Posted on 02/25/2013 9:31:56 AM PST by ravenwolf
By KEVIN ROBILLARD | 2/22/13 1:50 PM EST
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wants one thing before he’ll allow the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director to go forward; he wants assurances “someone eating at a cafe in Boston or New York” won’t have “a Hellfire missile [come] raining in on them,” he said Friday on Fox News.
The libertarian scion sent a letter to Brennan’s office at the White House Wednesday asking if the administration has the power to order a lethal drone strike on an American citizen within U.S. borders. Until he gets an answer, Paul has pledged to use “every procedural option at my disposal to delay your confirmation and bring added scrutiny to this issue and the Administration’s policies on the use of lethal force.”
“What we’re talking about is not killing someone with a grenade launcher on their shoulder,” he said Friday. “We’re talking about someone eating at a café in Boston, or New York and a Hellfire missile comes raining in on them. There should be an easy answer from the administration on this. They should say, ‘Absolutely no, we will not kill Americans in America without an accusation, a trial and a jury.’”
Paul said the administration had ignored his inquiries so far.
“I’ve asked serious questions, serious constitutional questions,” he said. “I’ve gotten zero response. And that is sort of the way this administration is treating Congress. The Senate has the right to advice and consent and approve nominees. I’ve not got one word of response from the administration on this.”
The week of Brennan’s confirmation hearings, a memo leaked, outlining the Obama administration’s legal justification for killing Americans engaged in terrorism overseas, prompting outcry from civil liberties advocates. Paul wants to ensure the same justification can’t apply to citizens living in the U.S.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/rand-paul-fears-hellfire-missiles-in-us-87951.html#ixzz2Lw5N4e62
No, but it is later than your think...
It would not surprise me in the least were the answer to Senator Paul’s question to come in the form of a Hellfire missile zotting him at his local Starbuck’s.
Well, it seems that there is at least one guy in DC with cajones.
Fortunately, Rand Paul will be ignored on this.
I say fortunately because the overall objective is to turn
him into a non-person, and someone NOT to be contended with;
the last thing this Administration wants to do in engage him,
and thereby “empower” him. Doesn’t matter, his star is rising, and he’s becoming one of just a few major renegade voices still housed by the “GOP”. Ignoring him, happily, will backfire, and will IN FACT empower him. Having said that, I think the issue and the scenario as framed by Paul, are extremely unlikely to ever take place, and could easily either be ignored, or scoffed at by Brennan, as absurd and overwrought.
No, but it is later than your think...
uh uh a dead corpse? maybe you are right.
Rand Paul 2016
Not sure what the CIA would have to do with it.
Also, this would be a very dramatic and public way to carry out an illegal assassination.
If one were to buy into conspiracy theories, one would have to believe that such an illegal assassination would take the form of Vince Foster showing up in Fort Marcy Park - not a guided missile landing in a restaurant at lunch hour.
That would be the opposite of discreet and easy to explain.
Much better than being "Left".
Not sure what the CIA would have to do with it.
What we need to know is who is GIVING THE ORDERS, so they can be dealt with by ambushes, "accidents", food poisoning, IEDs...cut off the head and the snake will die.
Who would be doing the ambushing, manufacturing the accidents, doing the poisoning, setting up IEDs in your scenario, exactly?
Hope he sticks to his guns on wanting an answer.
The same people who would be out hunting Redcoat officers and noncoms if this was 1776.
I see. So you are plotting to kill fellow Americans yourself.
Before there is even a shred of a hint of a whisper of evidence that there would ever be a drone attack by the US government against US citizens on US soil.
Think about how ridiculous that concept is.
He’s the only one who will ask the obvious questions and condemn the obvious abuses.
He’s the only one who will ask the obvious questions and condemn the obvious abuses.
Hope he sticks to his guns on wanting an answer.
I am Right. More Right than most on most things. ;-)
Much better than being “Left”.
But we need to realize that the right has been watered down so much that many people would call a right an anarchist.
If one were to buy into conspiracy theories, one would have to believe that such an illegal assassination would take the form of Vince Foster showing up in Fort Marcy Park - not a guided missile landing in a restaurant at lunch hour.
On the other hand it would be hard to assassinate a large group of people in the same manner, it would have to be more dramatic, say like the massacre at Waco but much safer for the police.
This is very different from a Hellfire missile fired from a drone into a Boston cafe at lunch hour. There is no way the public would believe for a second - especially in this age of ubiquitous social media - that everyone in a public thoroughfare happened to be a wanted terrorist.
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