Obama's "Kill List" to get a Rule Book, Goal: to Limit the President's Power

[FrankRep]

‘Kill List’ rule book may be coming soon to the White House Situation Room (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/kill-list-rule-book-190528285--election.html)


Yahoo News
Nov. 25, 2012


The White House "kill list"--a regularly updated chart showing the world's most wanted terrorists used by President Barack Obama during kill or capture debates--may soon be getting a rule book to go with it.

According to the New York Times, the administration--faced with the possibility that President Obama might lose the 2012 election to Mitt Romney--"accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures."

Until now, President Obama has had the "final moral calculation" overseeing the "kill list," the existence of which was first revealed in May in the wake of a drone strike that killed an al-Qaida leader.
...

But according to the paper, administration officials are looking to curb the power of the commander in chief with the rule book:



"There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With a continuing debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama did not want to leave an "amorphous" program to his successor, the official said. The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the official said.

...


Related Articles:


"Disposition Matrix": President's 10-Year Plan for the Kill List (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/13373-disposition-matrix-presidents-10-year-plan-for-the-kill-list)

Obama's Kill List Policy: Pull the Trigger & Don't Count Civilian Casualties (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/11584-obamas-kill-list-policy-pull-the-trigger-and-dont-count-civilian-casualties)

Obama Interview with Ben Swann on NDAA, Kill Lists, and Syria (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/12753-obama-interview-with-ben-swann-on-ndaa-kill-lists-and-syria)

Obama Lists His Five Criteria for Death by Drone (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/12764-obama-lists-his-five-criteria-for-death-by-drone)


Video:


Debbie Wasserman Schultz Denies the Existence of Obama's Kill List (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38HI8VmW5D8)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38HI8VmW5D8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38HI8VmW5D8

[muzzled dogg]

oh thank god

[paulbot24]

"The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the official said." - You mean in about four years. His administration is repulsive.

[sailingaway]

Who has the jurisdiction to permit a kill list?

[Origanalist]

And the beat goes on, and the sheeple all said AMEN!

[itshappening]

Obama enjoys his time in the situation room directing drone strikes. He personally overseas some of them and I imagine after a successful strike there is much whopping and hollering.

There is a lot of truth to the series "Homeland".

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

Terrorists? in the Gov's eyes, anyone who didn't vote for Romney or Obama IS a terrorist

[FrankRep]

Obama 'drone-warfare rulebook' condemned by human rights groups (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/25/obama-drone-warfare-rulebook)
New York Times reports administration attempting to set out circumstances in which targeted assassination is justified


Guardian UK
25 November 2012

...
Human-rights groups and peace groups opposed to the CIA-operated targeted-killing programme, which remains officially classified, said the administration had already rejected international law in pursuing its drone operations.

"To say they are rewriting the rulebook implies that there isn't already a rulebook" said Jameel Jaffer, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Center for Democracy. "But what they are already doing is rejecting a rulebook – of international law – that has been in place since [the second world war]."
...

[Lucille]

All leftists care about is redistribution of wealth. If their POTUS sent millions of "terrorists" to the gas chambers, they'd be fine with it.

President Obama Briefly Worried That His Unaccountable, Murderous Power Might Fall Into Republican Hands
http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/26/president-obama-briefly-worried-that-his


The first 61 words of this chilling and banal New York Times article are a perfect distillation of how grotesque power appears in the eye of Americans who wield it:


Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.

The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6.

A reminder to most Democrats who spent 2002-08 telling us that abuse of executive power was at or near the top of the nation's most urgent moral concerns: You just didn't mean it.


[...] In an interview with Mark Bowden for a new book on the killing of Osama bin Laden, "The Finish," Mr. Obama said that "creating a legal structure, processes, with oversight checks on how we use unmanned weapons, is going to be a challenge for me and my successors for some time to come."

The point of constitutional governance is that the legal structure for and oversight of executive power is not a task for the executive itself. The fact that a president (and former constitutional law professor) would think otherwise vividly illustrates how far from that bedrock concept we have strayed.

