Reining in Obama and His Drones

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/30-8




Reining in Obama and His Drones
Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader

Barack Obama, former president of the Harvard Law Review and a constitutional law lecturer, should go back and review his coursework. He seems to have declined to comport his presidency to the rule of law.

Let’s focus here on his major expansion of drone warfare in defiance of international law, statutory law and the Constitution. Obama’s drones roam over multiple nations of Asia and Africa and target suspects, both known and unknown, whom the president, in his unbridled discretion, wants to evaporate for the cause of national security.

More than 2,500 people have been killed by Obama’s drones, many of them civilians and bystanders, including American citizens, irrespective of the absence of any “imminent threat” to the United States.

As Justin Elliott of ProPublica wrote: “Under Obama…only 13 percent (of those killed) could be considered militant leaders – either of the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, or Al Qaeda.” The remaining fatalities, apart from many innocent civilians, including children, were people oppressed by their own harsh regimes or dominated by U.S. occupation of their country. Aside from human rights and the laws of war, this distinction between civilian and combatant matters because it shows that Obama’s drones are becoming what Elliott calls “a counterinsurgency air force” for our collaborative regimes.

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[John2]

2. I'm going to

give a rebuttal to Mr Nader. I question his sincerity because of his selective targeting. I've followed him over the years and he seems to become more vocal during Democratic Administrations. Where was he at during eight years of the Bush Administration? Why is he so selective just with drones, or does he accept the concept of collateral damage in any War? Much of that theory came under Republican Administrations if he remembers the Persian Gulf War. Under Nader's concept, General Sherman and President Lincoln would have been criminals. There is no such thing as a clean War.

What is the responsibility of Pakistan harboring Terrorists and its citizens allowing Terrorists to use their country as safe havens? The same applies to Afghanistan or any country in Africa that harbors extremist views against the United States? Does Mr Nader assert, the Congress has no part in these so called murders of innocent civilians elsewhere or even the countries that he accuses President Obama of? How about Congress approval of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. So where is Mr Nader's voice in that? He chooses to run outside of the Democratic Party, and makes his voice heard only when they have power. You don't hear a peep from him during Republican Administrations or he is not as aggressive. So now he has a platform as a media whore. I wonder if it is more profitable for him when a Democrat is in office?

[Catherina]

3. K&R. Unacceptable. n/t