Newly Released Drone Memo Draws Scrutiny

[Paul Kemp]

Did I miss this being posted? If so, I'll lock immediately.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/doj-drones-paper_n_2619582.html

FORWARD

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

[Paul Kemp]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

To be fair, the opposite is true as well. It's the unfortunate state of American politics.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

To be fair, the opposite is true as well. It's the unfortunate state of American politics.

Well the level outrage is higher when it's directed at Dub, no?

[Paul Kemp]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

To be fair, the opposite is true as well. It's the unfortunate state of American politics.

Well the level outrage is higher when it's directed at Dub, no?

You're probably right. It all depends on who you pay attention to I suppose.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

To be fair, the opposite is true as well. It's the unfortunate state of American politics.

Well the level outrage is higher when it's directed at Dub, no?

You're probably right. It all depends on who you pay attention to I suppose.

I've been hanging out hear too long.  It's hard not to pay attention to those red avatars. 

[opebo]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

To be fair, the opposite is true as well. It's the unfortunate state of American politics.

Well the level outrage is higher when it's directed at Dub, no?

I suppose that's because of the lack of any redeeming qualities.

[Beet]

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

[Paul Kemp]

All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

One of, if not the, biggest problems with our government and it's not likely to change.

[Beet]

One of the problems is that when something like this (not just assassinations, but practically any dumb policy) gets embedded into the professionalization of the bureaucracy, the defenders of the policy have more knowledge and experience with it than anyone else. Any reformer coming in faces not only massive institutional pressure to listen to the bureaucracy, but are not equipped with the knowledge and developed counter-arguments to overcome the bureaucracy's self-justifications. Add to this, once a reformer becomes an "insider", the reformer must resist the strong psychological temptation, as someone who has "made it", to begin to identify with the insiders. Many people who appear to be reformers actually have a deep psychological longing to belong to the establishment, and when a reformer wins, it's the first time in their lives usually that they get to play in the big leagues.

So reform faces three obstacles,
1) massive bureaucratic resistance to change, with literally far more bodies intimately invested in the continuation of existing policies than changing them
2) as outsiders, reformers don't have access to the intimate knowledge and first-hand experience that the implementers of bad policies, and thus are unable to develop their critiques as deeply as those embedded within the system can develop their self-justifications
3) personal psychological pressures on the rare individuals who were inclined to reform and have broken into a position of authority not to be overawed by their new position, and to remain faithful to their convictions prior to coming into a position of authority

This is why my bar for politicians who say they're going to reform is pretty high. Too many people get hooked as soon as they hear a politician say something they like to hear.

[Link]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

No.  The question of torture was settled decades ago.  Bush attempting to rewrite the law to fit the sick fantasies of Cheney and friends was nothing like anything the Obama administration has done.

We need to stop with the false equivalencies.

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

We all met in Geneva decades ago and settled the torture question.  What the Bush administration was advocating was in clear violation of decades of precedent as laid out by international law.

Sending a drone to kill one of your citizens who is plotting to kill innocent people is not a violation of international law.  If they could have sent a couple of cops in a squad car over to his place to arrest him I'm sure they would.

[Beet]

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

We all met in Geneva decades ago and settled the torture question.  What the Bush administration was advocating was in clear violation of decades of precedent as laid out by international law.

Sending a drone to kill one of your citizens who is plotting to kill innocent people is not a violation of international law.  If they could have sent a couple of cops in a squad car over to his place to arrest him I'm sure they would.

Without judicial review, how do we know exactly what these people are doing? The government was wrong about an entire country (Iraq) having chemical weapons, yet we are supposed to trust them with determining whether every American who has traveled abroad must be taken out. No thanks. Rhetoric aside, we aren't at "war" with terrorism. Terrorism is a criminal activity, and it should be treated as such.

[Link]

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

We all met in Geneva decades ago and settled the torture question.  What the Bush administration was advocating was in clear violation of decades of precedent as laid out by international law.

Sending a drone to kill one of your citizens who is plotting to kill innocent people is not a violation of international law.  If they could have sent a couple of cops in a squad car over to his place to arrest him I'm sure they would.

