General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Drones: Do I have a line in the sand? [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)And yet, it seems that the person who shot Gabrielle Giffords was found to be insane and not a terrorist.
Is there a difference between someone who shoots because he is a terrorist and someone who shoots because he is insane?
I doubt that there is any difference in the view of the victims.
And if insanity makes a person who shoot unfit for trial or the death penalty, does it make terrorists unfit for drone strikes?
In addition, we are a country founded on a violent revolution. Was George Washington a terrorist? He certainly was not much if anything more than that in the eyes of the British of the time.
Who decides who is a terrorist and who is a revolutionary bringing progress?
I am not a Muslim and abhor the violence of 9/11 and what I am told about Al Qaeda, but who gets to decide who is a terrorist and who is not?
I just think that these judgments need to be made in a transparent forum and not in secret.
Think of the trouble the British could have saved themselves.
Have we explored all alternatives to drones? I don't know. There is no transparency about this. That is why we need due process. That is our attempt to at least know we tried to prove guilt before killing someone.
And I don't agree with the death penalty in any case.