Obama: Drone killing is terrible...when Mitt Romney does it
Obama: Drone killing is terrible...when Mitt Romney does it
Let's face it: Drone killings have become the Staples' "Easy Button" of what we used to call foreign policy.
The lesson that the French supposedly learned in Algiers and that America supposedly learned -- big-time -- in Vietnam and then all over again in Iraq was that insurgencies and terrorists are hard to defeat when the hearts and minds of the local population have turned stone cold against you.
But we all know that winning hearts and minds halfway around the world is impossibly hard work: It requires time and money and patience...the kind of things that are in short supply in America in 2012. In Afghanistan, building roads or new schools isn't easy in the face of centuries of virtually non-stop warfare and hatred.
But then there's drones. Surgically removing the bad guys in Afghanistan -- and, what the hey, Pakistan and Yemen, etc., etc. -- while leaving the good guys intact to breathe in the smell of freedom. What could possibly go wrong? Especially when the Obama administration came up with the way of listing civilians who are killed in the drone strikes as terrorists and when the basic details of the program are kept from Congress and the general public...except for the self-serving details that are leaked to the New York Times.
It seems so...easy. Just think if LBJ had had drones in Vietnam or Jimmy Carter during the Iranian hostage crisis, and how different things might have been! Right? Anyway, I thought I'd lost my capacity to be shocked by anything I read about the drone program until I read this (in the New York Times, of course) this morning:
WASHINGTON — Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.
The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.
Huh?
The attempt to write a formal rule book for targeted killing began last summer after news reports on the drone program, started under President George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama, revealed some details of the president’s role in the shifting procedures for compiling “kill lists” and approving strikes. Though national security officials insist that the process is meticulous and lawful, the president and top aides believe it should be institutionalized, a course of action that seemed particularly urgent when it appeared that Mitt Romney might win the presidency.
“There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands,” said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With a continuing debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama did not want to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, the official said. The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the official said.
Simply put, what Team Obama is saying here is that killing people with drone strikes (but without judicial reviews or public scrunity) is good and virtuous when Barack Obama is the one with his finger on the "Easy" button, but it might be wrong if anyone else does, especially someone we already don't like, such as Mitt Romney. Or. let me put it even simpler: When it comes to drones, Obama now actually believes his own righteous baloney.
The truth is that Mitt Romney -- as we learned during the debates -- would not have operated the drone-killing program any different from Barack Obama. The flying death robots would be used a lot, and some bad guys would die and some innocent women and children would die -- just as happens today. And another truth is this: This is exactly what some civil libertarians warned -- but not loud enough -- when presidential powers were unconstitutionally expanded under George W. Bush, that a Democratic president would not give these powers back. And the biggest truth is this: That the corrupting power of drone killings -- to make things happen with the push of a button rather than the messy process of dealing with judges and Congress and a free press asking questions -- is all but absolute. Look how it has sucked in President Obama -- lock, stock, and barrel.
Today's New York Times article does a very good job of reminding us of some of the reasons why this is such a bad idea. It quotes author Gregory Johnsen who has found that the drone program has completely backfired in Yemen, strengthening al-Qaeda there instead of destroying it. Also, America -- which once opposed targeted assassinations by other nations, as happened earlier this month by the Israelis in Gaza -- has now lost the moral high ground on this issue.
There is also faint hope in the Times article, that a faction within the Obama administration that wants limits on drone strikes may ultimately rule the day. (That faction includes counter-terrorism czar John O. Brennan who -- significantly for this issue -- could end up running the CIA.)
Let's hope so. Targeted assassinations are the moral issue of Obama's second term. He now has a little extra time...to still do the right thing. But morality deferred is still morality denied.
It's no surprise that "dadsgirl" missed the point. Let me spell it out for you s-l-o-w-l-y: It's about the total lack of any semblance of objective journalism from the MSM, stupid!— DaveCicc- Really? Guess you haven't been reading anything other than the "news" sources in your right wing bubble...
