Tuesday, February 05, 2013

The ol' ever malleable basis to attack

The alleged memo saying the President of the United States cannot drone anyone he pleases, doesn't really do all that much about what is actually occurring.
So here's what that means: Even if the person is NOT actively planning terrorist attacks against the US, because of the nature of terrorist attacks in general, merely his membership in an organization that IS planning those attacks meets the requisite definition of imminence.

So, basically, imminence does not mean imminent. And membership in Al Qaeda is seen as tantamount to being in a car when someone decides to shoot someone on the street, even if the other occupant had no knowledge beforehand that the drive-by shooter would act. Accessory to murder, drone edition.

And that is exactly what the Obama Administration is doing.

It still seems a rather slight of hand way to drone who you want to drone.

4 comments:

Montag said...

Even worse, the President doesn't have to make the decision. Any "high ranking official" will do.

Which will make life very interesting for people with odd-sounding furrin' names, because the CIA tends to get them confused.

Joe Blow said...

and you forgot clause 16..

"anyone who is maybe thinking about perhaps getting together to talk about planning a possible attack... = guilty! drone em!"

makes it even easier!

gratuitous said...

I keep trying to be a sensible, centrist Democrat, but darn it all, I just can't quite trim my ideals to fit this year's fashion.

I keep getting hung up on those Constitutional notions of due process and fair trial. Maybe it's a personal shortcoming, seeing as how the President is a constitutional law scholar and stuff.

Why doesn't the United States have faith in the Constitution to guide its conduct anymore? Other countries don't seem so frightened that they can't try "terrorists" in open court and trust their justice system to return a verdict. The only time we put a terrorist on trial is when the full weight of the FBI, Department of Justice, and the resources of the federal government can be brought down on an impressionable 19-year-old with delusions of changing the world through violence.

pansypoo said...

obviosly we need red coats + march in a line.