Without judicial review, how do we know exactly what these people are doing?

Mmmm.... maybe the multiple video tapes where he said he was going to spend every waking hour plotting to kill Americans.  That's kind of a big clue.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I love how the Dubya Justice Department is villified while conveniently forgetting the Obama Justice Department is barely different in this regard.......see another thread coming that shows this as well.

No.  The question of torture was settled decades ago.  Bush attempting to rewrite the law to fit the sick fantasies of Cheney and friends was nothing like anything the Obama administration has done.

We need to stop with the false equivalencies.

What's your opinion on Obama continuing with the CIA rendition program?

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=168964.0

[Beet]

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

We all met in Geneva decades ago and settled the torture question.  What the Bush administration was advocating was in clear violation of decades of precedent as laid out by international law.

Sending a drone to kill one of your citizens who is plotting to kill innocent people is not a violation of international law.  If they could have sent a couple of cops in a squad car over to his place to arrest him I'm sure they would.

Without judicial review, how do we know exactly what these people are doing?

Mmmm.... maybe the multiple video tapes where he said he was going to spend every waking hour plotting to kill Americans.  That's kind of a big clue.

And his 16 year old son?

[King]

It shouldn't be surprising that the Clinton, Bush, Obama and future administrations have Justice/Defense Departments which think the same thing.  It's the same employees just shuffled around.

[Link]

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

We all met in Geneva decades ago and settled the torture question.  What the Bush administration was advocating was in clear violation of decades of precedent as laid out by international law.

Sending a drone to kill one of your citizens who is plotting to kill innocent people is not a violation of international law.  If they could have sent a couple of cops in a squad car over to his place to arrest him I'm sure they would.

Without judicial review, how do we know exactly what these people are doing?

Mmmm.... maybe the multiple video tapes where he said he was going to spend every waking hour plotting to kill Americans.  That's kind of a big clue.

And his 16 year old son?

So then you agree with me Bush, and Obama about video tape terrorist guy?  Drone strike not a problem?

What's your opinion on Obama continuing with the CIA rendition program?

You are under the mistaken assumption I had either an opinion or a problem with everything Bush did.  I don't lump people and their action in the neat convenient FF/HP buckets this forum thrives on.  There are a lot of things I frankly never had an opinion on because I didn't have enough information and didn't really understand what was going on.

The warrentless wire tap thing made me nervous at first but after awhile I really didn't care.  I have no first hand knowledge of anyone getting hurt by it.

I mean if you have someone like Bush who leads us into a totally phony war in Iraq is it not a perfectly normal thing to do to be somewhat more skeptical no matter what he says?  I believe that is what is called a sense of discretion.  Some people carry it a bit far into irrationality but a heightened bit of skepticism is reasonable.  And for the nation a certain benefit of the doubt is good for a new president.  I and I believe most Democrats gave Bush a gigantic benefit of the doubt... until he screwed up big time.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Ok, fair enough.  That wasn't the impression I had, but fair enough. 

[Link]

Ok, fair enough.  That wasn't the impression I had, but fair enough. 

No problem.  Not your fault.  I do that to people all the time.  The bulk of people on the internet are making simplistic black and white arguments.  I have been guilty of that numerous times on this forum.  But really a lot of these issue are complex and there are no great simplistic answers.  Some times presidents of both parties make do with pretty crappy compromises.

[Silent Hunter]

Rhetoric aside, we aren't at "war" with terrorism. Terrorism is a criminal activity, and it should be treated as such.

Would you say that we are at war with al-Qaeda et. al? They certainly seem to think so.

[Zioneer]

This is certainly no better than the Bush administration crossing the line into torture. All of our elected officials seem to get absorbed into the military-industrial complex these days.

This. Obama has been completely disappointing on these types of issues.

[Beet]

Rhetoric aside, we aren't at "war" with terrorism. Terrorism is a criminal activity, and it should be treated as such.

Would you say that we are at war with al-Qaeda et. al? They certainly seem to think so.

Not really. al-Qaeda is just a name now. Any hoodlum can say they're a member of al-Qaeda. At most, it's a secretive criminal organization. Is it more powerful than the Sinaloa Cartel? I doubt it.