Seeing that, basically, no one can be for using drones on innocent American citizens, the republicans have made a genius move to shift the fiscal blame off of them and back onto Obama with the drone arguments. I’m not saying its a wrong argument or a wrong discussion to have, it just seems…convenient.
I’m just glad that Washington is still continuing the blame hot potato game.
stupid iPhone. hollow*
Really? I thought you were going for “callow”, which IMO is more appropriate when talking about Rand Paul 
I’m half hoping that Obama is trying to goad Congress into passing some extremely restrictive measures on the use of drones to tie future POTUS’s hands. But that’s probably too clever by 100-300%.
And how long would it take for a future Congress to rescind the rules they passed after a terrorist attack?
And agreed, it would be too genius. In addition, it would just look weird a little kindergarten to say, “Oh! I see you passed new drone policy! Well that’s good because that’s what I WANTED YOU TO DO!!! MUAHAHAHAHA”
Washington lucky. Latvian games is having potato cold and worms within.
Personally, I can’t understand the argument at all. If you didn’t want Obama fighting a war, then you shouldn’t have started one. Or at least, finished it yourself, before he took office.
Latvia lucky. Irish games is having no potato.
You want a potato? I can get you a potato. Believe me, there are ways. You don’t want to know about it, believe me.
Hell, I can get you a potato by three o’clock this afternoon.
Isn’t the argument about using it on American citizens? Seems like a pretty good argument, to me.
I think most of the drone argument is people with a legitimate concern about the use of drones, mixed in with a small nascent movement of Republicans who want to use it to smear Obama. As a conservative who reads a lot of lefty media, the drone issue has been a really big deal to that crowd for probably two years. I can’t count the number of Atlantic and Salon articles I’ve read in the past two years blasting Obama for using drones.
Personally, in any scenario where we’d use a pilot if we weren’t using a drone, I don’t understand the complaint. That covers a lot of the drone usage people are complaining about.
Some areas end up in what I’d call the “marginal cases”, specifically attacking Al-Qaeda leaders in countries where we aren’t at war and don’t explicitly have permission to do bombings. But that’s a diplomatic concern, not a moral one.
Finally, there is a small handful of people we might argue should be considered non-military targets. A lot of people here argued al-Awlaki shouldn’t have been targeted for assassination because he was an American citizen non-combatant. My argument was and is, he was engaged in warfare against the United States and thus a valid target for military action. His citizenship was thus irrelevant (it didn’t matter that the Confederates were Americans–you shoot the enemy in the field.) While al-Awlaki I think was a bad example for the left to complain about, it is a valid line of complaint. For certain types of targets where it isn’t clear the target is a combatant and it isn’t clear it’s on the battlefield, I’d be more comfortable with a secret court review/approval process. With an exemption for “exigent circumstances” where the administration agrees to submit to the process after the fact in those scenarios.
IMO for many on the right “drones” are an update for the “black helicopters” of conspiracy theory. That’s not to say there aren’t good reasons to discuss the use of drones (against military targets or otherwise), but ISTM the progressive left is the only one making legitimate arguments; the GOP is merely tapping into the paranoia of its base to score political points.
I don’t think the argument was against using it on innocent Americans. It’s against using it on Americans not posing an imminent threat. It’s a part of the overall discussion of preemptive strikes in general.
Who started the war in Yemen?
So what exactly is your complaint here? That politicians are politicians?
The 107th Congress and George W. Bush.
Many people believe that this already ridiculously drafted war resolution has been stretched by Bush and now Obama beyond its original intentions.
Regardless of who is bringing this up and for what purpose, doesn’t it make sense to try to define the limits on who where and why the chief executive can order the killing of a person?
If Congress thinks the AUMF is being stretched beyond its limits, it ought to repeal it. It was, after all, their (incredibly) shitty drafting. It’s a bit unfair to say Republicans are smearing Obama over the drone strikes, though. Democrats and leftists (many of them on this board) have been doing it since he took office.
I’m not sure I disapprove of drone strikes against noncombatants, per se, but I absolutely disapprove of any claim that the administration doesn’t have to tell us what its policy is.
Politicians are people, too, my friend!
Glenn Greenwald responds to “progressive” reaction to Paul filibuster. Among other things he addresses whether or not the question posed by Paul was necessary: