So what's the rationale or test being used by the Obama Administration to determine whether it's okay to lob drones at American citizens overseas without benefit of, y'know, a judge or jury determining they deserve to die? According to this leaked white paper:
1. The target has to be an "imminent" danger. Apparently that now doesn't mean about to attack, but that the citizen be one of the "senior operational leaders" of al-Qaida or "an associated force" that an "informed, high-level" official is willing to determine has been "recently" involved in "activities" posing a threat of a violent attack and "there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities."
2. The capture of the target has to be "infeasible" and pose an "undue risk" to US personnel involved in such an attempt.
3. The attack must be done according to "law of war principles" (which presently means that any teenagers in the area who get killed are considered to have been enemy combatants anyway, so fair game).
So, on the one hand, one could see this as being sort of a "Mission: Impossible" kind of scenario. "Conventional law enforcement agencies are unable …" and that sort of thing. Of course, Jim Phelps would have been out of a job with drones to go into foreign countries to take out people (and the idea of returning them for a trial becomes positively quaint).
But even if you can look at the above and say that, if adhered to strictly, those guidelines are reasonable and rational — can you actually guarantee that they actually will be adhered to strictly? Or that someone, even a future administration, might stretch or interpret favorably to their own interests or desires what words like "infeasible" and "undue" and who actually constitutes a threat (since "imminent" is now redefined)? And, without any sort of judicial review or need to prove anything to anyone except being persuasive in a briefing, how will we ever know how the decision-making is being abused.
Dangerous. Scary. A bad precedent. And something that, if any other country held the same policy and carried it out on US soil, we'd go to war over.
Reshared post from +Keith Barrett
Our Government Has Gotten A Bit Scarier
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EXCLUSIVE: Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans
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 associa…
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That's absolutely right it's scary. It's also downright unconstitutional. There were other ways to justify these killings WITHIN the Constitution that wouldn't have necessarily threatened all of us.
Yup. Question is, who can or will raise a federal law suit (who will be deemed to have standing), and will SCOTUS once again give a nod to "national security" interests?
I don't know if reached the US, but a number of years ago* there was quite a reaction to a shoot-to-kill policy that the UK had been alleged to have in place regarding paramilitary terrorists. The inquiry and subsequent fallout had quite an impact and I suppose it goes to show how the same things can be done a generation or two later and have a different outcome, seemingly because of the cultural preference (real or otherwise) of the targets.
* Just checked and find it hard to believe it was 30 years ago – I was only a nipper!
Do you ever reach the point where you just can't read anymore of this? I think I've reached my limit.
I just can't understand the mindset. I get the points and where they come from but this kind of thing is so hard for me to justify in my own head. If we are this afraid of terrorism, haven't they won?
The annoying thing is, +Kevin Phair, that similar or lesser offenses by the Bush Administration several years back were met with outrage and push-back from the Left, which is sadly mostly silent now that it's a Democrat in the White House pushing for such things.
+Dave Hill I agree with you. I have a gut feeling that Obama is far worse than Bush on a number of issues. It is frightening, and not just the drone business.
As far as national security / police state affairs go, Obama certainly seems no better than Bush. It's hard to say whether he is worse, simply because (a) he faces less opposition (the Left won't criticize him and the Right won't criticize national security measures), and (b) executive power creep is incremental, and without the precedents and actions of Bush Obama would not be in a position to push things still further.
He's worse, because his actions represent the following train of thought: "These actions are unethical and illegal, so let's institutionalize them so they become legal." It's much easier to recover liberty when it's perceived as an executive's misuse of power than when it's perceived as an executive's legitimate power.
True. He's taken the unitary executive that was pushed by Bush-Cheney, and built up a structure around it.
I don't want fear to be the driving force behind our national policies. While it might seem natural for policies on defense, I would rather these decisions be made rationally, not emotionally. Sadly, that does not appear to be the case.
For what it's worth, while I blame both Bush and Obama, I think almost any president who was handed a domestic terror attack like 911 would have taken advantage of it to expand executive authority over national security as they have done. _Cops always want more power._ Even good cops. The "rules" always get in the way of getting the bad guy, which is why even good cops tend to resent them.
The problem is, the rules, while hindering the good guys, hinder the bad guys more. And even if one thinks the Obama Administration's use of internal security and external force have been pure and righteous, that doesn't mean that the next president — or the one after that — or the one after that — will be as virtuous.
After all, a lot of US law about wiretapping and surveillance and the need to get warrants and judge's review of internal security matters came from the exposure of FBI and CIA and White House abuses up through the Nixon Administration. Something we've forgotten as the pols whip of fear about Those Terrorists.