On drones, terrorist suspects, and Obama's "kill lists"

In the New York Times, a feature on how President Obama personally decides who to target with US drone strikes:

“How old are these people?” he asked, according to two officials present. “If they are starting to use children,” he said of Al Qaeda, “we are moving into a whole different phase.”
It was not a theoretical question: Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.
Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

Secret ‘Kill List’ Tests Obama’s Principles - NYTimes.com.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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koko szanel

Peace prize murderer – president you deserve
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  In a functioning democracy, people would get the government or president they deserve. I don’t think we have a government or president we deserve.
  - John Vance
    
    I think the will of the majority is pretty well-represented by most politicians. It’s just that the majority here in America is a bunch of assholes. Not sure how to fix that particular problem.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I think the will of the majority is pretty well-represented by most politicians.
      
      I think that most politicians promote an aggressive agenda to court a vocal minority, whereas most people don’t really have an opinion.
- ChicagoD
  
  In fairness, I did not vote for him to be a Nobel recipient.
  - Slant
    
    Hopefully you vote for people you think might actually uphold some semblance of due process. In fairness, I think you might not be fair with yourself (unless I misunderstood your comment).
    - ChicagoD
      
      These issues are not as easy for me as they are for you. Defending the Constitution by using drones to attack people 5000 miles away (some of) whom mean harm to the U.S. and the Constitution seems to me like it could be reasonable. Affording U.S.-style due process to people in Yemen planning to attack the U.S.? I don’t know how that would work.
      - mccrum
        
        What if they were a US citizen, would they still be afforded due process per the Fifth Amendment? Especially when we have the capability to extract and rendition?
      - aikimoe
        
        The problem is that we have to trust the government when they say they’re targeting the right people, and we have to trust the government when it says the best way to keep us safe is to use a method which regularly results in the horrifically violent deaths of innocent men, women, and children.
        
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-breed-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U_print.html
      - dainel
        
        How would you feel about other governments, killing Americans (in America or in other countries) who they think might want to harm their countries and their constitutions?
        
        If Iran thinks that America is trying to overthrow their government and constitution (ie “regime change”), would it be all right for them to start killing Americans working towards that aim?
Sean Mangan

Glenn Greenwald, as always, is essential reading on this topic.

Start here, http://www.salon.com/2012/05/30/how_extremism_is_normalized/singleton/.
- http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW
  
  Glenn is like the lone voice of dissent here. What is nuts is that he’s issuing kill orders against US citizens that are NOT in war zones. I mean I am willing to grant a lot of leeway. But the president doesn’t get to just choose to indiscriminately murder US citizens no matter how bad they are. They have rights. There is no justification for the suspension of Habeas Corpus outside of a warzone. None. In all honesty, I don’t hate Obama, but the guy should be on trial for murder. He’s crossed a very real and very dangerous line.
  - ffabian
    
    Yeah it’s just a tragedy when US citizens get murdered because as a sub-human (=non-USian) you don’t have and deserve any rights eh?
    - John Vance
      
      I don’t think that’s what openfly is saying. Just noting that the violation of the rights of US citizens isn’t a legal gray area- it’s flat out illegal- while the violation of the (very real and every bit as legitimate) rights of non-citizens has been going on for decades unquestioned.
  - Charlie B
    
    But the president doesn’t get to just choose to indiscriminately murder US citizens no matter how bad they are.
    
    Sadly, you are wrong.
  - ocker3
    
    War Zone: Please Define. This isn’t combat between nations, there are no front lines, thus there is no ‘war zone’.
    
    I agree that there are lots of problems with just taking out people, however I think there need to be more accurate terms used.
    
    The problem with politics is, we don’t get to create politicians with a tick-box system, we can work to change their minds, but we’re currently using a mostly either/or system. Would you rather the other guy got in?
    
    And it’s not just the President, his actions are constrained by the Congress, if fewer of those people were beholden to pro-war interests, it might be easier to take different actions to reduce terrorism.
http://www.barelyfitz.com/ BarelyFitz

How Ned Starkian of him. Does he also insist on swinging the sword, or pressing the button?
- benher
  
  Ah, reminds me of good ol’ Zuck killing his own meat!
  5 points for the this “noble savage!”
- unit_1421
  
  Gahhhh, you beat me to it!
gerbalblaste

I don’t know what to think of that. Doing a fundentally immoral act in the most moral way possible. No wonder Obama has gone grey so quickly.

