Fear Not: Uncle Sam Can Kill You, But Likely Won’t

Foreign Policy,Homeland Security,Law,Military,Terrorism

            

You just know that the information has been fully accessible through “The Freedom of Information Act,” but that the scurrilous US media have chosen to let sleeping dogs lie, because Barack Obama is their favorite top-dog.

Libertarians have been on the issue from day one. On rare occasions, left-liberals like Rachel Maddow have galvanized to protest B. Hussein’s drone program—the en masse, extrajudicial, long-distance killing of foreigners and Americans without due process (the latter being a farce too).

You must realize that “the media mollusk are not for peace; they’re for Barack Obama. They’ve continued to depict this war president as your good kind of killer; a thoughtful, great leader who agonizes over his kill lists with excruciating care.”

What more can a moronic people want, right? Naturally, America’s leaders are entitled to their Kill Lists. It’s all a matter of how they mange and execute the grave “responsibility,” not so? No! Not so! Wrong you knuckleheads!!!

In the fifth year of the “Killer Drone’s” faith-based outreach abroad, media watchdogs are finally reporting on a “Justice Department memo” that says “it’s legal to use drone strikes against Americans.”

MSNBC discloses that,

“A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
The secrecy surrounding such strikes is fast emerging as a central issue in this week’s hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, to be CIA director. Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.” In a separate talk at the Northwestern University Law School in March, Attorney General Eric Holder specifically endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans, saying they could be justified if government officials determine the target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack.”
But the confidential Justice Department “white paper” introduces a more expansive definition of self-defense or imminent attack than described by Brennan or Holder in their public speeches. It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the memo states.

Were the “White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign,” not scheduled for a confirmation hearing for the position of CIA director—you’d be none the wiser.

Note the broad definition of “imminent danger,” subject to which YOU and I could become targets for elimination.