The Killing Burden Of The Big Man

Barack Obama,Homeland Security,Terrorism,The State

            

US citizen or not: The distinction is immaterial. The US government has no right to kill people in all corners of the world, based on secret evidence and secretive laws and procedures. Yet, once again, to a relatively unexercised press, the Obama administration is considering whether to kill or not to kill abroad.

“Weighing” is how this administration’s deadly deliberation is being termed.

The Big Man is thinking of approving “a lethal strike against a U.S. citizen who is accused of being part of the al-Qaeda terrorist network overseas and involved in ongoing plotting against American targets, U.S. officials said.”

Oh, the burdens of Obama “Bigmanism” (To go by the dictionary, and “within the context of political science, big man, big man syndrome, or bigmanism refers to corrupt and autocratic rule of countries by a single person.”)

Unfortunately, the ACLU also appears to cleave to the citizen-vs.-non-citizen distinction:

“The targeted killing of an American being considered right now shows the inherent danger of a killing program based on vague and shifting legal standards, which has made it disturbingly easy for the government to operate outside the law,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “This new report comes as the administration continues to fight against even basic transparency about the thousands of people who have died in this lethal program, let alone accountability for the wrongful killings of U.S. citizens.”