While the drone strikes remain unconstitutional and immoral I have to admire the president for having the stones to be the one making the call and accepting the responsibility.
- atimoshenko
  
  I have to disagree. A generalist inserting himself into a specialist role just because he sits atop the leadership hierarchy is generally a recipe for disaster. Information needs to get summarised as it moves up the chain. Summarisation, like all compression, necessitates the loss of detail. Details can be critical.
  
  Important decisions must be made at the lowest feasible level, not at the highest.
  - http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
    
    I submit that this is such a critical decision that he feels that he is the lowest feasible level to be making it.
    - atimoshenko
      
      And that is the hubris and over-confidence of all micro-managing leaders. Criticality is irrelevant to identifying the right level – people up the ladder are not better at making decisions, they are just in a position to see further (but by trading off a loss of detail). The right level is determined by the right mix of breadth vs depth, distance vs. detail.
      
      Executing individuals is a detail thing. The individual’s life trumps the big picture.
  - Finnagain
    
    How would you like to be ordered by your boss to choose people to murder? Or would you rather your boss took that duty personally?
    
    I’m guessing that the ‘specialists’ have already done their work by the time the list reaches the president’s desk.
    - atimoshenko
      
      Depends on how much summarisation of information I would have to do before kicking it up to my boss. If a significant amount, then I would prefer to make the decision myself. Why? Because a human’s life is important enough to demand the BEST POSSIBLE DECISION to be made, rather than the peace of mind of passing the buck up somewhere to later be able to claim “I was just following orders”.
      - EH
        
        In light of this thread, I really don’t think I care who makes the decision. I just think it should be made in a way that can’t be weaseled out of later.
  - wysinwyg
    
    Without taking morals into account these are easy decisions. A specialist unbound by moral constraints would make these decisions easily — just kill the mofos.
    
    The significance here is that Obama is making the moral dilemma his own. He already knows that according to the specialists you mention these men need to die. Obama doesn’t have to worry about the tactics or strategy involved, the specialists have already taken care of that or the “baseball card” would never have ended up on his desk.
    
    Frankly, this is like the first time I can actually remember feeling good about voting for the guy.
    - atimoshenko
      
      Why would a specialist be unbound by moral constraints? Morals are something most human beings have. It’s why we have jury trials. There are two things that separate a panel led by a President from a flat team of specialists – there’s no pressure to agree with the boss, and you dedicate 100% of your time investigating and appreciating the full details. Again, it’s why we have juries of peers.
    - chenille
      
      Suit yourself. For me, any respect I might feel for him taking the responsibility of the killings on himself, is more than canceled by refusing to acknowlege any possible guilt for any adult male deaths, targets or not.
      
      I’d rather someone too cowardly to make the call, if only he were brave enough to be honest about its consequences. That type of courage is in much shorter supply.
      
      Shorter: taking responsibility doesn’t matter if you don’t admit what you’re doing.
  - oasisob1
    
    Regardless of how I feel about the decision being made, he should be the one making it. He is ultimately responsible, and he doesn’t place that burden on anyone else’s shoulders. He asks for the information he needs to make the decision, and that’s what the specialists have the responsibility to provide. If they do a crap job ‘summarizing’, then they should bear some of that burden for not doing their job well, at least personally, if not officially.
  - Charlie B
    
    Legal conspiracy to murder is the specialty of the chief executive and commander in chief. He is supposed to be the only one trusted to order the legions directly.
    - ocker3
      
      It is one of the reasons we have national leaders, we elect the people who trust most to make the hard decisions, and they reap the rewards of those actions, be the good or bad
- Diogenes
  
  Translation: The poor man has aged from his immoral and unconstitutional actions. How brave of him to break his promises in such a lovely way!
  - ChicagoD
    
    I think that you heard different promises than the ones he made. It’s a common problem. People projected into Obama more than he ever promised.
    - chenille
      
      I’m pretty sure everyone heard this one:
      
      I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
      
      If the drone strikes are genuinely unconstitutional, that’s a broken promise, right? At any rate, no projection is needed to expect someone not to do things like redefine due process.
      - ChicagoD
        
        Curious about the claim that they are not constitutional. “Due process” and “habeas corpus” are concepts of U.S. domestic law, so I’m pretty sure that’s not it.
      - EH
        
        Doesn’t US Domestic law cover citizens?
      - chenille
        
        To ChicagoD and EH: On citizens, it’s mentioned in the article.
        
        That record, and Mr. Awlaki’s calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama with an urgent question: Could he order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial?
        
        The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.
        
