The Nation: Do Liberals Support Obama's Kill List?

[stockholmer]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168469/do-liberals-support-obamas-kill-list

President Obama is wielding several security powers that have been historically controversial among Democrats, from indefinitely detaining Guantanamo prisoners to shutting down torture lawsuits as "state secrets" that cannot be addressed in court. There has not been a major Democratic backlash, but all the recent attention on Obama's "kill list" – a set of targets that has included American citizens as young as sixteen years old – seemed like an opening for a new chapter in challenging the administration's security policies.

For starters, the kill list is just different.

Many divisive security measures linked to the Bush administration have been inherently convoluted – Obama's team had to clean up a mess while developing new policies on the fly. For example, take the Bush-era detainees. Some are difficult to convict in civilian courts because the evidence against them was gathered through torture. Obama supporters understand that the administration's options are more limited on this score, a predicament Daniel Klaidman stresses in his new chronicle of Obama's terror policies, "Kill or Capture."

The drone program, however, goes far beyond what Bush ever did. It was not required by the past. And it sets a stunning precedent for the future. Essentially, the program kills people chosen through a secret government process, including Americans and individuals selected merely for being near other targets, with no due process or publicly asserted legal authority.

Yet so far, most elected Democrats, liberal interest groups and progressive commentators have almost entirely avoided the issue. (There are some notable exceptions: the ACLU, Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Eliot Spitzer, the blog FireDogLake, Democracy Now! and the editorial boards of The New York Times and The Nation.) In Congress, foreign policy minded Democrats have focused more on the leak of the program than its content. And most liberal groups are just taking a pass during this election year. To pick one example, MoveOn.org, which is still pushing to close Guantanamo Bay in the Obama era, has not touched the kill list. People who oppose detention without trial, of course, usually oppose execution without trial.

snip

[JoePhilly]

1. No, we think the military should kill people at random, no lists.

[morningfog]

4. Or, we think wars should be fought, if at all, with the advise and consent of Congress.

Not solely out of the White House office through the CIA.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. But... 9/11 9/11 9/11...

I guess the Constitution *is* just a piece of paper.

[morningfog]

6. 9/11 was soooo last decade.

But, people still cling to it.

[JoePhilly]

8. Kind of like in Bosnia.

Where President Clinton killed people at random.

right?

[morningfog]

9. Huh? Did Clinton act unilaterally? I thought it was NATO under a UN charter.

[JoePhilly]

13. Where is NATO mentioned in the Constitution?

Or, is your point that the US can only act outside Congress if there is some agreement "outside" the US, like the UN or NATO?

Interesting.

[morningfog]

15. That aregument was put forth a lot when we bombed Libya.

[JoePhilly]

16. Non responsive.

Which position are you taking ... (a) that the US can act unilaterally, or (b) that it can only do so of the UN or NATO agrees.

Actually, the Constitution allows the CIC to mobilize US forces outside a formal declaration of war.

What I find interesting is when "Dems" suggest that Obama some how created this reality. This was true BEFORE Obama, it will be true AFTER Obama.

Blaming Obama for this reality seems like an alternative agenda.

[morningfog]

20. Alternative agenda? Settle down.

There is novelty to what Obama is doing. In both degree and kind. It is well worth discussing and exploring. Absolute defense of everything Obama does is actually more indicative of an alternative agenda, one other than serious good faith and healthy debate of a policy that results in hundreds or thousands of deaths. I posted a good article exploring all sides in good reads. it would be a good read for you. I recommend it to you.

[JoePhilly]

22. The link you mention is not in this sub-thread ... or have I missed it?

[morningfog]

25. It's not. In good reads.

I can't provide a link now, on a phone.

[morningfog]

18. Also, UN/NATO are covered by Treaty law. And

Clinton's order in Bosnia was not done in secrecy like Obama's Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan strikes.

[JoePhilly]

24. So you are saying that if the UN or NATO approves, these are OK. no?

[morningfog]

26. Big if. UN disapproves. No nation

approves. That is a major problem for us.

[Scootaloo]

2. If your list of exceptions is longer than 5, they might not be exceptions

[MannyGoldstein]

3. We are no longer a nation of laws when

when a single man can imprison or kill anyone, anywhere, at any time, purely at his whim with zero judicial review.

This is precisely what the Founders sought to guard against.

Between Bush and Obama, our way of government has been blown to bits. I only hope that the Judiciary has the ability to reverse this abomination.

[sad sally]

27. Yet somehow we thought when a former constitutional law professor, one who had taught constitutional

law, became President he would be different than Bush - a president who was just plain ignorant of the constitution.

Instead, he has accepted, expanded and even strengthened Bush's worst policies - given himself (the Presidency) an even more powerful authoritian role.

[marasinghe]

7. Liberals don't. seems plenty of Democrats do.

but then, what's more important? a few colored kids getting blown up in the crossfire 'cos they were wrong place/wrong time, or winning the next election?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc

[n2doc]

10. Accidents can happen

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

11. Is Andy Dick on it?

If so, yes.

[sad sally]

12. It's problematic to accept the idea that if the "kill list" and all it embodies were happening

in a Republican administration (for example Bush's), most Democrat's heads would be exploding with outrage.

Yet, as a person who has always been able to say, "I'm a life-time liberal Democrat and proud of it," when we (and I say we because I know I'm not alone in this) criticize and question the idea of "kill lists" by our President, we're branded as betrayers of the party.

There's argument here that armed drones are nothing new in warfare, that targeted assassinations of enemies has always happened, that innocent people are always accidentally killed during combat, that torture and destruction have always been a part of war, that changing the "rules of engagement" always take place when two sides fight each other, that Presidents (Democratic or Republican) can take military action anytime anyplace without any approval from anyone, let alone our supposedly elected congress - all this is supposed to placate me into believing there are no morals, no principles, no anything when it comes to WAR.

The longer there is acceptance of "kill lists" the more acceptable they will become until they'll be the norm. This collective amnesia may come back to haunt Democrats when sometime down the political road our Party isn't sitting in the whitehouse.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Only when they can convince themselves that killing people is a liberal value.

A feat than many here have accomplished without even a blush, but with a whole slough of rationalizations usually reserved for Republicans.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

[JoePhilly]

17. Who said killing people is a "liberal value"?

I have not heard anyone make that claim.

[morningfog]

19. There are plenty of "liberals" defending

and even pointing to the policy as a reason to support the President.

[JoePhilly]

21. So those people are saying that "killing people" is a "liberal value"?

Is that the nonsense you are pushing?

And the reasons to support this President go far beyond "this" policy.

[morningfog]

23. Reasons to support despite this, sure.

We should be ashamed of this policy, though.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. Well, the drones aren't delivering fresh flowers and candy to the people they're aimed at.

[Egalitarian Thug]

28. This one does not. n/t