Nothing to see here: Obama CIA drone strikes in Middle East
Where are all the protests? Oh yeah, this is an Obama World where the current administration is not bothered by the media or liberal protest outfits as they continue or greatly expand policies of past administrations that were highly ridiculed at the time.
To clarify, there are protests, just none here in the United States. Personally, I have no problem with drones killing terrorists, but when the administration elects to target US citizens outside the country when they prove to to be an “imminent” threat that does not fit the standard definition of imminent?
The 16-page memo leaked the other day includes the phrase “imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” – or a paraphrase of the same – multiple times. In part, it reads…
Certain aspects of this legal framework requires additional explication. First, the condition that an operational leader present an “imminent” threat of violent attack agains the Unites States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.
Got that?
The issue of drone strikes on Americans abroad is one that we’ll all have to think long and hard about. If someone presents a clear and present danger – for an example bringing a few RPGs to a battle during an embassy attack – I would not expect anyone to be checking passports. But if an American is driving from one city to another for a meeting?
The big problem I have here is the obvious hypocrisy of the left and the media. The Obama administration freaks out at the thought of using enhanced interrogation techniques on foreign jihadists, but has no problem using drones to take out Americans if they fit their own definition of an imminent threat. One Slate article I read this morning ended with the following paragraph.
Obama and Bush administration lawyers have stretched the Constitution and traditional rules of international law to accommodate the threat posed by terrorism. Some people will say they violated the law. But given the political consensus supporting these moves within the U.S., it is more accurate to say that the law has evolved. It gives the president the discretion he needs, or at least wants, to address an amorphous threat. Let’s hope he uses that discretion wisely.
I had to laugh. When the Bush administration was fighting the war on terrorism, the media left was practically calling for Bush and Cheney to be brought up on war crimes at the International Criminal Court. But now Obama gets a pass? Instead of the law evolving, I’d suggest the media evolved.
I also have to wonder why the Obama administration thinks it’s OK to use military drones with rockets to preemptively stop a threat that – in my opinion – does not meet the definition of imminent, while demanding I can not use a semi-automatic rifle to stop a threat who might be breaking into my home. Why can’t they just shoot them in the leg or something?
Read the original NBC Michael Isikoff article here, and read more here, here, here and here.
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Media Benjamin is on sabbatical….
Didn’t we start down a slippery slope when military policy targeted an individual?? Isn’t it then a short journey to targeting American citizens in foreign opposition?? Why not then redefine “terrorist” and “imminent threat” to include any domestic opposition or gathering?? Is it any surprise Obama’s Democrats want to end 2nd amendment rights?
In reading the 16-page memo, really a white paper, I kept thinking that. All that was necessary was to replace the references to “foreign nations” to “anywhere”, i.e., America, and BO would have his paper justification for killing Americans 24/7 wherever a drone was handy. Actually, right now all that has to happen is for you to get “SWATTED,” DOA from a head shot from one of those handy “patrol rifles.”
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The Democrats really do want to restrict gun ownership to the point of it being nonexistent. (They will be the ones with access to the guns.) Then, they will have ultimate control over everyone and any resistance will really be futile.
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How much of a leap is it from going from the enemies list to the kill list?
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The drone war is bad policy and dangerous.
Benghazi could have ended differently if a responsible gun? drone owner was present.
Drones are guided by at least one human while in flight. How many drones would you like to spread around the world? There are too many of them already ready to be in the air.
We now have the name of the person in the government who heads the drones (wait for it . . .) He is of John O. Brennan. He is the White House counter-terrorism adviser who will face a Senate confirmation hearing as President Obama?s nominee for C.I.A. director. He is the? ?responsible, high-ranking administration official? for compiling kill lists and running the drone-strike program.
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Can you say, “Shoe-in?”
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While I do want to see top Al Queda murdered by drones without any harm to our troops, It still leaves me uneasy. ?Drones hovering for days to be certain of their targets, still can make regrettable mistakes. A courageous cleric, Salem Ahmed Ali Jaber, well loved in his village stands up and denounces Al Queda. This is just what we have all been asking for, Muslims to denounce the fanatics. He is invited to speak to Al Queda ringleaders and as he meets with them,they are all obliterated by American drones.?http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/with-brennan-pick-a-light-on-drone-strikes-hazards.html? ? ?I never read the NY Times, but Drudge made me do it and I have not seen this subject ?anywhere else.
Drones, the clean alternative to direct armed aggression. Neat and clean, they dispatch America’s enemies into vapor. Americans bridled over pictures of W’s water boarding victims. He didn’t kill those people. The media howled how W was torturing people. Oh, the inhumanity! Yet, Obama is sanctioning killing people, remotely, and there is no outcry. Hypocritical!!!!
But, is this not just what the American people want. No one wants to see pictures of American military or contractors dead and injured at the hands of, well, our enemies. The Obama Regime has found the way to kill those people who would threaten the US and the media loves it. They can file their stories from the safe confines of their guarded desks or alight from their limousines in front of a federal building to tape a “news segment.” All in their work day and still time to meet friends for drinks before supper. How tidy.
Antiseptic killing is now the norm. The public expects it. Risk no one — except your enemies. A look at drones, dozens of types with all sorts of capabilities, is revealing. They are just model airplanes! There is an intellectual disconnect there. How can a model airplane cause death and destruction?
Exactly the…
Most low information voters are drones.? Can we send them to the Middle East to hunt for terrorists?? 😉