So wrong
So wrong
To paraphrase ESPN, what if I told you...that in the future, a U.S. president would have the power to send flying killer robots around the world, striking dead individualls without judicial process and sometimes with little or no evidence of their alleged crimes? Science fiction? No, it's Barack Obama and his team:
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
Look, I have just as little sympathy for al-Qaeda as the next guy, but in addition to the lack of judicial process or standards, let's not forget that these strikes kill more civilians than they do terrorists -- and that the government has a dodgy system to try and cover that up. When are we going to stop sliding down this slippery slope and start the long hard climb back to what we used to call the American way of justice?
What difference, at this point, does it make?— Mr. Smith- The difference is that America was supposed to be a moral leader of the world, not just another nation with laws made for the governing people (tyrants in most cases). While we still elect our leaders, we should not let them get away with murder.— Archimedes
- Our 'leaders' don't care about murder and violence in our inner cities. With that, I'll go with Mr. Smith. (Archimedes obviously didn't get the Hillary pun there. Must be too busy only reading Bunch' B$)— keapitreal
- Such limited space to speak on Sally Starr.....Soooooooo wrong.— Cuddles
- Next post from Will Bunch: "Why is DHS ordering 400 million rounds of ammo every other month?"— teardownthisfishwrap
- Will, I do commend you on your consistency in opposition to both the Bush and Obama policies regarding the war on terrorism. The rest of the media seemed to be struck silent on 01/20/2009, probably due to the overwhelming aura of Obama. I will, however, be waiting for the day when you label Obama a war criminal and demand his prosecution.— jmc
- "be waiting for the day when you label Obama a war criminal and demand his prosecution" . . . . . Will that be the same day jmc labels Bush a war criminal and demands his prosecution? Don't say we didn't warn you abouty Bush's clims of extraordinary power, by the way. The problem here isn't the silence of the media (NBC broke this story, not FoxNews or Drudge), or the ACLU for that matter. It's the silence of the GOP. Obama knows they'll never make an issue out of his killing brown people without due process, citizens or not, as long as the war on terror can be politically exploited. Obama remains one step ahead of them, as usual.
— montani semper liberi - http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/03/01/how-obamas-drone-war-is-backfiring/
Under Obama, the drone campaign has escalated rapidly. The number of strikes rose steeply to 53 in 2009 and then more than doubled to 118 in 2010. Former administration officials said the looser rules resulted in the killing of more civilians. Current administration officials insisted that Obama, in fact, tightened the rules on the use of drone strikes after taking office. They said strikes rose under Obama because improved technology and intelligence gathering created more opportunities for attacks than existed under Bush.
— Fisher - Hey - remember when Guantanamo Bay was mentioned about 86x an hour by NPR & the BBC? Yeah - good times, good times.
Hey - remember all the "wedding parties" that got bombed by Bush back in the day? Did they stop having weddings in Afpak or something? I must have missed that.— teardownthisfishwrap - People:
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in the capital city!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "D"
And that stands for drone,
That stands for drone.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in the capital city,
Right here!
Gotta figger out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...
— Fisher - That is just absolutely crazy. But I get the feeling this will be a non-issue in about a day. I'll even bet it will be Will's only post about the topic.— General Turgidson
- "Hey - remember when Guantanamo Bay was mentioned about 86x an hour by NPR & the BBC?" No. Know why? Because it wasn't. Its a figment of your deluded mind -- your specific brand of madness.— Murrayman
- Will:
Another good article. I can't understand why there isn't more outrage over the drone attacks. I agree with Archimedes. And maybe we were never the moral leader we purported to be, but it certainly appears the leaders and people don't even care anymore. Or maybe drones are so high-tech , that killing civilians in faraway lands are almost like video-games, and the loss of life is so abstract that it doesn't seem like killing.— Polecat_39 - I guess this is a case where people want it both ways depending on which side of the field the sit. Just another case where the spin makes the argument for each side as well. It's only collateral damage if it's your guy pulling the trigger, otherwise it's a war crime.— elbrewador
- Hard to blame Obama on this alone, he's just continuing the infection of cowardice that defines amerika today, one started by BushCo after a handful of terrorists defeated this country handily in a two hour span. Nothing but a nation of cowards, afraid of their own shadow and hoping that by ceding every right to privacy, but becoming nothing but a nation of war criminals with no moral authority (as if we ever had one), we can sit and safely play our video games. Pathetic.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatusTheSecond
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