Are the Useful Idiots in America waking up? Has the expansion of the Drone Killings by the Obama administration finally revealed to his acolytes the true nature of what ruling an Empire entails?
It appears so with the outrage by folks like John Stewart ripping the Obama administration for the lying and deception concerned about the Kill list and drone program.
There have been over 350 drone strikes since Obama took office. Thousands of people have been killed throughout the world, including U.S. citizens has the left finally realized that War is the Health of the State?
I think his faithful followers will drop their faux outrage and continue return to signing his praises soon. In fact just the other day an NPR commentator praised Obama for pursuing the “light footprint” approach to war. So the short-lived outrage maybe already waning.
I believe there are Useful Idiots on both sides of the aisle. That is because there is really only one party in Washington and that is the Government Pearty. So there are those in the Media and the entertainment world who support the State without a second thought. Those who love war on the Right are in fact doing this today by actually praising Obama for the secret kill list and the expanded drone war.
A piece in the Weekly Standard by Gary Schmidt tilted “Drone On” demonstrates this. He is a neo-con who is praising the current Democratic Administration escalation of the Drone War. He loves the fact that more and more people are being killed across the world with the unmanned aerial vehicles, and believes that American Citizens are no different from any other suspected terrorist.
“Today, we apparently need pages on pages of Justice Department legalese (“Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa’ida or an Associated Force”) to justify killing Americans who have become senior jihad terrorists and who are trying to kill as many innocent Americans as possible”
And he applauds the fact that the Justice Department has now redefined the word “imminent”.
(Justice Department)…it so broadens the concept that it concludes that the government need not have “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. person and interests will take place in the immediate future”—only a pattern of plotting such attacks. Given the spotty past record of the intelligence community in actually knowing when a specific terrorist plot is underway, this redefining of “imminent” is reasonable enough..”
So in one sentence he tells us that the Government now has carte blanche to kill anyone in the world because of secret intel gathered by those same inept spy agencies who have a history of falling to protect Americans from specific terrorist plots. In other words we can’t know specifically what they are up to specifically, so it’s just safer if we kill them all.
He then goes on to criticize libertarians for being outraged and uniformed about what this all really means. Drones he argues is just a tool of war against people overseas but he tries to strengthen his argument by equating that drone strikes overseas are no different from a police officer killing an armed subject on U.S. streets.
“As for the Fifth Amendment, due process has never been understood as an absolute right without commonsense exceptions or, for that matter, always and everywhere requiring judicial involvement. To take an obvious example, police officers are not thought to have violated anyone’s rights when they shoot and kill a suspect who is armed and posing a danger either to them or to other citizens”
The author of the article makes it sound like the Machinery of the State that is used overseas will never be used at home. But he fails to mention quotes by politicians back in 2011 concerning NDAA.
“In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield”
When will the first U.S. Citizen be killed by a drone on U.S. soil?
It’s interesting that the Weekly Standard article started off with talking about how some German Americans fought on the Nazis side during WWII and how it was a no-brainer for U.S. GI’s to kill these traitors. And that the killing of U.S. citizens around the world who are suspected terrorists was no different. Then he closes his article with telling us that the political system we live under produced this Drone Killing policy and that it is perfectly legal because of that.
We must never forget that everything Hitler did was within the “legal” framework of the German political system at the time. If the Nazis had won and the historians were pouring over the documents of the atrocities committed during WWII could they use the defense “it was all done with the approval of the people and of the other branches of the same government”.
He also cites that most Americans are on board with the drone killing initiative. Most Americans were for the Income Tax back in 1913, that was sold to them as something only the rick would pay. Now in 2013 I don’t know if you’ve done your taxes or not, but I’m paying more in income tax then I ever have before. And I am in no way part of the 1%. The income tax affects us all. And so will the use of Drones in the coming years.
The machinery of war can be used against the citizens who paid for it just as easily against so-called foreign enemies. It is a capital investment by the State to secure its power. When it kills enough of its enemies around the world it will deal with the one’s at home.
The drone war is not occurring in a vacuum. Think about the talk of gun control now and imagine a not too distant future where every citizen has to register his firearm What if someone refuses to do so? And what if that someone has said derogatory comments about the Federal Government? What if this individual refuses to register or give up his firearms? Isn’t it much safer to fire a missile into his house with a drone instead of risking a police officer’s life to arrest him?
Remember drones were built to save airman and soldiers lives, in other words to protect the lives of the agents of the state. What is the difference between a policemen and a soldier? The way the drug war is prosecuted, the way DUI check points are staged and the way they are armed I would say they are one in the same. So if Drones are used to kill dangerous people to protect innocent lives and to save the lives of government employees why will the state not use drones to kill suspected dangerous U.S. citizens on American soil?
Look at how the LAPD went after Christopher Donner. They shot up two trucks that looked like his. Now if they had drones don’t you think they would have blown those suspected trucks up like they do the terrorists overseas? If they had the lady shot in one of those trucks, who amazingly survived, would have been vaporized by a drone strike.
Now if a police officer who is only fifty feet away from a suspected vehicle can’t identify a target properly how can someone 5000 or 10,000 miles away looking through a camera lens 10,000 ft in the air? How many trucks that looked like a terrorist’s truck have been blow up overseas which we never hear about?
All that needs for U.S. citizens to be killed by drones on U.S. soil is for a secret Justice Department memo to appear. Once it does the Useful Idiots will get what they want and the hellfire missiles will start raining down into the suburbs of America.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/drone_700511.html?page=2
Brad Miller
AdvocateofLiberty and not being droned
advocateofliberty 