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
How about firing one at a moving vehicle during a time of light traffic? How about firing one into a home that sits on an acre or so?
Would you put either of those past Obama?
that everyone in a public thoroughfare happened to be a wanted terrorist.
And it appears to me that they really don,t have any concern what the public believes.
First, there is a much higher likelihood of multiple witnesses than there would be if there were one or two assassins with small arms. That should be obvious.
Second, an assassination using operatives with small arms could be blamed on many possible sources - home invasion, road rage, botched mugging, etc. A Hellfire missile dropping from the sky can be blamed on only one source - a military aircraft. Talk about leaving unmistakable fingerprints all over a crime scene.
Third, the number of random individuals who would have to be in on this to make it work is staggering - the President, at least one civilian advisor. at least one military officer, a drone operator, air traffic personnel most likely, potentially a dozen or more individuals. For a conventional hit, the chain could be as few as three people.
Paul's scenario is, frankly, loopy.
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.
With this regime? Just as ridiculous as the notion would have been in 1938 Germany that people would be rounded up, enslaved and murdered by the government of a civilized enlightened country.
If they come to disarm me, they cease to be "fellow Americans" and become the focus of the Second Amendment's true purpose.
Had 1930's German citizens made targets of opportunity of the Nazi leadership before they were disarmed, had the Brownshirts known that there was a good chance they would not return alive from a confiscation raid, had the Jews banded together and eliminated those GIVING THE ORDERS, things might have gone very differently in Europe in the 30s and 40s.
If the President wanted to illegally assassinate someone on American soil
Maybe i goofed but it is my understanding that we are not talking about illegal acts by the administration but legal acts.
If we are talking about drone strikes on US soil, then we are discussing inherently illegal acts.
If we are talking about drone strikes on US soil, then we are discussing inherently illegal acts.
The President cannot direct a drone strike inside the United States.
If he ever did that, he would be impeached and convicted by both houses of Congress.
Rand Paul is not questioning a plausible reality.
He might as well try to hold up the treasury appointment by demanding that Jack Lew and the President promise not to transmute base metal into gold.
No he wouldn't, not anymore. The MSM would praise him to the hilt.
People need to step back from their blind adulation of the Paul clan and think: "What possible advantage could the President reap from a drone strike in the US as opposed to a much cleaner and quieter conventional assassination? What political gain could possibly outweigh the political cost of such a clumsy and stupid action?"
Why do we use drones in the first place? Because they are a substitute for lethal boots on the ground in places where it is too expensive or politically prohibitive to establish such a ground presence.
The President has boots on the ground on every square inch of US soil if he needs them.
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