Good to see Ralph Nader out to an early lead in the Iranian elections! People in the U.S. couldn't appreciate his honesty when it came to the pernicious effect of allowing corporations to govern our country.
This is how it sounds at midnight on New Year's Day in Akron, Ohio. I hope no one was injured nearby where the bullets landed. Any idea what made these guys so happy?
It's a bit spooky, er I mean sad, reading how people rationalize their government's killing of people for thought crimes. Using words like "preventive assassination". I long for the days when thoughts could either be acted upon or not, without governmental interference ending the thinker's life, and those of people who happen to be near him or her.
I also meant to say I agree with you, QM, 100%. The “not engaged in combat” is a weasly sort of distinction that I can easily see being applied to someone sitting in a coffee shop, if, say, that person has done anti-U.S. videos or runs an anti-U.S. blog or has been supposedly seen at an "Al Qaeda training camp" or something like that. Due process seems to still be missing in action when it comes to the hallowed drone program. We get "trust us" instead.
Call me naive, and I admit some ambivalence about "flying a plane into a building", but I would like to still live in a country where someone who IS robbing a bank, IS pointing a bazooka at the Pentagon, IS also ineligible to be killed outright without so much as an attempt to arrest him or her, and try that person in a court of law. Those "exceptions" seem to imply that those crimes are okay for the drones to be called in. I don't like the implication.
I wish there was an actual -- rather than just theoretical or fanciful -- way that we, the people could end the impunity which those waging the "war on terror" in the U.S. enjoy.
"The U.S. has provided refueling and cargo planes to assist the French intervention in Mali. That is lawful because France is acting “in response to a request for assistance from the Malian government,” Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told ProPublica."
Dioncounda Traoré is “president” of Mali as a result of a coup d'état against the elected president, Amadou Toumani Touré. It doesn’t much advance the “rule of law” and “good governance” in Africa when the west showers legitimacy on undemocratically chosen leaders.
"The drone program does not target US citizens who disagree with US policy or associate with those simply deemed “undesirable.” The program targets those who are “senior, operational leaders” of Al-Qaeda and its affiliated organizations. Read the White Paper."
On whose definition? Can we at least know that, please? Oh, right, the informed person ordering the killing. I read the paper. This program is so ripe for morphing into something that would even bother you, perhaps, it is breathtaking.
Having read that, I can't help but wonder how useful the testimony of Awlaki might have been to refute or clarify or utterly contradict or even corroborate the hearsay renditions of discussions that are related here. Oh, wait! He was killed before he could be arrested and questioned. Rats.
Whatever happened to declarations of war? Did they NEVER mean anything? Now, a U.S. Citizen can just disagree with U.S. policy, associate (used to be a freedom) with people someone (we don't know who) has deemed to be undesirable, and now that person can be legally killed on the order of someone in the White House. Isn't there a bit too much "trust us, we're from the government" in your take on this, Mr. Wesolowski?
When the powers that Obama has selected for himself are explained to the King of Bahrain, I imagine he'll be confused, and will probably need some therapy.
It would be nice to be able to remark on Dr. Cole's Google+ postings, as he posted this item. Hearing people laughing (even if it was a laugh track) about this human rights violation sort of made me sadder than I was today. Nothing amusing about this prison, and what it says about America's hypocrisy on its "values".
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Everyone reading this should know who Marla Ruzicka was. The world really lost someone when she was killed.
link to civiliansinconflict.org
Good to see Ralph Nader out to an early lead in the Iranian elections! People in the U.S. couldn't appreciate his honesty when it came to the pernicious effect of allowing corporations to govern our country.
This is how it sounds at midnight on New Year's Day in Akron, Ohio. I hope no one was injured nearby where the bullets landed. Any idea what made these guys so happy?
It's a bit spooky, er I mean sad, reading how people rationalize their government's killing of people for thought crimes. Using words like "preventive assassination". I long for the days when thoughts could either be acted upon or not, without governmental interference ending the thinker's life, and those of people who happen to be near him or her.
I also meant to say I agree with you, QM, 100%. The “not engaged in combat” is a weasly sort of distinction that I can easily see being applied to someone sitting in a coffee shop, if, say, that person has done anti-U.S. videos or runs an anti-U.S. blog or has been supposedly seen at an "Al Qaeda training camp" or something like that. Due process seems to still be missing in action when it comes to the hallowed drone program. We get "trust us" instead.
Call me naive, and I admit some ambivalence about "flying a plane into a building", but I would like to still live in a country where someone who IS robbing a bank, IS pointing a bazooka at the Pentagon, IS also ineligible to be killed outright without so much as an attempt to arrest him or her, and try that person in a court of law. Those "exceptions" seem to imply that those crimes are okay for the drones to be called in. I don't like the implication.
I wish there was an actual -- rather than just theoretical or fanciful -- way that we, the people could end the impunity which those waging the "war on terror" in the U.S. enjoy.
"The U.S. has provided refueling and cargo planes to assist the French intervention in Mali. That is lawful because France is acting “in response to a request for assistance from the Malian government,” Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told ProPublica."
Dioncounda Traoré is “president” of Mali as a result of a coup d'état against the elected president, Amadou Toumani Touré. It doesn’t much advance the “rule of law” and “good governance” in Africa when the west showers legitimacy on undemocratically chosen leaders.
"The drone program does not target US citizens who disagree with US policy or associate with those simply deemed “undesirable.” The program targets those who are “senior, operational leaders” of Al-Qaeda and its affiliated organizations. Read the White Paper."
On whose definition? Can we at least know that, please? Oh, right, the informed person ordering the killing. I read the paper. This program is so ripe for morphing into something that would even bother you, perhaps, it is breathtaking.
Having read that, I can't help but wonder how useful the testimony of Awlaki might have been to refute or clarify or utterly contradict or even corroborate the hearsay renditions of discussions that are related here. Oh, wait! He was killed before he could be arrested and questioned. Rats.
Whatever happened to declarations of war? Did they NEVER mean anything? Now, a U.S. Citizen can just disagree with U.S. policy, associate (used to be a freedom) with people someone (we don't know who) has deemed to be undesirable, and now that person can be legally killed on the order of someone in the White House. Isn't there a bit too much "trust us, we're from the government" in your take on this, Mr. Wesolowski?
When the powers that Obama has selected for himself are explained to the King of Bahrain, I imagine he'll be confused, and will probably need some therapy.
It would be nice to be able to remark on Dr. Cole's Google+ postings, as he posted this item. Hearing people laughing (even if it was a laugh track) about this human rights violation sort of made me sadder than I was today. Nothing amusing about this prison, and what it says about America's hypocrisy on its "values".