— wokmaster - I voted for Obama, but I also criticized him for these drone strikes and for basically using the same tactics as the Bush administration, which aren't lawful. That said, Romney still was the lesser candidate. To the republicans on this board, if you want someone like me to vote for your candidate, you need to do a whole lot better than Mitt Romney. And the country agreed with me. Sorry, you don't get votes simply because the incumbent hasn't been FDR or Lincoln. You get votes if your candidate is better than the incumbent, and he wasn't, so move on and try to find someone in that loony bin of a party who could actually make sense to the sensible voter. Christie may be that guy. Not great, but a much better possibility than Mittbot.— Hemingway
- "It's about the total lack of any semblance of objective journalism from the MSM, stupid!"
Yeah! Like all those weighted polls saying Obama was favored to win, and not telling the Real Story behind the Great Benghazi Conspiracy (no, not the part where Republicans refused the president's request for more funding for our diplomatic missions' security!).
dadsgirl, the truth is distorting your political outlook. You should join "Traditional America" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).— Hamlet - sure ham. of course the state dept had plenty of money to buy chevy volts and their charging stations. google is your friend — rysagr
- The hypocrisy of this administration and the electorate utterly staggers the imagination. It is fine and moral if we remotely kill thousands because we are the righteous and every one else be damned, especially if they are Republicans. One of these days this cowardly strategy may comeback to haunt us when someone else decides we have threats to their welfare within our borders, what then? I guess we will just protest to the UN. How's that gonna work for ya.— rfitz
I don't understand what all the hoopla is about. This is war. Snap out of it.— TopCat#1- won't be so much fun now that China's got drones. Obama should be writing legislation curtailing the liberties that Bush took, not enhance them. but everyone knows republicans under Romney would have abused these new liberties, seeing how republicans have shown absolutely no restraint on anything in the past 12 years.
- Can't wait to see what happens as the ramp up the domestic drone surveillance.— General Turgidson
- Willy as usual puts the blame on Bush. However, bush authorized very very limited use of the drone strikes and few civilians were killed. Most of the strikes were also in Iraq and Afghanistan. A couple were used in the no-mans land of the tribal lands of NW Pakistan. Bush ordered about 48 strikes in pakistan. Obama has ordered 262 and with a huge increase of strikes into village compounds resulting in almost a 20 fold increase in civilian deaths. Willy claims obama was sucked in, but the truth is he embrassed the role of target selection and strike authorization. No US president has personnally ordered the killing of people before. There was always a layer between the president and the kill order. From the killing of the pirates back in 2009 to the hundreds of drone strikes, Obama has been personnally order the kills. It is a very disturbing first that he is dealing with these issues at a time we are facing economic disaster and it is clear it does not bother him. He may even enjoy it from the way he talks about it. And that is not a good thing.
Think about it Willy, YOUR GUY likes to push the kill button and does not care who goes down at the other end. At what point does obama cross the line between Commander in Chief and serial killer? He already is a baby killer.
— Dutch-wayne - "sure ham. of course the state dept had plenty of money to buy chevy volts and their charging stations. google is your friend"
Okay, I have been with my family for the holidays (and I don't live in right wing nut-blog-land), but is this really the new meme of the looney right? The embassies and diplomatic stations are vulnerable to attack because they spent all their money on Chevy Volts???
I get it! Volts are green, and greenies hate violence and guns so...wait, I still don't get it - if only I hadn't gone to college. If I was ten kinds of stupid I might get what you are saying.— Hamlet - "Can't wait to see what happens as the ramp up the domestic drone surveillance."
Nothing. We'll all be in FEMA camps being forced to watch Obama socialism-rap indoctrination videos (probably featuring Common), so no one will be able to do anything.— Hamlet - Obama quadrupled the use of Drone strikes and has definitely fomented more anti-USA hatred worldwide because of it. Much worse than the Guantanamo symbolism concern. And Obama has more intensively used and expanded the Patriot Act. Yet more passivity among the same press who regularly railed against Bush-Cheyney for their evilness in employing the same tools ostensibly for national security— zen
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