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National "Do Not Kill Registry" Launched In Response To Drone Kill List
First time accepted submitter crtitheories writes "In response to the national kill list revealed by the New York Times a few weeks ago, an online "Do Not Kill" Registry has been launched where users can sign up to avoid being mistakenly added. From the Do Not Kill website: 'Through an active collaboration between the Do not Kill Registry, the brave pilots and operators of the U.S. drone program, and the American public, we believe that we can find the political and moral solutions needed to both protect the security of the United States while also satisfying the concerns of the broader global community'. "
Aren't you a little late for April Fools Day?
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
After a quick WHOIS search, and a bit of googling, I found that this is registered to an individual who worked in 2009 as a San Francisco Art Institute teaching assistant.
It's a joke site.
We are not at war with another nation-state, thus we are not at war.
Good-bye
Because the Do Not Call list worked out so well
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Eastasia has always not been a nation-state
As an European, let me say that the president of a democracy should not have a list of people he wants dead. Arrested, maybe, although such a list should better be established by Justice, but not dead.
Can we have a "Please Kill" list as well. I have a neighbor with a dog that barks all night that's just itching for a drone attack.
Killing foreigners? Okay. Killing Americans? A violation of the president's oath to uphold Constituional Law: "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." A kill list may exist, but a kill list that includes Americans citizens is tyrannical.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The site is blocked here at a major international corporation! Should I worry that my employer has blocked the site and I can't sign up? Does that mean they've pre-protected me and already signed me up with a special corporate agreement or that I need to start looking up and over my shoulder for funny looking planes orbiting my position?
Well, sure - in a European democracy that would not be good... they usually aren't supposed to have such powers. In the US, the President is also the head of the military (but in turn not connected to the legislature like a typical Prime Minister) - so naturally he would have final say over anyone the military is trying to kill, and in general this list should be restricted to people outside of the US courts' various jurisdictions (i.e. Yemen).
In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
it's a scam by the CIA, trying to tempt terrorists to fill in their name and whereabouts thinking they'll be safer.
also beware of the "do not steal my identity list", send name, address, SSN, mother's maiden name, bank details to apply
Nullius in verba
Killing foreigners? Okay.
This bit is absolutely right; but it doesn't agree with the bit of the constitution you claimed to quote. I think you must have done a misquote. The constitution actually reads:
"No person who is for sure 100% known to have American citizenship shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law (or being mistaken for a foreigner); nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation (except for foreign property)."
It's shocking the way that people make these kinds of basic mistake.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Officially there was a ban on political assassinations by the US starting with Ford but it was ended by Clinton.
Assassination was one of those things that "We just did not do anymore." and that we were morally past it, but realities changed and now it is necessary again.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
>>>In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
What you SHOULD be concerned about is the President already ordered the execution of 3 U.S. citizens, including an underage minor. I didn't realize the death penalty could be applied without a right to trial (or against juveniles... I thought they were exempt). We live in dangerous days.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Actually, note that it says "person" not citizen. This was intentional (you can see to how many times they note "citizen" in the constitution), and so it applies to all people, including foreigners.
"Don't put me on any List" list.
That list couldn't exist, obviously.
I don't know, but it works for me.
And a kill list that includes everyone else is not? The difference here is really that it's not unconstitutional to have a kill list with 5 billion people on it as long as they're not american, the tyrannical or amoral or just plain-ridiculous-as-expected-from-politics are determined by entirely different criteria than a text that pretends to be a law of nature in some book that is selectively ignored for most of the time.
That part of the Constitution says 'no person', not 'no American citizen'. The right to due process does not depend on being a citizen of any particular country.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
You're right that Obama should be impeached for killing 2 American citizens without making the slightest attempt at due process. Anwar al-Awlaki was arguably a Bad Person, but his son Abdulrahman was also targeted and killed 2 weeks later for what I can only assume was the sole crime of being the son of Anwar.
Dick Cheney should also have been impeached and tried for war crimes: The United States declared that ordering waterboarding was a crime against humanity back in 1945-6, and Dick Cheney proudly proclaimed that he had ordered waterboarding on national television.
Basically, top officials of the US are now above the law, and know it.
I am officially gone from
Who? You might as well finish your post.
:wq
I've never understood this concept, that moral rights only apply to American citizens. May be I am not smart enough to grasp the idea.