[JK/SEA]

RULE BOOK:

http://constitutionus.com/

[Lucille]

The most excellent Glenn Greenwald weighs in:

Obama: a GOP president should have rules limiting the kill list
The president's flattering view of himself reflects the political sentiments in his party and the citizenry generally
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/26/obama-drones-kill-list-framework


For the last four years, Barack Obama has not only asserted, but aggressively exercised, the power to target for execution anyone he wants, including US citizens, anywhere in the world. He has vigorously resisted not only legal limits on this assassination power, but even efforts to bring some minimal transparency to the execution orders he issues.

This claimed power has resulted in four straight years of air bombings in multiple Muslim countries in which no war has been declared – using drones, cruise missiles and cluster bombs – ending the lives of more than 2,500 people, almost always far away from any actual battlefield. They are typically targeted while riding in cars, at work, at home, and while even rescuing or attending funerals for others whom Obama has targeted. A substantial portion of those whom he has killed – at the very least – have been civilians, including dozens of children.

Worse still, his administration has worked to ensure that this power is subject to the fewest constraints possible. This was accomplished first by advocating the vague, sweeping Bush/Cheney interpretation of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) - whereby the President can target not only the groups which perpetrated the 9/11 attack (as the AUMF provides) but also those he claims are "associated" which such groups, and can target not only members of such groups (as the AUMF states) but also individuals he claims provide "substantial support" to those groups. Obama then entrenched these board theories by signing into law the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, which permanently codified those Bush/Cheney interpretation of these war powers.

From the start, Obama officials have also ensured that these powers have no physical limits, as they unequivocally embraced what was once the core and highly controversial precept of Bush/Cheney radicalism: that the US is fighting a "global war" in which the "whole world is a battlefield", which means there are no geographical constraints to the president's war powers. In sum, we have had four straight years of a president who has wielded what is literally the most extreme and tyrannical power a government can claim – to execute anyone the leader wants, even his own citizens, in total secrecy and without a whiff of due process – and who has resisted all efforts to impose a framework of limits or even transparency.

But finally, according to a new article on Sunday by The New York Times' Scott Shane, President Obama was recently convinced that some limits and a real legal framework might be needed to govern the exercise of this assassination power. What was it that prompted Obama finally to reach this conclusion? It was the fear that he might lose the election, which meant that a Big, Bad Republican would wield these powers, rather than a benevolent, trustworthy, noble Democrat - i.e., himself [...]

Now that Obama rather than Romney won, such rules will be developed "at a more leisurely pace". Despite Obama's suggestion that it might be good if even he had some legal framework in which to operate, he's been in no rush to subject himself to any such rules in four full years of killing thousands of people. This makes it safe to assume that by "a more leisurely pace", this anonymous Obama official means: "never".
[...]
Democratic Party benevolence

The hubris and self-regard driving this is stunning – but also quite typical of Democratic thinking generally in the Obama era. The premise here is as self-evident as it is repellent:


I'm a Good Democrat and a benevolent leader; therefore, no limits, oversight, checks and balances, legal or Constitutional constraints, transparency or due process are necessary for me to exercise even the most awesome powers, such as ordering people executed. Because of my inherent Goodness and proven progressive wisdom, I can be trusted to wield these unlimited powers unilaterally and in the dark.

Things like checks, oversight and due process are desperately needed only for Republicans, because – unlike me – those people are malevolent and therefore might abuse these powers and thus shouldn't be trusted with absolute, unchecked authority. They – but not I – urgently need restrictions on their powers.

This mentality is not only the animating belief of President Obama, but also the sizable portion of American Democrats which adores him.

There are many reasons why so many self-identified progressives in the US have so radically changed their posture on these issues when Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush. Those include (a) the subordination of all ostensible beliefs to their hunger for partisan power; (b) they never actually believed these claimed principles in the first place but only advocated them for partisan opportunism, i.e., as a way to discredit the GOP President; and (c) they are now convinced that these abuses will only be used against Muslims and, consumed by self-interest, they concluded that these abuses are not worth caring about because it only affects Others (this is the non-Muslim privilege enjoyed by most US progressives, which shields them from ever being targeted, so they simply do not care; the more honest ones of this type even admit this motivation).

But the primary reason for this fundamental change in posture is that they genuinely share the self-glorifying worldview driving Obama here. The core premise is that the political world is shaped by a clean battle of Good v. Evil. The side of Good is the Democratic Party; the side of Evil is the GOP. All political truths are ascertainable through this Manichean prism.