        So there’s that. Killing the rest of the world might well conform to US domestic law, I don’t know. I’d be disappointed if there weren’t any international agreements one was supposed to follow, though.
      - http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW
        
        They are basically saying that the executive branch holds internal to itself with no checks and balances the right to execute us citizens at will anywhere in the world. And that is so much utter bullshit. It’d be laughable if it wasn’t so wantonly terrifying.
- Layne
  
  In other words, he had to burn the village down so that he could save it?
  
  I hope you’d be as awestruck when he gives the go-ahead to just blow your shit up cause you’re looking suspicious. Since, as he’s already demonstrated, he can justify drone strikes to murder American citizens abroad with zero due-process.
  But, hey, at least it’s not Chimpy McBush, amiright? Go Team Blue!
  - blissfulight
    
    Hillary Clinton’s next book: It Takes A Drone Strike To Wipe Out A Village. (Co-written by Barack ‘I’m Cashing In On My Presidency’ Obama.)
unit_1421

I’d rather have the smart guy like Obama making these decisions and not the coked out chimp the came before him.
- pathman25
  
  The outcome is the same. Dead innocent people.
  - ChicagoD
    
    “Innocent.” Maybe, maybe not. I can’t say they’re not, but you can’t say they are.
    - Slant
      
      Yes, you can say they’re “innocent.” That’s the whole point: “innocent UNTIL PROVEN guilty.” Got it?
      - chenille
        
        If these people want to submit themselves to U.S. jurisdiction, this is exactly the standard.
        
        It’s pretty chilling that there are people who think that US has more inherent right to condemn people who aren’t in its jurisdiction.
        
        But even if you’re so cruel as to think innocent until proven guilty is a legal matter, rather than a principle of justice, statistics would suggest some innocent people are being killed. You’re the only one who said anything about all.
    - pathman25
      
      Children are being murdered in these strikes. I’m pretty sure they qualify as “innocent.”
      - Finnagain
        
        It’s amazing to me that we have to even have this conversation.
        
        USA! USA! OOK OOK!
      - ChicagoD
        
        There is no doubt that people who are innocent are being killed. That is terrible. I would much prefer that places like Yemen and Afghanistan returned to being random, distant places on maps. That just isn’t the situation at the moment though. I have no serious proposal for addressing the world as it is that is much better than where we are today.
        
        And before anyone says it was the U.S.’s fault because of the CIA and bin Laden, or supporting Israel or similar arguments . . . yes. But we can’t undo the errors of the past and we are where we are, so now what?
      - ffabian
        
        “so now what?”
        Making more terrorists by bombing innocents?
        
        But repeating the mistakes of the past seems like the standard US modus operandi. Oh boy – do they ever learn?
      - EH
        
        so now what?
        
        Walk away.
      - chenille
        
        Even if current policy were to prove the best choice, ChicagoD, it would have to come with paying serious attention to the true benefits and costs.
        
        Right in the article, though, we find any man killed by a drone strike is dismissed as probably guilty enough anyway, no further questions. That’s choosing to wash your hands of the damage.
    - travtastic
      
      Shit, I guess we’ll never really know if they were innocent or not, huh? Strange!
    - EH
      
      How does “assassinated citizen” strike you?
    - retchdog
      
      six weeks after the drone-kill of u.s. citizen anwar al-awlaki (whose only apparent offense, btw, was making propaganda videos…), his 16-year-old u.s.-born son was killed, again by a drone. while this may have been a coincidence, it does raise the eyebrows. at the very least, this is a confirmed innocent kill; the only question left is intent.
      - Diogenes
        
        C’mon, don’t bother ChicagoD with facts. It’s too upsetting to think that Hope&Change is neither.
      - retchdog
        
        @Diogenes:disqus yeah, i hadn’t yet noticed him contradicting himself below: “There is no doubt that people who are innocent are being killed.”
    - http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
      
      Recommended rent on your Netflix list: 12 Angry Men
    - aikimoe
      
      Sure, we can. It’s actually clear to anyone who looks into it.
      
      Graphic images http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/rawagallery.php?mghash=a69ba84843a6c778938bd59b65a08f63&mggal=6
      
      http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        aikimoe,
        
        You need to tag graphic images.
      - aikimoe
        
        Antinous/Moderator,
        
        Will do. Thanks.
  - http://www.facebook.com/brianrazencain Brian Cain
    
    A big part of the issue that Democrats have with Obama is that he is much more of a realist than they thought he was.
    During the election his true nature was often obscured from easy view by the blinding haze of what had come before (Bush) and what could be (McCain).
    
