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In reply to the discussion: He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years [View all]Catherina
(35,568 posts)19. Heinous. Depraved. Despicable. Chilling.
One of the most frightening, absolutely chilling things is that he also reserves the *authority* to approve drone strikes where the identity of target is unknown.
What? Excuse me? No wonder they refuse to be accountable.
I'm chilled to the bone over how bad things are in our brave new democracy.
Indeed, the whole deliberation process inside the Obama administration has been kept secret, a continuing process of morbid over-classification that even today contains secret internal legal opinions on targeted killings. The government refuses even to acknowledge that a drone air force operates over Pakistan a fact that everybody knows including the hundreds of injured and displaced Pakistanis. This drone air force uses, what The New York Times called, signature strikes against groups of suspected, unknown militants.
...
Critics point out how many times in the past that departments and agencies have put forth misleading or false intelligence, from the Vietnam War to the arguments for invading Iraq, or have missed what they should have predicted such as the fall of the Soviet Union. This legacy of errors and duplicity should restrain presidents who execute, by ordering drone operators to push buttons that target people thousands of miles away, based on secret, so-called intelligence.
Mr. Obama wants, in Mr. Feins view, to have his secret and unaccountable predator drone assassinations become permanent fixtures of the nations national security complex. Were Obama to remember his constitutional law, such actions would have to be constitutionally authorized by Congress and subject to judicial review.
With his Attorney General Eric Holder maintaining that there is sufficient due process entirely inside the Executive Branch and without Congressional oversight or judicial review, dont bet on anything more than a more secret, violent, imperial presidency that shreds the Constitutions separation of powers and checks and balances.
And dont bet that other countries of similar invasive bent wont remember this green-light on illegal unilateralism when they catch up with our drone capabilities.
http://nader.org/2012/11/30/reining-in-obama-and-his-drones/
...
Critics point out how many times in the past that departments and agencies have put forth misleading or false intelligence, from the Vietnam War to the arguments for invading Iraq, or have missed what they should have predicted such as the fall of the Soviet Union. This legacy of errors and duplicity should restrain presidents who execute, by ordering drone operators to push buttons that target people thousands of miles away, based on secret, so-called intelligence.
Mr. Obama wants, in Mr. Feins view, to have his secret and unaccountable predator drone assassinations become permanent fixtures of the nations national security complex. Were Obama to remember his constitutional law, such actions would have to be constitutionally authorized by Congress and subject to judicial review.
With his Attorney General Eric Holder maintaining that there is sufficient due process entirely inside the Executive Branch and without Congressional oversight or judicial review, dont bet on anything more than a more secret, violent, imperial presidency that shreds the Constitutions separation of powers and checks and balances.
And dont bet that other countries of similar invasive bent wont remember this green-light on illegal unilateralism when they catch up with our drone capabilities.
http://nader.org/2012/11/30/reining-in-obama-and-his-drones/
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I would have to say Dwight Eisenhower was the best President in my life time.
xtraxritical
Feb 2013
#73
Surely collateral damage will be held to an acceptable level for only then could
indepat
Feb 2013
#35
16 is almost grown, esp in tribes. He was no "young child." US says he wasn't the target,
Honeycombe8
Feb 2013
#111
Not anymore. He knew by that date that his dad had been killed in a drone attack. He was hardly
Honeycombe8
Feb 2013
#117
If his father had not brought him to Yemen, this would not have happened
Freddie Stubbs
Feb 2013
#75
Nevertheless, he was. I was responding to your post that he was not your normal 16yo. n/t
Mojorabbit
Feb 2013
#11
I am confused. Are you saying he deserved it because of his training and his father?
rhett o rick
Feb 2013
#15
Then why did the Press Secretary make that disgusting comment about his father?
tavalon
Feb 2013
#22
Absolutely sick and disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. n/t
Egalitarian Thug
Feb 2013
#59
Sure they do, that little sperm should have seen the danger and swam the other way.
Autumn
Feb 2013
#14
Yes, he was meeting with folks that knew his dad that were connected with al Qaeda.
Tx4obama
Feb 2013
#33
This happened well before the last election. Why are you up in arms about it now?
harmonicon
Feb 2013
#34
Where is the culpability for the adults he was with?? He was with known terrorists!
hue
Feb 2013
#39
Hey, don't let actual facts ruin an emotionally manipulating story designed to portray
Yavin4
Feb 2013
#47
Perfectly said. This story unsettles me, but for me, the most important issue is why in hell
Number23
Feb 2013
#49
I know he wasn't targeted. But to be honest, that doesn't make his situation less tragic to me
Number23
Feb 2013
#53
no, but if we had done away with the ground war and used drones it would have cut down
JI7
Feb 2013
#56
Whose innocents? Only the invading soldiers with lethal weapons from our side?
Catherina
Feb 2013
#64
You don't need to be 'concerned' to point out that it was said this kid was collateral damage.
randome
Feb 2013
#89
"should have (had) a far more responsible father" = sick, disgusting. *they* killed him.
HiPointDem
Feb 2013
#99
Sad thing is, as Wikileaks revealed, they went after al-Awlaki because OBL was old news
Catherina
Feb 2013
#113