Apr
Everything Libertarians and Liberals Get Wrong About Drones
By using drones, one can wait until the children are away from the area, allow both multiple layers of command and lawyers time to review the life feed, and take other measures necessary for minimizing collateral damage.
As true as that may be in theory, the critics reply, in practice the use of drones has been reckless and caused significant collateral damage. However, it is difficult to reach conclusive judgments, as neither critics nor proponents of drones are actually there to observe the effects of drone strikes. Instead, we often have to rely upon reports from locals, who are notoriously unreliable.
This article deserves a lengthy critique but here is one brief point that seems worth making: Any assessment of warfare that euphemistically refers to the deaths of children and other innocent civilians as “collateral damage” and then minimizes those deaths by pretending there hasn’t been a lot of them (and that we must suspend our judgment because we aren’t privy to an accurate tally of the dead) is a complete moral failure.
Apr
Apr
Dirty Wars - Trailer
“If children are terrorists, then we are all terrorists.”
Apr
April 17 2013. Five people killed in a strike on a vehicle in Wessab, Western Damar province, the first strike in Yemen in three months. Apparent target was local commander Hamid al Radmi, accused of organising for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular. Journalist Farea al Muslimi noted that Al-Radmi was a former high-level government official who could have easily been arrested and brought to trial by the Yemeni government. #drone #drones #yemen (at Wessab, Yemen)
Emphasis mine. When targeted killings are accepted as routine, it’s certainly more likely that terror suspects who could be arrested won’t be. According to President Obama, drone strikes are to be used solely in cases in which “we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.”
Perhaps al Muslimi is wrong in this instance, but given an almost complete lack of concern for the rights of terror suspects and any civilians who happen to be near a suspect at the time of a strike, it would be rather easy for the U.S. to assert that killing Al-Radmi was the only viable option even if there might have been a more lawful alternative.
Hardly anyone in the U.S. cares if Al-Radmi could have been arrested or if he really was plotting an imminent threat, which is why he and four of his guards just died with little explanation.
Mar
Mar
I have deep concerns with the Obama Administration’s continuation of Bush-era policies related to warrantless wiretapping and the collection of electronic records pertaining to the activities of ordinary citizens. I have concerns about policies that allow the administration to strip due process rights from Americans it chooses to deem enemy combatants. Those lost rights constitute core Constitutional values including the requirement to show cause for detaining a citizen, the right to a public trial, and the right to confront those who bear evidence against you. I am also deeply concerned about the implications of the administration’s policy on drone strikes. And I am troubled that so much of the legal justification for these policies remains secret, preventing Congress, let alone the American people, from weighing the trade-offs.
We can and should protect America from our enemies without compromising the very essence of American freedom and rule of law. We need someone at the CIA who will lead us towards counterterrorism policies that reflect and respect Americans’ deep faith in our Constitution. I don’t believe John Brennan is the right person for that challenge.
Mar
Rand Paul is now applying the lessons of “Alice in Wonderland” to Obama’s drone policy
This is a ridiculously entertaining filibuster.
Mar
Rand Paul pretty much just told Harry Reid to f*** off
And Harry Reid was like, “All right. I guess I’ll come back tomorrow.”
Mar
Mar
Feb
The question that I and many others have asked is not whether the Administration has or intends to carry out drone strikes inside the United States, but whether it believes it has the authority to do so. This is an important distinction that should not be ignored.
Just last week, President Obama also avoided this question when posed to him directly. Instead of addressing the question of whether the Administration could kill a U.S. citizen on American soil, he used a similar line that “there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil.” The evasive replies to this valid question from the Administration have only confused the issue further without getting us any closer to an actual answer.
For that reason, I once again request you answer the following question: Do you believe that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial?
I believe the only acceptable answer to this is no.
Feb
Feb
Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours? That President Obama can sign off on a decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny than if the target is an American? Would your Supreme Court really want to tell humankind that we, like the slave Dred Scott in the 19th century, are not as human as you are? I cannot believe it.
I used to say of apartheid that it dehumanized its perpetrators as much as, if not more than, its victims. Your response as a society to Osama bin Laden and his followers threatens to undermine your moral standards and your humanity.
Feb
Feb
The Contemptible Failure of Liberals to Denounce Obama’s Targeted Killings
78 percent of respondents to a poll on MSNBC’s The Ed Show said they agreed with the “policy of targeted killing of American citizens,” despite host Ed Schultz arguing that the policy “doesn’t meet the moral or the constitutional standard that we expect of any administration…We’re losing the moral high ground by doing this…”
MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews defended the wisdom of granting the President and his administration the powers of prosecutor, jury, judge, and executioner by stating that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta “is a conscientious guy. He goes to church every day.”
Toure, an MSNBC pundit and Obama supporter, vociferously defended U.S. drone policy on The Cycle, stating “It’s hard to say, ‘let’s not do things because we might radicalize other people,” to which Glenn Beck protege S.E. Cupp responded, “but that was the argument under Bush.” Indeed it was.
This Fairleigh Dickinson University poll shows little disagreement between liberals and conservatives when it comes to drone strikes and the targeted killings of U.S. citizens. The Presidential debate on foreign policy between Obama and Romney revealed few differences in opinion, aside from the semantics of how harshly we should denounce Iran and how warmly we should embrace Israel.
Many alleged liberals and progressives have revealed not an ideological or intellectual consistency but rather an unthinking devotion to one person. Their judgment is so clouded by a cult of personality that they’ve allowed a President theoretically restricted by laws to simply discard the Fifth Amendment in exchange for the almost dictatorial power of determining who is guilty or innocent and who deserves to live or die. This power, when manifested in leaders of other countries, is routinely denounced as undemocratic. Yet, when wielded by someone liberals like, it becomes a necessary tactic to defend the homeland.
Although the scale of abuse and suffering is not comparable, drone strikes may be the Democratic Party’s contemporary Vietnam, in the sense that an overreaction to a threat (then Communism, now terrorism) has resulted in an almost imperialistic lawlessness. The ideology that fights for civil rights and the alleviation of poverty domestically has obliterated those things for innocent civilians abroad.
What will the arguments be when this power, now codified by President Obama, falls into the outstretched arms of someone liberals don’t trust; someone such as, say, Marco Rubio or Chris Christie? Will the reckless killing of suspected terrorists and hundreds of civilians become a national security necessity or will it suddenly morph into a dangerous and counter-productive war crime?
Every day that these drone strikes continue unabated, liberals lose all credibility and lose the support of those among them who genuinely support the struggle for social justice and peace.
