In case anyone out there thinks that I never disagree with the Obama administration, here is an administration policy I feel very uncomfortable with–and at the same time an opportunity to give kudos to one of my local Senators. Sen. Ron Wyden is requesting that he be allowed to look at legal opinions justifying the killing of American citizens in drone strikes. This makes sense, as he is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and yet that committee is not being given the information that would enable them to oversee the legal basis for those targeted killings.
This at a time when the administration is at work on a counterterrorism manual which is essentially setting down the ground rules for continued drone attacks and assassinations. Is it because Democrats have traditionally been accused of being soft on national security–is that why the President feels this need to act tougher than thou about these situations? Because I hate to ruin a perfectly good stereotype, but if you are one of those hippies toting a peace sign around, this is not the President for you. (If you’re a true blue Socialist, he’s really not the President for you either, but I digress.) While he is in the process of ending a couple of wars, he is very much into the continuation of warlike activities. Um, give peace a chance?
eurobrat 
01/29/2013 at 8:11 pm
This drone thing is sinister in the extreme, and there are implications for the future, all of them nasty. I think the best way to ensure the security of the United States would be to actually manifest the values America claims to embody–you know, liberty, equality, opposing tyranny–that kind of stuff. If we did that, nobody would want to harm America or Americans; no Global War on Terror necessary.
01/29/2013 at 10:42 pm
Values are for suckers. Prez is Prez of a system first, people second. Doesn’t matter who’s in the White House though granted the people second part does get a lot of attention and makes me feel better when a Dem is in the house. Less Darwinistic ‘go fuck yourself’ attitude, more ‘we can be better’ appeal. I’m all for it.
01/29/2013 at 11:45 pm
The other thing tho, and I know this is only a blog for discussion among folk of similar sympathies, but you can’t just say that noone would want to harm American if only we ‘manifested’ values like liberty, equality, anti-tyranny, whatnot. There is so much to hate about America from it’s economics, culture, attitude, nevermind – and this is key in terms of long-term planetary survivablity – aggressive pursuit of limited physical resources. Plus our ideas of equality and liberty are not necessarily the values of an entire planet. There’s a bazillion reasons to want to bomb the shit out of America, whether we agree with those reasons or not. We can’t “manifest” jack because we can’t even agree internally what our goals should be, who we are nor how we even want to govern ourselves. We have no idea who we are, generally speaking, and short of literal war will always be at philosophical war in a great, psychotic debate about what it means to be an American. That we think we have some kind of god-given right to govern an entire planet has to be galling to most everyone else.
01/30/2013 at 6:08 am
Not sure why the scare quotes around “manifest”; I used the term in the sense of “to demonstrate.” I’m just suggesting that if America had actually taken the path of democracy rather than empire–hadn’t toppled governments, murdered millions, sponsored proxy wars, supported brutal dictators, invaded and occupied countries all over the planet, or declared itself not subject to international law–maybe desperate people wouldn’t be fighting back.
01/30/2013 at 7:01 pm
I wish we could manifest those positive values…but even though you guys kinda disagree, devil hit on the underlying reason as to why we don’t manifest them. We’re so divided that we no longer agree about what those values are (if we ever did) which means that the message we send the world is mixed at best.
01/30/2013 at 8:41 pm
Well I was not disagreeing, just clarifying my point; it seemed the meaning of my comment was unclear. But I do have to disagree with your comment, eurobrat, on why America does not manifest democratic values. It’s not that we’re so divided; it’s the political and economic elite’s craving for wealth and power.
01/31/2013 at 6:58 pm
Well, you will never see me arguing that the oligarchy’s craving for wealth and power is not a problem in this country 🙂 The elites are the ones working to divide us, and convince us that we are divided…I know how that works, I spend plenty of time listening to rightie talk show hosts whose main message is “The other guy is your enemy”
02/01/2013 at 2:38 pm
Yeah, my favorite is Michael Savage; he’s so over the top it’s hilarious–and his callers make him sound like a liberal…
02/01/2013 at 8:15 pm
He’s so insane he makes me feel insane every time I listen to him….
01/30/2013 at 6:58 pm
Well, I both agree and disagree in that, yes, Islamic fundamentalism is a global problem right now, and the fundamentalists don’t much care about the values of democracy and peace, and won’t stop attacking anyone for those reasons. Religious fundamentalists are like that. So, smart action against terrorist cells, sure. The problem with the drone warfare is that it kills so many civilians and so there are serious questions about how the drones are being used and who exactly they are killing. And I still think that the assasination of American citizens is a big issue, which should at least be discussed more.
01/30/2013 at 7:01 pm
Haha, now wordpress has decided to notify me every time I comment on my own posts. Yeah, I KNOW.
01/30/2013 at 8:57 pm
I’m getting the same thing 😮
02/05/2013 at 6:36 pm
Our man Obama, who I love, should return his Nobel Peace Prize. Again, he’s a man of the system first and the people second. He could choose to wage war on they system but either won’t or can’t. Can’t is more likely, but that’s another discussion. Either way his job isn’t peace, it’s security. The two aren’t necessarily reconcilable and in retrospect the prize, a bit embarrassing at the time, is now more like a failure of the human species, at least insofar as the man in charge of the world’s largest military is concerned. Alas, too damn bad. I mean, Guantanamo still running? Youbetcha! And drones?
Fuck.
02/05/2013 at 9:41 pm
Maybe not a failure of the human species so much as proof of our undying willingness to want to be idealistic and believe in something. A lot of us really, really wanted to believe in Barack…and that obviously included the Nobel Prize committee 🙂