    Everyone wants a leader who is a white shining beacon of light on a hill. But all leaders, great or otherwise, live in the real world where right and wrong are shades of grey.
    
    I’m projecting a little here but I believe that inserting himself into the process is the only way a man like him can condone what has to be done.
    - Diogenes
      
      Nope. Just want a leader who adheres to the oath of office, specifically the part about upholding the constitution. Don’t give me that real-world shades-of-grey faux-realist b.s. That’s the same stuff Dubya and Cheney were pushing and I didn’t buy it from them either. Just give me some leaders who respect the law.
    - aikimoe
      
      His “true nature” was often obscured by what he said he intended to do. And now that he’s reversed what he said he intended to do (transparency, whistle blowers, medical marijuana), his true nature is more clear.
      
      And what, precisely, “has to be done?” We have to blow up families to protect us from terrorism? We have to classify any military-aged men we blow up as “combatants” whether there’s any evidence for it or not?
      
      And if the goal is to keep us safe from terrorism, blowing up innocent people isn’t a great way of going about it.
      
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemen-us-airstrikes-breed-anger-and-sympathy-for-al-qaeda/2012/05/29/gJQAUmKI0U_print.html
- gtrjnky
  
  I find your logic repugnant.
- StreetEight
  
  This. I’m quite sure that if I were to be killed by a nominal liberal my family’s mourning would be greatly assuaged by the knowledge that it wasn’t a right winger that did me in.
joeposts

Instead of detaining and locking terror suspects up indefinitely (which is atrocious), Obama is ordering them killed, alongside their families and neighbors. And any adult male is fair game, provided they live somewhere dangerous. There are no innocent victims, because the government demands evidence of their innocence after they are killed. This is America, 2012.

And this bullshit gets bipartisan and public support, because we’ve all been brainwashed into joining some kind of international doomsday cult that worships power, death and suffering.
- StreetEight
  
  “because we’ve all been brainwashed into joining some kind of international doomsday cult that worships power, death and suffering.”
  
  Wrong.
  
  I would hazard a guess that at least half the people who voted Obama in 2008 were not brainwashed in any such way.
  
  Now if they support him again in 2012, yeah, I would look for soap residue in the earlobes.
Layne

What’s disturbing is the hushed reverence that the Times gives the whole despicable campaign. It’s even more loathsome than the puff-piece interviews the President can expect from John Stewart or Rolling Stone. This is Abuse of Power 101.

Rather than painting this program as it truly is – unwarranted murdering of foreign and American citizens, in unannounced warfare straight from Westmoreland’s “Trust us, we’re killing lots of bad guys” playbook – we’re supposed to be in awe that the mantle of state rests so heavy on Obama’s poor, weary brow. Why, he personally looks at things before deciding to murder people halfway around the world who may or may not have done a single thing to warrant it.

It’s all propagandized bullshit. I’m sure he’s even going to get around to writing condolence cards to all the unfortunate 1st responders who walk into a hellfire kill-zone seeking only to render aid. Instead of decrying this insane expansion of executive limits, the Times can cheerlead for their guy until the next party takes over and then stand on their little soapbox and decry executive overreach when the DEA decides that drones are a perfectly acceptable to crackdown on domestic crime.
- http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
  
  Why, he personally looks at things before deciding to murder people halfway around the world who may or may not have done a single thing to warrant it.
  
  This just speaks to how low the bar has been set for governmental action. “Hey. Sure the government is murdering people without very much oversight, but at least the President is doing it personally instead of delegating it to some underling! See! He’s got character!” We seem to have taken it as read that the government is going to murder people, and that’s a premise that I wish more people were examining harder.
Shinkuhadoken

While Republicans agree that the President is too harsh with these assassinations, their preferred approach is to capture suspected terrorists into a life of indefinite detention, indefinite torture, and maybe someday, if they get around to it, an unfair military tribunal stacked against them to further justify continued detention and torture. Perversely, assassination almost seems a kindness.
- StreetEight
  
  A great bumper sticker.
  
  ASSASSINATION – ALMOST A KINDNESS
  OBAMA 2012
http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie

http://youtu.be/8Qqa0w_qXEI
http://twitter.com/stevepan1 Steve Pan

pew pew pew -government, 2012
Eric Cashew Harding

You all deserve Mitt Romney as a leader.

For Gods fuckin’ sake, what American leader in our history has not gone to the dark side for national security?

Its a part of your vote. You just hope when they go there, that their head is on straight.
- Diogenes
  
  Translation: If you demand better, you deserve worse. Everybody else was corrupt so don’t expect Hope&Change to be any different.
  