This is the simplistic, self-flattering morality narrative that gets reinforced for them over and over as they sit for hours every day having their assumptions flattered and validated (and never questioned or challenged) by watching MSNBC, reading pro-Obama blogs that regularly churn out paeans to his greatness, and drinking up the hundreds of millions of dollars of expertly crafted election-year propaganda from the Party that peddles this Justice League cartoon.

The result is that, for so many, it is genuinely inconceivable that a leader as noble, kind and wise as Barack Obama would abuse his assassination and detention powers. It isn't just rank partisan opportunism or privilege that leads them not to object to Obama's embrace of these radical powers and the dangerous theories that shield those powers from checks or scrutiny. It's that they sincerely admire him as a leader and a man so much that they believe in their heart (like Obama himself obviously believes) that due process, checks and transparency are not necessary when he wields these powers. Unlike when a GOP villain is empowered, Obama's Goodness and his wisdom are the only safeguards we need.

Thus, when Obama orders someone killed, no due process is necessary and we don't need to see any evidence of their guilt; we can (and do) just assume that the targeted person is a Terrorist and deserves death because Obama has decreed this to be so. When Obama orders a person to remain indefinitely in a cage without any charges or any opportunity to contest the validity of the imprisonment, that's unobjectionable because the person must be a Terrorist or otherwise dangerous - or else Obama wouldn't order him imprisoned. We don't need proof, or disclosed evidence, or due process to determine the validity of these accusations; that it is Obama making these decisions is all the assurance we need because we trust him.
[...]
Core principles disregarded in lieu of leader-love

The Times article describes the view of Obama that some "drone rules" would be needed to be developed in light of the possibility of Romney's victory. But at least some such rules already exist: they're found in these things called "the Constitution" and "the Bill of Rights", the Fifth Amendment to which provides:

"No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

Yet all of that has been tossed aside in lieu of a deeply disturbing and unhealthy faith-based belief that our leader can make these determinations without the need for any such bothersome impediments.

To me, this comment, left in response to a Gawker post from Sunday on the new NYT article, perfectly conveys the sentiment I heard for years in right-wing circles to justify everything Bush did in secret, and is now just as miserably common in progressive circles to justify Obama's wielding of the same and even greater powers:


"The fact of the matter is that the complexities of security and war go far beyond what those interested in appearing morally superior are willing to concede. It just so happens that a lot of liberals are most interested in the appearance of moral superiority. . . .

"I used to be the exact same way, but then I actually genuinely considered how I would feel if I held the weight of the presidency and these decisions. I have no doubt that most liberals, when presented with that, would act just as Obama has. . . .

"I'm liberal, I'm no fan of war, I'm no fan of Republican fanaticism and thumping America-is-the-best nonsense across the globe. But I can understand why drone strikes might be the most expedient option in a war. Or, perhaps more precisely, can understand just how incapable I am of understanding. And instead of supposing myself worthy of understanding the complexity and therefore offering criticism, I trust those more intelligent than myself. But a lot of my fellow liberals don't believe there are people more intelligent than themselves. I have no self-loathing of liberals. Its just like a moderate Republican finding the right wing of their party crazy even if they believe in most of the same stuff."

That's the Platonic form of authoritarian leader-faith:


I don't need to know anything; my leader doesn't need to prove the truth of his accusations; he should punish whomever he wants in total secrecy and without safeguards, and I will assume that he is right to do so (as long as I and others like me are not the ones targeted) because he is superior to me and I place my faith in Him.

Anyone who thinks the leader (when he's of my party) should have to show proof before killing someone, or allow them due process, is being a childish purist. I used to be like that - until Obama got in office, and now I see how vital it is to trust him and not bother him with all this "due process" fanaticism. That's what being an adult citizen means: trusting one's leader the way children trust their parent.
[...]
Ultimately, this unhealthy and dangerous trust in one's own leader - beyond just the normal human desire to follow - is the by-product of over-identifying with the brand-marketed personality of politicians. Many East and West Coast progressives (which is overwhelmingly what Democratic Party opinion leaders are) have been trained to see themselves and the personality traits to which they aspire in Obama (the urbane, sophisticated, erudite Harvard-educated lawyer and devoted father and husband), just as religious conservatives and other types of Republicans were trained to see Bush in that way (the devout evangelical Christian, the brush-clearing, patriotic swaggering cowboy, and devoted father and husband).

