Touré's Shocking Reversal on Drone Strikes

The drone program has been an area of contention amongst the anti-war Left, progressives, and civil liberties supporters. It began under the Bush administration, but became more aggressive under Obama. It has been a resounding success. It’s decimated Al-Qaeda’s leadership, and remains an effective tool in our War on Terror. In fact, this is one area of policy, and there’s not too many of them, in which I agree with the president. Last spring, when the White House was leaking security secrets all over the place, the revelation of a classified “kill list” that was published in the New York Times brought new light to the subject.

Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war.

For some of the Left, like Touré, this drone program of targeted killings imbrue America’s moral authority, especially when Americans are targeted. However, as RBPundit at The Right Sphere noted, Touré evolved rather quickly on this issue.

[O]n December 20th, 2012, seven weeks ago:

Touré insisted that torture, and drone warfare, are not making America safer. Nor, he said, do those tactics provide defense officials with actionable intelligence. “It wrecks the soul of America,” Touré said.

Drone strikes aren’t making us safer. They wreck the soul of America.

Now that we’ve learned that the Obama administration is calling the killing of American citizens without due process “legal, ethical, and wise,” Toure has changed his tune.

TOURE NEBLETT: We’re at war with al Qaeda right now, and if you join al Qaeda, you lose the right to be an American. You lose the right to due process. You declare yourself an enemy of this nation, and you are committing treason. And I don’t see why we should expand American rights to people who want to kill Americans, who are working to kill Americans, who are committing treason. This is not criticizing the United States. This is going to war against the United States.