Sen. Graham: ‘Not Fair to Let President Get Hit.’ But What About The Drone’s Victims?

Barack Obama, Homeland Security, Justice, Law, Technology, The Courts, War, WMD

Bloodthirsty neoconservative Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican Senator, supports President Obama’s drone policy, which, as I noted on 02.05.13, is being debated only because of the very public confirmation hearings for John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Sen. Graham says it’s not fair to leave the president out there on his own while he’s getting hit from libertarians and the left,” reports MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.

I guess it’s fair to leave kids like little Shakira to brave the cowardice of Uncle Sam’s Assassin. As you see, not much remains of the child’s small, charred face.

The Los Angeles Times concedes that it is time “to press the architect of the administration’s policy of targeted killings about its legal rationale and practical application.”

…the document espouses a “broader concept of imminence” in which a suspect can be killed even when the U.S. government lacks “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” Another passage suggests that the determination of whether there is an “imminent” threat can take account of the fact that certain Al Qaeda members are “continually plotting attacks against the United States.”

Despite the horror of the concept of “Targeted killings”—and the violation of 4th and 5h amendment safeguards—the LA Times posits the need only to “limit” rather than “eliminate” this barbarism.

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.

UPDATE II: Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword (Ron Paul Agrees)

Media, Military, Pop-Culture, Propaganda, The State, The Zeitgeist, War

He sculpted a career out of killing for Uncle Sam. A former Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle’s claim to fame, by the news media’s telling: He “held the record for number of kills by an American sniper. The Pentagon has confirmed more than 150 of his kills. The previous record was 109.”

Nobody is prepared to say that it is NO astounding accomplishment to have killed so many individuals, in the service of the US state. So consider it said.

Now Kyle is dead, “shot point-blank” by “another soldier who is recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome.” The therapy “sometime involved taking these veterans to the shooting range.”

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or in hippie speak: Kyle had bad karma.

UPDATE I: From the Facebook thread:

Kyle (and his kill-for-Uncle Sam supporters) reminds me of a real-life Jack Bauer “Federal Zombie”: “the unstoppable, undead agent who has actually been killed and brought back to life, in service—and in thrall—to the state…”

To be a man is to defend your family and community. Not the empire and its “goals.” Men like Joe Horn are American heroes.

UPDATE II (Feb. 4): Ron Paul agrees, down to the adage, tweeting out, on Monday, 9:05 AM, 4 Feb 13, the following:

Chris Kyle’s death seems to confirm that “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.” Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn’t make sense.

America’s chosen heroes are either killing someone in far away lands, or crying on TV, here at home. Crying—and coming out about private, personal matters—this imbues someone with goodness, even conferring him with the status of a hero.

And always: Be they your grief, your struggles, or your Iraqi culling expeditions—the key to everlasting honor is to be public about it.

I hope you realize that these deformed values are exactly inverted.

He Lied About Life On The Border

Barack Obama, Crime, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION

Imagine having two or three parties of illegal aliens traipse across your property daily. Imagine going into your backyard, only to be jumped by a few such soon-to-be amnestied migrants on the move, and hit in the head with a two-by-four, after which your home is burglarized. But, as the North East elites keep arguing, ordinary American do not need and should not have the same right of self-defense afforded to politicians.

Barack Hussein Obama, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, goes so far as to deny the nightmare that is daily life on the border between Arizona and Mexico, claiming the following:

“We strengthened security at the borders so that we could finally stem the tide of illegal immigrants. We put more boots on the ground on the southern border than at any time in our history. And today, illegal crossings are down nearly 80% from their peak in 2000. Today, deportations of criminals, is at its highest level ever.” (Via CNN)

Erin Burnett doesn’t usually “investigate” the Haloed One. But she broke with CNN norms, and dispatched reporter Casey Wian to the small border town of Naco, Arizona, for an OUTFRONT investigation. Here’s the transcript (one of the few good features offered by CNN):

ROBERT LADD, ARIZONA RANCHER: It’s bull. It’s not true. This border is not secure until they want to have harsh treatment and penalties for coming illegally. They’re never going to be secure.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Ladd’s cattle ranch spans 14,000 acres along the Arizona/Mexico border, which here is a dirt road and a 13-foot high fence.

LADD: This is the hole they cut last Friday afternoon to bring two-truck full of dope in. They torched the metal and then they just break it with a toe strap on the truck. Then they use a portable grinder to cut the mesh.

WIAN: They then took off through his property. He says it was the 28th and 29th smuggling vehicles crossing his ranch in the past year.

LADD: People traffic is down. There’s no doubt about that, but we still have two or three groups a day.

WIAN (on camera): Two or three groups a day?

LADD: Yes.

WIAN (voice-over): Ladd scoffs at claims of dramatic improvements in border security based on fewer border patrol apprehensions and he says it’s too soon for comprehensive immigration reform.

LADD: There has got to be a bunch of people coming across that wall to try to get here while they can, take advantage of the pathway to citizenship.

WIAN: Sheriff Mark Dannels’ deputies chased and lost the drug smugglers on Ladd’s land Friday.

SHERIFF MARK DANNELS, COCHISE COUNTY, ARIZONA: There’s a lot of unrest in this county, especially in the rural parts. People just don’t feel safe because of the illegal flow, the criminal elements that are floating through Cochise County and entering our nation. It’s scary.

WIAN: Dannels blames the nearly two decades’ old border patrol strategy of pushing illegal traffic into remote rural areas.

(On camera): The border patrol vehicle just drove right by. You said there are not enough agents on the border. What would it take to get this border secured sufficiently where you would feel comfortable as sheriff?

DANNELS: Well, first of all, the first report card on that is when the people of Cochise County are not in fear to go out in their backyard like the gentleman I was talking about here three or four nights ago, went in his backyard and was hit in the head with a two by four while they burglarized him and took off.

Until I get the feeling from the citizens of Cochise County that, we’re comfortable, we’re confident that it’s making a difference. Right now that’s not the case.”