Politicians are thus perceived like contestants in a reality TV show: viewers decide who they like personally and who they dislike - but the difference is that these images are bolstered with hundreds of millions of dollars of relentless, sophisticated, highly manipulative propaganda campaigns (there's a reason the Obama 2008 campaign won multiple branding awards from the advertising and marketing industry). When one is taught to relate to a politician based on a fictitious personal relationship, one comes to place excessive trust in those with whom one identifies (the way one comes to trust, say, a close family member or loved one), and to harbor excessive contempt for those one is trained to see as the villain character. In sum, citizens are being trained to view politicians exactly the way Jefferson warned was so dangerous: "In questions of power...let no more be heard of confidence in man."

There's one final irony worth noting in all of this. Political leaders and political movements convinced of their own Goodness are usually those who need greater, not fewer, constrains in the exercise of power. That's because - like religious True Believers - those who are convinced of their inherent moral superiority can find all manner to justify even the most corrupted acts on the ground that they are justified by the noble ends to which they are put, or are cleansed by the nobility of those perpetrating those acts.

Political factions driven by self-flattering convictions of their own moral superiority - along with their leaders - are the ones most likely to abuse power. Anyone who ever listened to Bush era conservatives knows that this conviction drove them at their core ("you are with us or with the Terrorists"), and it is just as true of Obama-era progressives who genuinely see the political landscape as an overarching battle between forces of Good (Democrats: i.e., themselves) and forces of Evil (Republicans).

Thus should it be completely unsurprising that Obama (and his most ardent followers) genuinely believe that rules are urgently necessary to constrain Republicans from killing whoever they want, but that such urgency ceases to exist when that power rests in the hands of the current benevolent leader. Such a dangerous and perverse mindset is incredibly pervasive in the citizenry, and goes a long way toward explaining why and how the US government has been able to seize the powers it has wielded over the last decade with so little resistance.

[Anti Federalist]

RULE BOOK:

http://constitutionus.com/

Outdated.

Outmoded.

Racist.

Not relevant to today's high tech world with terrorists and WMDs.

You are reported.

[Anti Federalist]

All leftists care about is redistribution of wealth. If their POTUS sent millions of "terrorists" to the gas chambers, they'd be fine with it.

I have to admit, my distaste and disgust at "progs" is now equal to or greater than my disgust at neo-cons.

Hypocritical murderous bags of shit.

[twomp]

Obama, Reid, McCain, Boehner and Lindsey Graham all meet for a jerk off session every time they bomb some people.

[Anti Federalist]

oh thank god

I know, right, I feel so much better now.

[Anti Federalist]

Obama, Reid, McCain, Boehner and Lindsey Graham all meet for a jerk off session every time they bomb some people.

Kelly Ayotte bukkake.

[Origanalist]

I have to admit, my distaste and disgust at "progs" is now equal to or greater than my disgust at neo-cons.

Hypocritical murderous bags of shit.

Well....ya.

[CaptainAmerica]

Oh, I didn't know there were rules for serial killers.

[Anti Federalist]

From the start, Obama officials have also ensured that these powers have no physical limits, as they unequivocally embraced what was once the core and highly controversial precept of Bush/Cheney radicalism: that the US is fighting a "global war" in which the "whole world is a battlefield", which means there are no geographical constraints to the president's war powers. In sum, we have had four straight years of a president who has wielded what is literally the most extreme and tyrannical power a government can claim – to execute anyone the leader wants, even his own citizens, in total secrecy and without a whiff of due process – and who has resisted all efforts to impose a framework of limits or even transparency.

But finally, according to a new article on Sunday by The New York Times' Scott Shane, President Obama was recently convinced that some limits and a real legal framework might be needed to govern the exercise of this assassination power. What was it that prompted Obama finally to reach this conclusion? It was the fear that he might lose the election, which meant that a Big, Bad Republican would wield these powers, rather than a benevolent, trustworthy, noble Democrat - i.e., himself.

Tyranny.

No other word, no other condition describes what we now live under.

And not a fuck is given by anybody, aside from a tiny minority of shit disturbers and rabble rousers. (that's us)

We'll be dealt with in due time.

[presence]

#standwithrand