I am referring to the United States under former Pres. George W. Bush and current Pres. Barack Obama. I never thought I would be reading that Pres. Obama had a "kill list" nor did I think authorizing the murder of an American citizen without any trial could be legal. What I found most disturbing was this item from the LA Times (h/t emptywheel):
The expanded authority, approved two years ago by the Bush administration and continued by President Obama, permits the agency to rely on what officials describe as "pattern of life" analysis, using evidence collected by surveillance cameras on the unmanned aircraft and from other sources about individuals and locations.In the same LAT article, we find this claim:
U.S. officials say the strikes have caused fewer than 30 civilian casualties since the drone program was expanded in Pakistan, a claim that is impossible to verify since the remote and lawless tribal belt is usually off-limits to Western reporters.How can US officials possibly know this?
Posts
1 comment:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/4/norman_finkelstein_on_the_role_of
You gotta love Norman Finklestein on Obama today on Democracy Now:
"AMY GOODMAN: President Obama addressing AIPAC. Your response?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I think the obvious response is that President Obama clearly doesn’t believe a word he’s saying. And that’s probably the most troubling or the most disconcerting thing about listening to him. President Obama, he grew up or he got his political start in a liberal Jewish area of Chicago in Hyde Park. And his company, his crowd, his constituency was basically, in significant part, liberal American Jews. And he knows what he’s saying is false. He’s probably the most—least—he’s the least political president in the—at least in modern American history. He doesn’t really believe a word he’s saying.
If you read, for example, the memoirs of Cheney and Rumsfeld—I did read through them. They’re hefty volumes, but I went through them, curiosity. Like them or not, there is deep conviction there. You know, with Cheney, when he first meets Bush, when Bush is going to nominate him for president, he says to Bush—and I believe it—I know a lot of memoirs is, you know, not to be taken literally. But he says to Bush, "I’m very conservative. I’m warning you." And Bush says, "That’s OK. You know, we can deal with that."
Obama is nothing. One day he makes death lists of people to kill, the next day he gives Bob Dylan a medal. Then he talks about how he supports Israel blindly. And you could easily imagine, if there were money and votes, that the next day he would be supporting Palestinian rights. There is absolutely no conviction there. And I think there, Peter Beinart, in his book, his recent book, The Crisis of Zionism, he gets it exactly right. He says Obama is actually a liberal Jew in his mental outlook, and so he knows everything he’s saying is not true. He says he has—we have Israel’s back. Well, what he actually means is, rich American Jews have me, meaning Obama, in their pocket, and I have my hands in their pocket. He wants liberal Jewish contributions. And that’s really what it’s about."
Post a Comment