It seems to be Ok to kill any non-american without due process or self-defense. Even to kill anyone including (or around) his family/kids. It seems also fine to detain and torture foreigners for an undetermined amount of time as long it is done outside USA soil.
Can someone explain it to me? Does it mean, for example, that I can own a slave, as long is not American?
MOD THE CHILD UP!
at least one person "100% known to have American citizenship" has been intentionally targeted and killed by a drone. it took them a month to figure out that they "could" kill him, and then apparently 1.5 years to seal the deal. and then they killed his son, also an american citizen.
also, your formulation is funny. how can the american gov't not be 100% sure whether someone is american or not? it's fairly simple. or are you saying that if i close my eyes and fire into a crowd, that this somehow mitigates my legal responsibility since i didn't really know whether i was shooting anyone?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
The fact that Obama hasn't been impeached yet is the most damning indictment of our political system I could imagine. He has utterly failed in his oath to uphold the Constitution.
Pass the tea, please.
Seriously, people said this through 12 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, and 8 years of Reagan. The side not in power always whines that the President is not upholding the constitution while doing everything in Congress possible to prevent work from getting done. The reality is that most of the HSA, TSA and health care actions taken by this administration (by it's own choice) have origins in either the Bush administration or conservative thinkers. Suddenly it's against the Constitution because it's a Democrat wanting to do it.
I am concerned that the President has ordered a capture or kill order that will most likely result in kill, rather than capture, on three US citizens.
I am also concerned that there are three US citizens that most likely are dangerous enough to warrant such an order.
I am much less concerned by who makes this decision at the moment. Right now, for the first time in my life, the sitting President of the United States, an elected official, is personally reviewing the data on terrorists and personally deciding whether or not to attempt to take these people out. He's not handing the job to an analyst or to an assistant-to-an-undersecretary or some other unknown, non-elected bureaucrat. He is personally taking the responsibility and accepting the ramifications of these decisions.
These individuals are members of an organization that has successfully attacked us in the past and that has pledged to attack us in the future. There is no practical way to bring them to legal justice, as they operate as a de facto government in territory that they control. In that sense they nearly are members of a nation-state and the rules of war can be found to apply to them as lieutenants in that de facto government's military structure.
I think that the situation is a terrible, horrible one. But, I also have less qualms about how this is being run than I do about the entire detention/torture system that was in place before it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Except that these are not all soldiers in a foreign military belonging to a hostile state. In some cases they are even our own Citizens. These people are by and large accused criminals, violent ones maybe but criminals not uniform soldiers.
We passed laws decades against our intelligence services assassinating people.
We are supposed to have rights, in the case of citizens at least, to face our accuser, have the decision on our guilt be made by a jury of our peers if we desire, have the burden of proof be placed on the state.
Some how we have let that slip, and now the President and some of his yes men get together in a room, and order the execution of whoever they want! If we are not fighting to protect our freedom and the rule of our law, why are fighting at all? The president has flaunted the law consistently since he was in office. The harm Obama has done to this nation is beyond measure. Bush made some bone headed moves, and the PATRIOT Act sucks, but at least he largely operated within our legal frame work. Obama is a dangerous criminal who should himself be on the execution block for treason, well after a fair trial and if convicted anyway
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
President is also considered to be the supreme commander of armed forces in many European countries, as well - France is a good example.
And a kill list that includes everyone else is not? The difference here is really that it's not unconstitutional to have a kill list with 5 billion people on it as long as they're not american, the tyrannical or amoral or just plain-ridiculous-as-expected-from-politics are determined by entirely different criteria than a text that pretends to be a law of nature in some book that is selectively ignored for most of the time.
It's easy, it's a little bit like a Jihad.
As an European, let me say that the president of a democracy should not have a list of people he wants dead.
That would depend on the circumstances. During WW2, leaders of democratic Western countries did not have any qualms about targeting high-ranged Reich functionaries. Sure, those that survived the end of the war were given some pretense of due process, but before that, do you think, say, Churchill wouldn't have ordered a bombing of the exact place he'd have known Himmler or Goring to reside in at that particular moment?
Will the real Douglas R. Hofstadter please stand up?
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
False. The UN Commander-in-Chief signed an armistice with the North Koreans and the Chinese back in 1953.
