News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Feb. 22, 2013: Barack Obama drones on.
Warning! This episode in not for the clueless or those who think there is nothing our government should not be allowed to do. Or that our Constitution is a worthless piece of paper that belongs in museum.
So here is what Barack Obama does on a regular basis and has for as long as he has been President – and it is well documented and confirmed.
On a fairly regular basis, his National Security Advisor or someone else, goes to the Oval Office with a folder that includes a list of individuals the U.S. Military or the CIA recommend be killed using unmanned U.S. drones because the list claims these individuals are a threat to the United States.
President Obama then inspects the list and either approves – or does not – individual names on the list for U.S. assassination. This list can, and at least once, has included a United States citizen who Obama approved for assassination, and this guy was killed in a drone attack.
We have no idea what information is on these lists because they have been labeled Top Secret by The White House. It is also known that hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these drone attacks, although no attempt is made by our government to keep an accurate count.
These ongoing assassinations are unprecedented in American history.
Yes plenty of U.S. Presidents, all U.S. Presidents, have approved military action that has resulted in many deaths since the very birth of this nation and the result is lots of bad guys died along with collateral damage dead children women and men who were just in the wrong place.
What no President has ever done, certainly not on a regular ongoing basis, is to approve one by one, the assassination of specific individuals. All based on a summary report a list from the U.S. military or the CIA that Obama accepts at face value and then initialing various individuals time and again for assassination. There is NO legal process whatsoever. Just a list!
President Obama and his Justice Department have declared these assassinations completely legal and recently indicated that not only could U.S. citizens be targeted for assassination, without any legal proceedings let alone a trial and a jury not even a judge approving the President’s decision who are in a foreign land, but now they do not rule out approving assassinations of U.S. citizens right HERE in the United States if they deem him or her a serious threat.
Right here in the USA!
If this does not sound strange and frightening to you by now, pray for yourself and pray for America. There is in fact; nothing in the U.S. Constitution, that allows for the President of the United States to approve such targeted assassinations and the denial of any legal rights whosoever to those so chosen to be killed by unmanned drones. Nothing!
To claim “war powers” as the legal right, means a President can do anything at all. These assassinations are not just taking place in countries the U.S. has declared war on. As for U.S. citizens, even a U.S. soldier who spies for the enemy or killed other U.S., soldiers (until now), received a military trial before they could be executed, or if not, those officers ordering that execution without a trial first could be subject to murder charges themselves.
You say where it says specifically in the U.S. Constitution that U.S. Presidents do not have the right to murder individual men and women or even US. Citizens if they decide killing them is necessary to protect American security?
Nowhere! It also doesn’t say they can’t rob banks or sell drugs. So again, does that mean a U.S. President can do anything they like and are not subject to the laws that apply to all other U.S. citizens?
The point is, Presidents are subject to the Laws of the United States or if they are not, we no longer have a democracy. Get scared! We then have what is commonly called a dictator or king. An individual who is not subject to the laws others are and who has absolute power to do anything they want.
Think this is an exaggeration as applied to Barack Obama?
Well guess what? Your name could be placed on his assassination list and if you agree with his interpretation of his powers, there is nothing you can do about it and all the information about your killing will be labeled Top Secret.
And do you think if they ever later realized they made a “mistake” they will admit to the world they killed you by mistake? Dream on. ! It won’t happen.
Is that the country you want to live in? Is this the kind of President we believed we were electing? Countries with real laws and citizen rights do give up some “security” for the rule of law dictatorships do not. You see, what happens to many dictators and would you want to live in the lands of the “successful” ones like North Korea?
If we are not a nation of laws REAL laws we are nothing. Killing specific individuals by picking their names off a list, then sending a drone with a bomb attached to blow them up, is not a country for the rest of the world to see as its model for the future. We are generating hatred of the U.S.
Then there is this – if the U.S. President has the “right” to approve individual assassinations why shouldn’t any other country have the “right” to do the same? Is this one more very painful example in which the U.S. says we can do this or that but you can’t? It’s called Imperialism!
Or might you say, well others don’t have the sophisticated drones to accomplish these assassinations. Think again! Drone technology is developing at breakneck speed and the costs of drones are tumbling.
Worse still, miniature drones are all the rage. Drone entrepreneurs are everywhere. Drones that will be no bigger than a bumble bee maybe smaller that can be programmed to kill with a precision from thousands of miles away never known before. Maybe the drone bee will use a toxic poison to sting their victims instead of using an explosive. The temptation to use even more of these killer drones will be irresistible. For the terrorists too!
Where does this stop if there is NO accountability no legal procedure involved just SECRECY? You say – I don’t care I trust Obama – what about the next guy and the one after him if they all feel they can legally order individual assassinations whenever they can claim “national security?”
Understand this – those murdered so far it certainly seems most of them were not planning any kind of specific active terror attack on U.S. soil they simply might have done so in the future. That covers millions upon millions of malcontents both non-citizens and citizens. How long is the list?
Here is what Obama should worry about…
There is no doubt even as President if Barack Obama took out a gun and shot someone to death in his office unless it was clearly and unambiguously in self-defense he would be impeached and charged with murder like any other citizen. Were he not, our government would be quickly in shambles. With a President in The White House who can get away with murder.
What if the next guy or gal in The White House seeks and gets the exact opposite opinion from his or her Attorney General ruling that targeted assassination by a President approving names on a list, and using drones is not legal. Or that if some Federal Court does so in a surprising decision?
Where might that leave former President Barack Obama?
Think about it!
About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
