I wish it were the Presidents who stretched it. But IMHO, as written it was already beyond any reasonable boundaries. So Bush might have some responsibility to the degree the language may have been provided by the White House, but it is Congress who is overwhelmingly responsible for enacting such a blank check for the President to use.
And don’t get me started on the Patriot Act.
I agree with this 100%. Particularly since the administration was trying very hard not to make a public commitment that they wouldn’t just blow up Americans on American soil.
There’s no legitimate issue here. Congress has failed to do it’s job and create the law that would regulate the use of drones. So it’s up to the president to decide how and when to use drones. That’s the way congress wants it because they haven’t changed it. Those on the left supporting the Ron Paul filibuster are useful idiots.
Why would he ever want to? If they guy is on US soil, why wouldn’t he just send the cops? The question is stupid. Is Mr Paul fantasizing about Obama using drones for covert political assassination? With a Hellfire missile? Nobody will notice if they use a silencer?
The question is so stupid it makes any answer stupid. Why not say the President has no such authority, be like saying the President promises never to go to Sea World and rape a dolphin.
And in the very very unlikely event he is required to break his word? Somebody actually is a citizen, a terrorist, and a plot is unfolding the kill Americans and somehow or other a drone is the only way to stop him?
Then he gives the order, doesn’t he? And he says “Yep, that’s right. Guy’s about to commit multiple murder, here’s the proof, I had him killed. Impeach me. Double dog dare you.”
No, he doesn’t. He isn’t offering proof in a court of law to justify jail or execution, he wants the power to keep people locked up indefinitely or have people killed without due process.
No. Absolutely there’s a reason – to avoid all those bothersome legal things like “probable cause” and “trials”. The same reason Guantanamo exists, except explodier.
Particularly if they use highly secret means to find the guy that the don’t want to reveal in a civilian court. Sometimes in the past they declined to prosecute rather than allow testimony on how the person was caught. How much easier just to blow them up and not have to explain anything?
The thing that’s tricky is that when these rules of war were established, “in the field” or “engaged in warfare” meant the guy was literally out there in a field shooting at our guys. But now with 21st century terrorism it’s being used to mean “any time they’re affiliated with an organization that’s plotting attacks against us”, even if at the particular moment we choose to strike they’re just sitting down to breakfast with their family.
I’m not saying we should only be able to target terrorists when they’re actually in the process of hijacking a plane or whatever. But I do think it’s fair to say that the current administration (and the previous one) are doing something somewhat unprecedented here, even as they say “we’re just treating enemy combatants the same as they’ve always been treated.” I do think that if the Union army had rolled a cannon up to Robert E. Lee’s house and opened fire on his living room, plenty of people would have objected. Then again, nowadays Robert E. Lee would be able to actually run the war from his living room.
I do agree that whether it’s drones or more conventional means of killing is largely irrelevant to the moral issues.
Yes, because a court has already decided that the administration does not have to justify any of the strikes to date in a courtroom. I’m sure there would be attempts to drag them into court if they did it on American soil, but their position I’m sure would be that it’s not a judicial question. If we’re lucky, the question of whether it is or not won’t have to be answered, because it won’t be done.
Plus, the Hellfire missile carried by drones have miniscule warheads compared to conventional bombs, which is one reason an attack helicopter can carry 16 of them. The warhead is about 20 pounds, compared to anywhere from 250 to more than a thousand pounds in a conventional bomb. The hamburger would be lucky to get 50 yards, let alone 500.
Kinda my point, luck don’t enter into it. The required scenario is hard to imagine, under what circumstances would he be compelled to do that? And I mean remotely plausible circumstances. I can’t think of any, can you? Where on US soil could he possibly be where it makes more sense to send a drone than the cops?
Pretty much anywhere. It’s not about his physical location, it’s about whether the possible fallout and exposure of classified information is worth avoiding the whole issue all together by punching his coordinates into a computer and blowing him up remotely.
The bill of rights doesn’t prevent the government from taking the steps necessary to stop an imminent threat to the populace. If ‘imminent’ isn’t sufficiently defined for the use of drones then congress is at fault, not the president who has so far not used drones to kill anyone on US soil. The president is the executive, you can complain about him when he does something you don’t like. Complain about congress when you don’t like the law.
I don’t think it is as crazy of a scenario as you do. I can definitely agree that with the current generation of drones it seems unlikely. What about as technology continues to improve? I can see a point in time when unmanned drones take over some existing police responsibilities. If they are cheap, highly mobile, and limit the chances of loss of life by law enforcement, then it would seem logical that people would want to expand their use. I don’t think this will take place under Obama, but clearly we are seeing rapid expansion in the capabilities and frequency of use of these drones under Obama. What did we go from zero under Clinton to a few hundred under Bush to thousands under Obama?
What about that cop killer in California that was hiding in the woods or whatever earlier this year? Seems like I could see a situation that rather than send real live humans risking harm out to capture him that they would send a drone instead.
The problem with slippery slope arguments is the tendency to conflate the possible with the probable. And discussions on those possibilities are entirely reasonable.
But is Sen Paul taking a solemnly reasonable approach, holding quiet discussions and debates on setting parameters? Or is he engaged in a hysterical inflation of a conceivable future threat into an immediate and fearsome danger?
(I will freely admit there was a time when calling in a drone strike on Jane Fonda would have seemed a reasonable course of action, assuming that personally wringing her scrawny overprivileged neck was not an option. We were finally getting somewhere with the ordinary American, and then you decide to help. Thanks, Jane.)
As far as the insane cop situation, I’m pretty sure we were talking about enemy combatants who happen to be US citizens. At least we were until Sen Paul decided to ramp up the hysteria.
The theme of Sen Paul’s exercise in iron bladder control was not a sensible analysis of present and potential problems, it was “Look at me! Look at me, over here, sticking my thumb in Obama’s eye!”"