North Korea and South Korea are still at war with each other since South Korea wasn't a signatory to the armistice.
We passed laws decades against our intelligence services assassinating people.
You passed some little laws? Awwww. That's so cute! You're so cute when you vote! Who's a wonderful little citizen? You! Yes you are! You've got the moral right to self-government and everything! You've got representation in the House! And you're learning civics! You're so smart!
But don't bother Daddy right now, okay? He's gotta go to his office and kill some foreign citizens on foreign soil without a declaration of war. It's grown-up business. You wouldn't understand. Oh, and tell Mommy to order up some more napalm, okay? And we need to get the waterboard looked at.
Hee hee hee. Laws. They're so angelic at this age.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I only know two of them.
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki
He probably confused Anwar Al-Awlaki with a minor.
What I find hilarious is that people like CPU6502 have no problem with villagers in a random village being shot, because the Taliban showed their faces. They don't have a problem with people rotting in Gitmo, or being sent to various secret CIA prisons or even foreign governments for "interrogation". But god forbid that under Obama's watch, someone holding an American passport gets killed in a drone strike, and then all hell breaks lose.
You know people, you need to make up your mind: either we're at war with Al-Qaeda, AQ operatives and their supporters and allies, and we shoot them on sight. Or we consider AQ and Co to be thugs, and we send the police after them all. But you can't have it be a war against some people, and a police action against others.
For the record, I prefer police actions. But then again, SWAT teams exist for a reason. And they frequently shoot first as well.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
And if it weren't for the fact that the GoP wants this power for their next candidate elected to the Presidency, there might even be an impeachment.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Due process for civilians while we're not in a declared war does in fact mean in a court of law. Only members of the military and "enemy combatants" are subject to military jurisdiction outside of military facility or area declared to be under martial law.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
So. Let me get this straight.
If someone rapes your daughter you would respond with "Yeah, so what?" because of the citizens united case?
Since we have had the citizens united case you just intend to say fuck it too everything?
So before that case you were all up in arms over the power grabs by decades of bad congresses but now that this case has been decided badly "Fuck it"?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Have a look... continue reading until you reach Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki was killed at the age of 16
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The US is at war with sanity, and has been for quite some time. And sanity is loosing.
So is North Korea . . .
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
And one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter which is the problem in a nutshell. With something as nebulous and ill defined as "terrorism" frankly ANYBODY can be labeled a terrorist. Considering how some of the PMC like Blackwater and corps like Halliburton have behaved in those countries i would certainly have a hard time labeling anyone fighting to get the USA out of those places to be terrorists but I'm sure that is what they'd be labeled, just as those that fought against the carpet bombing and slaughter of entire villages in Vietnam would have been labeled terrorists then even though we know now that it was a shitty and unjust war.
But in the end wars on ideas simply give the government a blank check, you can fit damned near anything you want under a 'war on terrorism" banner, as we have seen with warrantless wiretapping, rendition rides, waterboarding,anything you want can be excused because it all fits under the umbrella.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
But then again, SWAT teams exist for a reason. And they frequently shoot first as well.
I'm fairly sure this is incorrect. SWAT teams are not military, they're police. While they look military, and are pretty well-armed (but again, not like a military fire team; they don't have any squad machine guns, for instance, and perhaps a submachine gun), their tactics are quite different; their goal is usually to bust into a place and secure it, and disarm anyone there. That doesn't mean "shooting first", unless someone actually is holding a weapon and pointing it at them.
If SWAT teams were running around shooting people willy-nilly, I think we wouldn't hear the end of it. Occasionally, they do shoot an innocent person, but that's because the innocent person had a gun, and (rightfully) was holding it because they thought some violent thugs were breaking into their house; they of course had no idea it was a team of armed police who had mistakenly gone to the wrong house in pursuit of the "war on drugs". But even so, this is pretty rare.
So when do we invade Florida and clean out the nest of Gusano terrorists headquartered in Miami? They've been there since 1959, even the CIA could probably locate their headquarters by now. Past and present leaders of that government should be treated the same as those of Iraq, complete with kangaroo courts and public hangings. I personally would make my first-ever pay-per-view purchase to see Jeb Bush's end.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Yeah, but most US citizens don't seem to consider foreigners to be persons, or even human, or deserving of the most basic human rights. Many probably don't even comsider most of their fellow US citizens to be. The US governement certainly doesn't.
