America has decided it has the right to kill anyone anywhere, any time. [View all]
So claims Gary Kamiya who writes for Salon. Kamiya contends that if in 2000 the U.S. president had said the government would be using drones to track and kill people all over the world the uproar would have been enormous.
Kamiya does not give any grounds for saying that there would be an uproar. Perhaps there would, the first uproar against George W Bush who was elected in November of 2000. But reaction to what Obama does even when his use of drones goes much beyond that of Bush is different.
According to an article in the Washington Post fully 77 per cent of Liberal Democrats support Obama's use of drones. 53 per cent of Liberal Democrats also support keeping Guantanamo Bay open even though it was a key plank in Obama's election platform to close it down. Outrage about these matters is abandoned by liberals and left to libertarian Tea Party conservatives such as Ron Paul!
Kamiya thinks that the drone use started in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan but then once that precedent was established drone use spread far afield to Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, and Libya. Kamiya thinks the Afghan war was justified. I think he is dead wrong on that but will let it pass. He argues the fanciful case that removing the Taliban was a clear case of self-defense. However he also holds that the war turned out not to be wise because the costs particularly for Americans outweigh the benefits.
Read more: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11566900-american-has-decided-it-has-the-right-to-kill-anyone-anywhere-any-time
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