By It is pretty obvious why the Gitmo crowd is pretty quiet now a days considering the expanded use of the drone program being used by the Obama administration that can now even target US citizens:
The Obama administration’s secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, according to people who have read the document.
The memo, written last year, followed months of extensive interagency deliberations and offers a glimpse into the legal debate that led to one of the most significant decisions made by President Obama — to move ahead with the killing of an American citizen without a trial.
The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis. The memo, however, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr. Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat. [NY Times]
These legal memos sound just like the legal memos the Bush administration used to justify enhanced interrogation. Just for the record I agree with the targeting of al-Awlaki I am just pointing out how the usual suspects like Amnesty International on there front page has nothing to say about the current US President ordering the assassination of a US citizen but when President Bush authorized enhanced interrogation and military tribunals they had stories and activist campaigns for years against it.
She hasn’t seen...
6:02 pm on October 14th, 2011 1
The topic should read, “Legal Memo Allows Obama Administration To Target An American Citizen with Drones” That’s sort of the way the original article was titled.
6:16 pm on October 14th, 2011 2
“Just for the record I agree with the targeting of al-Awlaki I am just pointing out how the usual suspects like Amnesty International on there front page has nothing to say about the current US President ordering the assassination of a US citizen but when President Bush authorized enhanced interrogation and military tribunals they had stories and activist campaigns for years against it.”
Should you be equating the torture potentially innocent people so they sign false confessions with the killing of a man who very publicly called for mass murder?
6:17 pm on October 14th, 2011 3
…There’s an “of” that should be somewhere in there.
7:38 pm on October 14th, 2011 4
News today said the US is sending military advisers to Africa to help with rebels.
Back during the last election cycle, when Obama became such a media darling and the whole left embraced, I said we’d just have to wait until after he was elected to see how these same people and groups would react when he went Kennedy on them.
And like I thought, they react just like they did for Kennedy…. (Now) see no evil, hear no evil, and certainly don’t speak any evil…..But when a Republican is the president…..well….then it’s different.
7:52 pm on October 14th, 2011 5
#4
I don’t get the Kennedy analogy. I assumed it had something to do with opposition to the Vietnam War, but according to Google, that didn’t start until about 1963-1964.
8:58 pm on October 14th, 2011 6
GI Korea wrote:
Yes and no.
8:29 am on October 15th, 2011 7
Kennedy started us out in Vietnam (and tapes show Johnson wasn’t keen on the idea of continuing and escalating the effort but felt he had to keep up with what Kennedy started). Kennedy also sent advisers to African and South American nations. Kennedy was a Cold War warrior who favored covert or small scale overt force…
…The left might have scoured that out of their collective memory, but history isn’t that malleable.
9:03 pm on October 15th, 2011 8
“Kennedy was a Cold War warrior who favored covert or small scale overt force…”
So, yes, he could have chosen to stop the Bay of Pigs invasion…Nevertheless, you still can’t pin the Gulf of Tonkin incident on him. He’d been dead for years at that point.
9:06 pm on October 15th, 2011 9
…or rather, months.
But, yes, the US had 16000 soldiers in Vietnam by the time Johnson became president.
9:15 pm on October 15th, 2011 10
Kennedy used the CIA and military advisers. He was very tough on global communism in speeches. He spoke loudly and preferred to carry a small stick – but small sticks can be effective and/or grow into big ones.
Those in America who idealize Kennedy have purposefully forgotten these aspects of his presidency, and they were blind to the idea that Obama was likely to choose such methods as well given the state of the world and the US position in it. And now that it is public record, you don’t hear much from the media…
10:16 pm on October 15th, 2011 11
#10
I still don’t get it. @4, you referred to the proverb, “see no evil, hear no evil, and certainly don’t speak any evil” What parts of those activities you point out that Kennedy authorized does anyone suggest might have been “evil”? As far as I know, Kennedy was not painted as a pacifist. Part of his pre-election image was as a war hero.
In his very notable 2002 speech Obama said, “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.” In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he didn’t shy away from publicly making the case for the necessary use of military force. So again, I still don’t get the point about people being under some illusion about what he stood for with the use of the military.
11:11 pm on October 15th, 2011 12
Obama’s record of imperial war-making is almost as bad as Bush’s.
Kennedy was reckless. He wasn’t satisfied with the Bay of Pigs. He also tried to kill Fidel Castro, and he sent saboteurs into Cuba. During the missile crisis, he and Castro both kept pushing, and could have started a nuclear war, until Khrushchev found the courage to back down.
12:11 am on October 16th, 2011 13
The kinda people who idolize Kennedy are the same type protesting in the streets of Amercian cities today. They same type who have called the US an imperial power and demonized the Cold War-era US and demonized Bush and Reagan. Demonized sending military advisors. Demonized the CIA for involvment in Central and South American and Africa and the world over.
Obama was certainly not elected because he was a middle-of-the-roader on the use of military force — not matter what tid bits of sound bites he peppered some speeches with.
I mean – he was given the Nobel Peace prize just for how he presented himself during his campagin. His core followers and more definately felt he was going to get the US out of Iraq right away and close Gitmo and in general make the whole world love the US “again”.
For 8 years, the media, leading Democrats, academia, Hollywood, and more, demonized Bush for many of the same things Obama has continued and other things he’s done – like using drones to kill people in several countires.
But – do we hear the media, leading Democratis, Hollywood, and academia demonizing Obama?
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil – as long as the right person is occupying the White House.
1:32 am on October 16th, 2011 14
Inferred generalizations about people’s beliefs and intentions with no specific supporting citations is not something that can be debated. I can only work with what people actually say and do.
From what I’ve heard, from media sources left and right, is they are not completely sure what the Occupy X protesters collectively want or believe. This is the first time I’ve heard anything about their collective admiration of Kennedy and Obama. I have heard that some of them also claim to be Tea Party members and I can see some crossover in their demands with some of the anti-Wall Street, anti-Bank bailouts of the early Tea Party protests.
1:40 am on October 16th, 2011 15
Yes, there isn’t reason to continue if you see the Occupy Wall Street crowd as significantly overlapping with the Tea Partiers…
2:29 am on October 16th, 2011 16
This, from a non-Left source:
3:22 am on October 16th, 2011 17
And who is Haviland Smith? Why his voice gospel? Because he’s not a liberal? Just quoting someone else’s opinion doesn’t do much.
4:20 am on October 16th, 2011 18
My point wasn’t about his one comment. It was about what the entire article was saying.