The targets were killed because they’re terrorists.
The way you stop terrorists from finding a safe place to hide is to harm or kill those providing safe haven and protection to the terrorists.
This is how the U.S. has always dealt with pirates. It is appropriate for us to deal with terrorists in the same manner.
Does anyone have a problem with this?
Kinda curious, how did Obama win your trust?
I have a problem with killing US Citizens without due process.
Actually, yes, some SERIOUS problems, in that fedgov will NOT RESTRAIN ITSELF and limit targets to what they SHOULD be. They are all too willing to obey Obummer and spy on/target/kill because HE said so. Because his targeting list supercedes the clear language of the Constitution and other, legitimate laws of the Land.
Better question would be: why don’t you HAVE a problem with it???!!!???
Problem? Naw! Just go around killing Americans who fit a certain profile. Most of them are likely to be guilty of something.
Only the hundreds of innocents who were murdered because your leader, the Great Emperor Zero, decided to fire hell fire missiles even though innocent civilians were present. GWB never okay-ed that kind of drone firing.
“The targets were killed because they’re terrorists.
The way you stop terrorists from finding a safe place to hide is to harm or kill those providing safe haven and protection to the terrorists.
This is how the U.S. has always dealt with pirates. It is appropriate for us to deal with terrorists in the same manner.
Does anyone have a problem with this?”
Evidently, a fair number of forum members have qualms.
First, win the war. Then, worry about morality.
Anybody who believes it’s more important to be moral, than to win, has it backwards.
If we don’t win the war, it doesn’t matter if we’ve been moral or not. Because we won’t survive long enough to be moral, or immoral, or anything.
Define Terrorism:
The Unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and Intimidation in the pursuit of of Political aims. O.E.D
So Congress has authorized the use of Drones to kill person or persons unknown, without a court appearance both domestic and abroad , have they?
If Yes, this is an undeclared act of War against a sovereign nation.
If No, these are acts of Terrorism.
To give an example:
I use the web site known as FreeRepublic.
This in Obummers eyes is “counter Revolutionary” .
He gives the CIA the nod to launch a Drone attack.
Success or failure somebody is now Dead without due process of Law, in a country where state execution has been outlawed for 50+ years.
If my country hasn't authorized this action, which it legally can't ,it is an act of War.
As far as i’m concerned it is Terrorism, either way.
Now install this in an unstable middle eastern mind.....
Aiding and abetting the illegal actions of obarry is a terrorist action, by definition.
Use of Drones in a field of combat is one thing ,to use them against unarmed civilians going about their lawful business is quite another.
See how easy it is for an out of control ‘Terrorist in chief’ to create a whole new world of hurt for the American people.
Death without trial by a foreign totalitarian regime....charming.
There are several problems — one is how the label terrorist is applied, and by whom.
Another problem, particularly WRT drones, is that they are not an accurate weapon (as opposed to snipers) and incur collateral deaths. (You may think that a terrorist's friends and family deserve to die by virtue of their relationship to the terrorist — I do not; moreover I view such as an excuse to murder innocents.) In addition to this, metadata is being used to flag people as terrorists, but to act on this w/o verification [i.e. HumInt] it violates the gun safety rule of being sure of your target.
Third, there is the problem that the mechanics of point #1 could be altered so that, for example, protesting or disputing government claims [such as the recent militia standoff in Nevada] would be deemed de facto proof that those people were terrorists.
Given the recent revelations of Fast & Furious, the NSA's domestic espionage program, the IRS's politically-targeted molestations, and the general willingness to ignore the Constitution:
is it reasonable1 to trust the government with the ability to end life without trial?
1 — Leaving aside active the battlefield.
The problem I have is that the US government is increasingly not the government of the American people. If Ronald Reagan were President I would agree with your propositions. He is not and the United States has changed in ways none of us who grew up in the 50’s or 60’s could have possibly imagined. Much of the upper levels of the permanent governing class firmly believe that regular middle class Americans are much more of a security concern than any foreign terrorist. These people are very comfortable with data mining Americans and using robot planes to patrol the skies of the United States. To them the Tea Party is a manifestation of something far more dangerous than any Muslim terrorist group. This is no exaggeration but a conclusion that I come to based on reading the products of the professional security community and listening to what ‘security academics’ say in their coded language at a number of meetings. A government that promulgates FACTA and desires to have de facto abilities to track and when it decides to eliminate American citizens is to be feared far more than any foreign entity. In the past I would dismiss Ron Paul’s remarks that when the government decides to be serious about closing the US Mexican border it would be aimed at keeping Americans in not illegals out as paranoid thinking. Today it seems mordantly correct. This is not a fantasy but a logical extension of what is currently underway. Some day some sort of committee that officially doesn’t exist will decide some ‘domestic terrorist’ is an eminent danger and ‘exigent circumstances’ will necessitate the ‘terrorists’ ‘neutralization’. The sky over the United States is growing very dark. I personally do not know how the combination of a security state lurching out of control combined with a political and security class penetrated by people and ideas that see the traditional moral and political codes of the US to be the real enemy in the ‘transformative struggle’ can be combated. We, the people that populate this site are becoming the enemies of the United States in the eyes of the people who control the data mining and the robot planes. At the least we need to disabuse ourselves of notions that we are considered anything but a revenue source and loose change and pests to the people in suits and uniforms that we see parading themselves before us on television.