Re: Assassinating Americans Without Due Process

In response to Same Guy Assassinating Americans Without Due Process...:

But he says it's "safe, legal and rare."

Whoops! I mean.....“legal, ethical, and wise.”

This WaPo piece was written by Bush's former speech writer, Marc Thiessen, last May, eight months after  Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed by a drone strike.

Where are the congressional hearings charging that Obama is running an “imperial presidency”? Where is the New York Times editorial declaring that Obama has overseen “an expansion of presidential power chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances”? Where is the three-year investigation and 5,000 page report from Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee into Obama’s drone campaign?

Last year Amnesty International demanded Bush’s arrest for ordering the capture and interrogation of senior terrorist leaders, after which they were sent (alive) to Guantanamo Bay for trial. Well according to the Times, our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president ordered drone strikes that use cluster bombs and have allegedly killed not only their intended targets but also “neighboring families.” Why isn’t Amnesty demanding Obama’s arrest for war crimes?

The fact is, with the critically important exception of terrorist interrogation, Obama has embraced nearly all of Bush’s major counterterrorism policies. Rendition continues. Indefinite detention continues. The trial of terrorists by military commission continues. The National Security Agency’s “warrantless wiretapping” of terrorist communications continues. While Obama shut down the CIA interrogation program, he gladly used the intelligence it produced to find and kill Osama bin Laden. Instead of seeking congressional authorization to kill American-born terrorists with drones, Obama has instead relied on secret Justice Department memos. And while Obama disclosed Bush’s secret interrogation memos, he has steadfastly refused to make his own secret drone memos public.

Finally, the Justice Dept released its memos, Monday, and Katie bar the door! A mini firestorm is bearing down on the Obama administration with some pundits gasping that if Bush had such a policy there would be calls for impeachment.

Imagine if this memo had been released before the 2012 election, eh?