Mar 07 2013
Finally, A Bipartisan Insurrection To Power Hungry DC
I do believe there are many opportunities where left and right can agree that DC and the Federal Government is out of control and run amok. And government usually runs amok when one side force feeds the rest of us their power hungry delusions (e.g., Obamacare, Outlawing all Abortions). Don’t get me wrong, I am all for private sector, market-driven health care and I am against abortions for convenience. But those principled stands are based on the premise most people are good, welling meaning and able to make good decisions on their own. Government control seems to always be about protecting Americans from ourselves – like somehow government is not filled with error prone and biased people. I won’t even mention to the power and greed components.
This week some common ground arose out of the rejection of the idea that due process is not required when assassinating American Citizens that some government bureaucrats decide are a threat to America. I have been opposed to this Dictatorial madness from day one:
While the death of a blood thirsty Islamo Fascist is on par with the death of a blood thirsty Nazi who slaughtered innocent Jews in a concentration camp, the fact is Nazi mass murderers still received due process – even during the war.
Did an American president just assassinate a US Citizen without any due process, without any court case or verdict of guilty?
The problem I had with this criminal act a few years back is the same problem Rand Paul and other Senators of conscience are filibustering about in the Senate:
“When I asked the president can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer — an unequivocal no.
“But his answer was, ‘I haven’t killed anyone yet and I have no intention of killing Americans, but I might.’”
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What if, Paul wondered, someone had dropped a Hellfire missile on Jane Fonda or college students at the time who were raising money for the Viet Cong? Would the same Democrats who are sitting on the sidelines now have protested such tactics at the time? After all, raising money for the enemy is arguably treason, and Paul said he’d have called it that — but those students would have deserved to get their day in court.
The problem with the current thinking is it is so damn lazy, as well as cold (not to mention unconstitutional). The big deal here is most Americans believe an American citizen is guaranteed due process. Hell, all those jerks in asylum overseas for lesser crimes get their day in court (in absentia). Why couldn’t the evidence against Anwar al Awlaki have been presented in a court, to a jury of US citizens, and a guilty verdict handed down before the hit? Its not like in that case we did not have plenty of time – after all we had to find the guy to target him and that did take years.
And what about collateral damage? Drone strikes ALWAYS kill people nearby the target. There are usually some innocents hurt, maimed or killed. I said it back when Awlaki was assassinated – we are well down a really bad slippery slope.
Update (Ed): Ted Cruz has just joined in to ask questions of Paul, in what looks like a pretty smart strategy. Paul has specifically stated that he will take questions without relinquishing control of the floor, and both Cruz and Lee are asking oddly lengthy questions.
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Update (AP): This thing just turned bipartisan:
Heading to the floor to speak on Congressional oversight of executive branch & rules for targeted killings. Watch: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/ …
Ron Wyden @RonWyden I salute Rand Paul (R), Ted Cruz (R) and Ron Wyden (D) for not only bringing this subject up to be debated in public, but for standing their ground and hold DC’s feet to the fire.
I think that you hit the nail on the head. LAZY is the keyword here. President Obama has to be the laziest President we have ever had. Our country is following his lead. (I know, the process had begun long before he got into office)
Paying people for not producing from money taken from those who HAVE produced is a great way to really reward sloth. Now it is socially acceptable to fleece the government. Just like now it is socially acceptable to lie about your car when you are selling it.
The drone killing of America citizens is a tough subject, but leave it to a lazy administration to just go ahead and do it because ‘it is the right thing to do.’ As if HE is the ultimate person to decide, not our system of governance.
President Obama should be removed from office because ‘it is the right thing to do’.
Both Rand Paul – as well as McCain and Graham – have valid points. We need to only look at Awlaki to see this.
He may not have been a combatant per se, but he did inspire Nidal Hasan to carry out the Fort Hood shooting (and they exchanged e-mails in the timeframe prior to that). He also was clearly involved with the would-be underwear bomber on Flight 253 during Christmas, 2009.
Hasan and the underwear bomber only underscore the global nature of the battlefield. But the Obama Administration has both an expansive view of government power, and a great deal of incompetence.
Frankly, I always thought that the call for Anwar al Awlaki was easy.
The man was collateral damage. They knew he hung out with bad foreign guys … confirm their really bad foreign guys … blow them all up. You really can do that without violating the Constitution.
But these statements out of the DOJ are very dangerous. They don’t make it a matter of collateral damage, as they seem to think you can do it because they say so.
Neo,
You know I would be OK with that too, except the order was given to kill Awlaski specifically. How hard would it be to get a conviction????
If they are too lazy for due process here, they could care less about it.
Rand Paul was right to call them on this.
Harold, I agree it was not even a questionable call. It really is a matter of following the law at all times.
Of course, there is the matter of 18 USC § 1119 (i.e. foreign murder of United States nationals)
(b) Offense.— A person who, being a national of the United States, kills or attempts to kill a national of the United States while such national is outside the United States but within the jurisdiction of another country shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113.
But, being that the USAG is the “gatekeeper” of 18 USC § 1119, I don’t expect it to amount to anything.
Neo, The USC is civil ciminal code. My arguement for the death of al-Awlaki by drone was, in my mind, a military decision to take out an enemy combatant on a foreign battlefield. I cry no tears for him , his son, or Shamir Khan.
But, I have a lot of privacy and civil rights concerns wth the use of drones on American soil. I applaud Sen. Rand for his stand on the current debate on drone use by police and military forces in this country. The Gov’t has already shown little regard for civil rights and privacy rights with the use of a lot of new technology, and this matter needs to be vetted out quickly before it gets out of hand. One such example is the use of GPS trackers for survellance. The courts have had to strike down police and FBI use of unwarranted GPS trackers placed on suspect vehicles for the purposes of tracking. Now, police need to obtain a warrant before it can happen.
Police and military drones just buzzing around the country on any sort of survellance or intelligence tasks without warrants or threats of immenient danger is a worry. The opportunities for abuse would be far easier to conduct and harder to detect.