Obama Administration Says President Can Use Lethal Force Against Americans on US Soil

[davidthegnome]

132. The President's authority is one thing...

The use of drone strikes against American citizens, on American soil... is something else entirely. I'm not sure why Holder chose Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as examples. To begin with, no one (or at least, very few people) would have objected had the planes that blown up the world trade center been destroyed en route. No one would have objected (okay, well, maybe a few would have) if the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor was halted by military action, even if this necessitated firing on American citizens... which, as far as I know, it didn't.

Holder's examples are misleading. 9/11, as far as I know, wasn't an attack by Americans on Americans. Pearl Harbor, as far as I know, didn't involve Americans blowing up... well, Pearl Harbor. Other examples being used here by rational people are more to the point, more related. Such as the whiskey rebellion, for instance.

What concerns me isn't so much the question of whether the President has the authority to terminate (or order terminated) American citizens. I believe that the President does, but that it is subject to legal review, as well as, eventually, to public outrage/approval. I suppose I'd be more confident, or happier about this, if the Bush administration hadn't gotten away completely with so many crimes. I suppose I'd be happier about this if President Obama had made the attempt to hold the previous administration accountable for war crimes, for lying to the American people in pursuit of their own twisted agenda. For sending our Nation into great debt and our military into hell based on false pretenses and greed.

Who is going to hold the President, or the administration accountable? Us? A bunch of progressives on an internet forum? The American public... the majority of which does not vote? The democrats or the republicans, who are tripping over themselves to see who can be the most corporate friendly ass kissers? Perhaps the UN... which manages to bark quite frequently, but has a bite that... well, wait, do they actually have a bite? (Note that I don't dislike or despise the UN's mission, I simply think it has no real teeth to police a powerful Nation)

We are talking about drone strikes being permitted, being used, against American citizens on American soil... by those who have been determined to be above the law. No one should be above the law - and yet criminal behavior, provided we are sufficiently confused and divided about it, seems to somehow get a free pass here in America, particularly when the guilty are those of wealth and power.

So yeah. This scares the shit out of me.