a very complicated issue in which the Constitution has been left behind by events on the ground. I imagine a US citizen of German ancestry who chose to take up arms against the US in WWII. Would we require the US Army to give him special consideration on the battlefield, or would he be shot just as anyone else wearing the Wehrmacht uniform would be? Of course he’d be shot.
I place Americans who choose to fight with terrorists in the same category. And they deserve to be treated as any other enemy combatant, with deadly force when the opportunity arises.
This does not excuse liberals who complain about terrorists getting slapped, but who now dummy up when it’s their guy who is stretching the envelope. In my view, the story here is not that Obama is vaporizing enemies who coincidentally hold US citizenship. It’s the flagrant hypocrisy of the left.
“It’s not the killing of traitors, it’s the killing of traitors who have not been adjudicated as such without and process at all and under vague, unlimited and arbitrary standards.”
I see. So when these monsters are plotting to kill Americans and collecting the means to do so efficiently, they should be given a court hearing where their side should be heard? “Oh, that stuff that looked and smelled like Plastique? Oh that was my mom’s brownie mix.”
Yeah, right.
Of course, they should have first SURRENDERED in order to get that lucrative treatment of Due Process under the laws of war, no? Sounds like Bin Laden’s son’s argument that he was entitled to a court hearing before he was assassinated. But of course, the comeback was, well then surrender, a$$hole! Again, Al Quaeda and the Pakistanis caused this big stinking mess they now have to live in. We are just there to clean it up. And those poor civilians that accepted all that Al Quaeda money and openly bragged about how they were untouchable in the lawless areas of Pakistan……you might want to rethink your stated policies toward the United States and Al Qaeda, duh?
The point is SOME process is required, just like surveillance warrants on national security grounds – Obama has not even given this process the fig leaf of review, the memo effectively gives arbitrary unreviewable power to his administration to kill Americans. What level of process is needed for such a momentous decision should be debated and established by congress, after all we can hold them to account (obviously the courts will set the minimum level of process consonant with the constitution). Why do you have to go to the lengths of positing an absurd situation? Do you trust Obama’s protofascist administration’s judgment on these issues? Why, after alll he’s sent guns to drug gangs in Mexico and engineered he jailing of a film maker to cover up his malfeasance in Benghazi (needless to say these acts we the product of his administration’s functionaries – so having been so wrong and reckless here, do you have any faith they’ll get it right on unilateral assassination of Americans (under a completely nebulous and arbitrary standard that’s untested and unrviewable?.
The fact is, there is more process accorded these people under FISA to get a warrant in a secret court to intercept their communications than there is to unilaterally decide they must die. That’s crazy.
The supreme irony here is that Obama and the radical left now in charge of the federal government spent he 8 years of the Bush administration demagoguing on phony torture that protects us and was used sparingly under defined standards and now, rather than be revealed as having done so only for partisan purposes and hypocrisy, they simply execute people (none of whom are sympathetic, but that’s not the point). This standardless and process less killing of us citizens is simply north Korean gangster government brought to you by he radical hyPocrits in today’s democrat party.
Both Bush and Obama are faced with the same dilemma, and have dealt with it in only slightly different ways.
Here’s the issue, which is skirted around in the Justice Department Level: How to conduct a war when the enemy has made it clear time and time again they will not follow any of the commonly accepted rules of war. Neither Bush nor Obama are at fault for the choices they have made, given the jihad’s absolute dirty-necked rejection of civilization.
A basic precondition of attaining all of the niceties of Due Process and the protections of the Geneva Convention during a war is to surrender. Jihadis do not surrender. They use human shields instead. If you live in the so-called lawless areas of Pakistan, do not harbor Al Quaeda operatives, thereby making yourself an unfortunate classification, known as a “Target.” Turn them over for capture. Its just that simple and easy!
Drones are simply an ingenious technological solution to the not-very-ingenious rejection of civilization’s easily understood rules of war. Callow 18 year-old punks well understand these concepts after say, a whole day at Boot Camp. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is no dense Dostoevsky novel. In fact, the military has often waived the basic requirement of a high school diploma. That book was written for them! The Geneva Convention, in relevant part, fits on a baseball card, in easily understood sound bite terms for anyone one who can understand, say, what is being said on Honey Boo Boo.
You reject these very simple concepts at your own peril. That is neither Obama’s or Bush’s fault, nor is it their problem.
What sentient people are objecting to is not the instrumentality of their deaths, or that a case exists that they should die, its that Obama has arrogated to himself alone the decision to kill Americans without any standards in reality, so it’s comportent arbitrary. He has a higher burden getting authorization to intercept their phone calls and emails than to kill them. That’s nuts, especially when his administration is so reckless and inept (fast and furious to give just one example).
The brave people fighting terrorists are not the ones at fault here – its Obama unilaterally and with real standards or process deciding to kill American citizens that should have people outraged. Every citizen deserves a minimum of process before their government kills them, unless you want to be like Iran or n Korea/ china. Get real!