  Way to fold like a cheap suit, Eric.
- ocker3
  
  Like Fox-Conn(sp?), they’re not as good as we want them to be, but they’re not as bad as the others available. Does that mean we should switch? I believe it means we should continue to work with them as they’re the best available, and give them incentives to be better. We should also be aware that there are costs and benefits to changes in current behaviour.
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs cleek

there is body of 535 people who could take this power away from the President.

so, how many of you are going to call your representative tomorrow and demand they start the Amendment process to make this kind of thing illegal?
- Charlie B
  
  I call my rep all the time. He tells me he’lll look into my concerns, then does completely the opposite of what I’ve asked him to do.
  
  The guy he replaced was no better.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  there is body of 535 people who could take this power away from the President.
  
  At least two thirds of them are more bloodthirsty than him. How many congressional representatives have articulated any desire to kill fewer foreigners?
  - http://ok-cleek.com/blogs cleek
    
    then maybe we should work to elect better representatives ?
    
    the President, after all, doesn’t write the laws that he has to follow: Congress does.
    - http://www.ecoevolution.org/ Ian G
      
      Your sentiment is the right one. The key word you used is WORK to get better representation. Our chances of changing things are slim if we try, but the system is set up to dissuade and disempower us so they win if we do nothing.
      
      That is why, despite the fact that Obama is not representative of my interests or of those of anyone but warmongers and financiers, that I will vote for him in the fall. He does not represent my interests, but he is a weaker personality and guard than Romney when it comes to preventing the people’s will. If you get enough people behind an issue he cracks and runs, where Romney is just a figurehead to power. Ironically the best candidate for us is the one who is has the least resolve.
      
      Grover Norquist summed up the Republican candidate best:
      
      “All we have to do is replace Obama. … We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. [...]Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/13/1064417/-Grover-Norquist-on-the-GOP-candidates-All-we-need-is-someone-who-can-handle-a-pen-
      
      I’m voting for Obama not because he is immoral but because more importantly he is a weak leader… the slim chance of breaking through him is better than the no chance with Romney.
Diogenes

When the leaders of both parties compete to be seen as more bloodthirsty, one must draw the conclusion that the majority of voters are bloodthirsty, or stupid, or both. I see evidence to convince me that the majority is not both. Obama is Bush 3, and Romney would be Obama 2. No hope, no change.
http://www.ecoevolution.org/ Ian G

Even if the target was a “terrorist” the military/intelligence community has apparently absolved itself of human rights violations AND violations of law by merely classifying anyone nearby as a “militant.” So in their rationale, walk by the bombing zone at the wrong time and congratulations, you are a militant. That on it’s own is absolutely disgusting.

So it turns out Professor Ward Churchill was right, and the terrorists were right according to Obama; the victims of 9/11 were Little Eichmanns and militants under our own rules.

Feb. 18, 2005

“AMY GOODMAN: Professor Churchill, do you think that the World Trade Center was an acceptable target on September 11? Do you think it was a legitimate target?

WARD CHURCHILL: Do I personally think it was a legitimate target or should have been a legitimate target? Absolutely not. And that’s said on the basis of all but absolute rejection of and opposition to U.S. policy. But what you have to understand, and what the listeners have to understand, is that under U.S. rules, it was an acceptable target. And the reason it was an acceptable target, if none other, was that because the C.I.A., the Defense Department, and other parts of the U.S. military intelligence infrastructure, had situated offices within it, and you’ll recall that that is precisely the justification advanced by the Donald Rumsfelds of the world, the Norman Schwarzkopfs, and the Colin Powells of the world, to explain why civilian targets had been bombed in Baghdad. Because that nefarious Saddam Hussein had situated elements of his command and control infrastructure within otherwise civilian occupied facilities. They said that, in itself, justified their bombing of the civilian facilities in order to eliminate the parts of the command and control infrastructure that were situated there. And of course, that then became Saddam Hussein’s fault. Well, if it was Saddam Hussein’s fault, sacrificing his own people, by encapsulating strategic targets within civilian facilities, the same rule would apply to the United States. So, if you’ve got a complaint out there with regard to the people who hit the World Trade Center, you should actually take it to the government of the United States, which, by the rubric they apply elsewhere in the world, everywhere else in the world ultimately, they converted them from civilian targets into legitimate military targets. Now, that logic is there, and it’s unassailable. It’s not something that I embrace. It’s something that I just spell out.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/2/18/the_justice_of_roosting_chickens_ward
Ryan Lenethen

Drones can capture people now?!