Michael Hastings rips Obama over the drone program

[kentuck]

..on tv this morning.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/25/michael-hastings-obama_n_3336214.html

Appearing on MSNBC's "Up with Steve Kornacki," Hastings ripped Obama's recent foreign policy comments, saying the president had bought into the Bush administration's neoconservative worldview.

On Thursday, Obama gave a major national security speech in which he defended the use of drone strikes as a key counterterrorism tool. Hastings said the speech marked a reversal in Obama's thinking.

"If you compare this speech to the speech he gave in Cairo, in 2009 or his Nobel Prize speech, you see almost a total rejection of the civil rights tradition that President Obama supposedly came out of... and just an embrace of total militarism," Hastings said.

"That speech to me was essentially agreeing with President Bush and Vice President Cheney that we're in this neo-conservative paradigm, that we're at war with a jihadist threat that actually is not a nuisance but the most important threat we're facing today," Hastings continued.

....more

[ProSense]

1. Did

"That speech to me was essentially agreeing with President Bush and Vice President Cheney that we're in this neo-conservative paradigm, that we're at war with a jihadist threat that actually is not a nuisance but the most important threat we're facing today," Hastings continued.

...he watch a different speech or is he just determined to push the Obama is just like Bush/Cheney talking point?

President Obama: Repeal the AUFM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022891567

Obama places a brilliantly phrased dagger to the heart of the Bush administration in speech today
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022893201

[kimbutgar]

2. I also saw him on the Young Turks show

He is so angry and something is wrong with him like he's on drugs or something. I have been watching him for years and he's become really radicalized. I expect him soon to endorse rand Paul.
My husband even remarked the same thing about him that he's really skinny and looks different.

That said, he does have legitimate criticisms about the drone program.

[kentuck]

3. You may be on to something...

The thought crossed my mind that he may have been on some type of speed?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. The ACLU and Amnesty International agree with Hastings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/24/obama-drone-vetting-kill-courts

Zeke Johnson, director of Amnesty International USA's Security with Human Rights Campaign, said: "What's needed on drones is not a 'kill court' but rejection of the radical redefinition of 'imminence' used to expand who can be killed as well as independent investigations of alleged extrajudicial executions and remedy for victims.

"The president was right to call for repeal of the 2001 authorisation for use of military force, but he doesn't need to wait for Congress to act on this. He can unequivocally reject the 'global war' legal theory today, once and for all, and put an end to the indefinite detention, military commissions and unlawful killings it has been used to justify."

This view was echoed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which welcomed new restrictions against so-called 'signature strikes' on suspicious groups but warned the notion of legal authority for targeted assassinations remained deeply flawed.

"To the extent the speech signals an end to signature strikes, recognises the need for congressional oversight, and restricts the use of drones to threats against the American people, the developments on targeted killings are promising," said ACLU director Anthony Romero. "Yet the president still claims broad authority to carry out target killings far from any battlefield, and there is still insufficient transparency. We continue to disagree fundamentally with the idea that due process requirements can be satisfied without any form of judicial oversight by regular federal courts."