All that was necessary to make things nice and legal-like was someone, anyone, BESIDES Barack H. Obama, making an adjudication that Awlaki had, by his own actions, renounced his U.S. citizenship.
You feel differently. You feel that such determinations be made BY Barack Obama, and by Barack Obama ONLY. That’s what happened in the Awlaki instance.
No one is weeping because Awlaki was killed. Some are weeping because OUR due process rights were blown to bits with him. BTW, those are YOUR due process rights too, or do you think that since you’re not AQ that you’ll never be declared a “terrorist” or an “enemy of the state”?
And when Barack Obama and Barack Obama ONLY pronounces that YOU are a traitor and subject to drone strike — again, by your own actions, whether those actions are voting Republican, joining a Tea Party, owning a firearm, or merely commenting on a “conservative” website — then we won’t be so unkind as to say “we told you so” … but mostly because you’ll dead via drone-strike by then.
Despite protestations, we’ll no doubt stick with your “Barry knows best” argument, and we’ll all get to see where it leads.
“As viewers of Homeland know, drone strikes kill many innocent civilians as well as the guilty targets”.
Ron this statement is false; whether it is in the west bank/Gaza, Afghanistan, or the border with Pakistan. Unconventional forces, with out uniforms who go home every night and prop their AK’s up in the corner… Their wives and children are support personnell for the Jihad. Tough luck! There are NO Civilians in these circumstances.
Making the argument that this admin is full of hypocrites (as well as the democrat party) is fine. But, “they are doing what Bush was doing!”, is pretty weak tea as far as an argument goes.
Do you suppose there may have been american collaborators in Dresden, or Tokyo. Should that have stopped us? It is WAR BABY!!
They better make sure to ground all drones with the assignment to take out any flop eared, half breed, male muslim, engaged in economic and ethnic terrorism on the United States, while Obama’s out of the country.
BiggerDiggler said ” If you live in the so-called lawless areas of Pakistan, do not harbor Al Quaeda operatives, thereby making yourself an unfortunate classification, known as a “Target.” Turn them over for capture. Its just that simple and easy!”
This is a problem we ran into in Vietnam. If an armed intruder enters your house and you are unarmed are you going to throw him out? The Viet Cong came into the little villages and hamlets armed to the teeth, took food, young men and anything else they wanted and the villagers had no way to stop them. Al Quaeda is doing the same thing. True, many of the people support them but what are those that don’t supposed to do? If they try to throw them out they die, if they report them they die and not just them but their whole families. Mostly, the people just want to be left alone.
As to targeting Americans working with the enemy overseas, I have no problem with it.They have made their bed and now they need to lay in it. When Hanoi Jane was playing NVA for a day I was just a bit farther south near Danang. It wouldn’t have bothered me one little bit to see pictures of the aftermath of an airstrike on that AA gun she was playing with even though she too was surrounded by civilians. Now if Obamba turns his drones loose on an American citizen here in the States that is something entirely different even if they are working for the enemy. Here we have the ability to take them down without killing unless they put up a fight.
As to the idiot that got his trial delayed because he got red marks on his wrists, handcuffs can do that to you. Maybe the guard put them on a bit to tight or maybe he twisted around while the guard was putting them on him or maybe again he twisted his arms around while he was walking from one place to another. Who knows? Who cares?
What’s wrong with this picture.
Non citizen enemies using our constitution, being housed and afforded due process, all at the expense of the taxpaying citizens:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/uss-cole-suspect-complains-of-marks-on-wrist-victims-describe-their-torture/
Citizens, law breakers to be sure but citizens none the less, ordered to be killed by one person and one person only, by way of secret determination(s), without any due process or even input from anyone/anywhere, and completely unconstitutional:
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite
And let’s not forget we are no longer afforded our constitutional rights established in the 4th amendment, according to DHS/TSA.
Nope, no signs of dictatorship or tyranny here. Just conspiracy theories. /s/
I guess I’m too old. I remember when the Chicago Police (with an assist from the FBI?) took out an apaartment full of Black Panthers including a sleeeping Fred Hampton. It would appear then, that the Regieme might try targeted killing domesticaly too!
Sorry. Don’t buy your response. There are far more civilians in the lawless areas of Pakistan than there are Al Quaeda operatives. So far, I have heard no reports of a rash of headless Al Quaeda corpses hung upside down from lamp posts, indicating that the citizens have truly seen the error of their ways of providing save haven for these monsters.
Pakistan has long been a safe haven for terrorists. Therefore, the citizen’s who don’t wish to inadvertently become “collateral damage” have many obvious alternatives. On the other hand, our goal is to eradicate the earth of Al Quaeda scum, and nothing about the drone campaign indicates an excessive civilian death toll. In fact, it is clearly the opposite of that. But more importantly, if the civilian death toll were 10 or 20 times hire than it is now, it would still fall far far below any war in history.
Suddenly Radosh is worried about collateral damage. Where were these concerns during Operation Cast Lead?