At least that is what it looks like from outside.
It's about time the US started to realize how sad, sick and twisted they have become. That they don't have the moral high ground they feel entitled to. That they have just become another bully, another rogue terrorist state for people in the civilized world to have nightmares about.
US, the terrorists have won. And you are them.
If good national health care is unconstitutional then obviously you need to ammend your constitution.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I keep telling people these "dumb" politicians are the alpha sociopaths, but people keep choosing to believe they are so much smarter.
Hey, they know how to install a Linix distro and write program in C++! Let's see some idiot politician do that, huh? Amirite? Yeah! Stupid politicians! Bunch of old dudes who can barely work a phone! Ha!
Meanwhile, the politicians are laughing their asses off at the "useful idiots", raking in the power and the money, and partying it up like there's no tomorrow.
Have to disagree. The worst things that Shrub did were 1) invade two countries that had not attacked us, had no intention of attacking us, nor had any method to attack us with, 2) withdraw from or otherwise abrogate the bio-weapons treaties, nuclear test ban treaty, ABM treaty, chemical weapons treaties, anti-money laundering accord, and the Geneva Conventions, 3) deliberately crash the economy.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
These individuals are members of an organization that has successfully attacked us in the past and that has pledged to attack us in the future. There is no practical way to bring them to legal justice, as they operate as a de facto government in territory that they control. In that sense they nearly are members of a nation-state and the rules of war can be found to apply to them as lieutenants in that de facto government's military structure.
Uh-oh, I think you just proved the validity of jihad. Better keep one eye pointed up, imam...
Pretty much.
Bureaucracies are similar all over, be they government or corporations. A CTO can be someone that takes credit for you doing your job, even if they have absolutely no idea what your job is, how you accomplish it, or how to replicate it in others.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The source of that entire argument is Eric Holder, who serves at the pleasure of the man we're accusing. It would be sort of like asking Tom Hagan if Michael Corleone had killed anybody.
Here's the counterargument: ... be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law;"
"No person shall
I am officially gone from
"Don't kill me bro"
Don't Drone me Bro.
r major presidential candidate in the last 30 years has cared for the rule of law.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Don't let corporations play in politics.
I understand where your coming from wrt the indutrial-military complex, but had we done what you suggest from the begining the Magna Carta would never have been written, let alone agreed to by the monarchy. It was wealthy merchants who forced the king to devolve some power to the people by refusing to fund his costly wars. To a lesser and more subtle extent, most of todays multi-nationals are also using their influence on politics to keep nations at peace in order to protect their own interests.
The reason corporations, governments, and society in general "don't work" is that humans (like many other predatory mammals) evolved to live in extended family tribes and throw turds at outsiders. 10K years ago we inveted agriculture which quickly lead to civilizations which requires massive 'tribes' to get thing done (or undone in the case of war). Evolution has had very little time to alter basic human nature to cope with this behavioural shift in our species. As an example most of us identify strongly with our own nations 'tribe' but every day thousands of members of that tribe die and we couldn't give a flying fuck about them unless we know them personally (ie: within our extended family tribe).
Problem is, even if one understands that, one is too busy throwing turds to do anything about it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
No. did you actually read the link you provided? That is a cease-fire. It is not a peace treaty. It does not end the war. (It is true that South Korea never signed the cease fire.)
here's a longer explanation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/05/are_we_at_war_with_north_korea.html
What we SHOULD be doing is working to get everyone and their dog onto the "kill" list, to the point that one of three things happens:
1. A few perfectly innocent people get targeted and all hell breaks loose, or
2. The people relying on that list are forced to abandon it as completely polluted, or
3. It remains officially in existence, but nobody actually uses it. They rely upon a separate list which may or may not be a subset of the polluted list.
Option 1 will force changes and most likely would result in a rather thorough rolling of heads at the top. That's why it is unlikely to happen.
Option 2 would be little more than inconvenient, but the replacement list had better be relatively vetted and secure or it too will get polluted.
Option 3 will reduce the list to being merely an embarrassment to those in power. All but a few paranoid types (justified or not) will forget about it.
It's like putting "kilo nuclear uranium jihad" in your signature file to crap up the ECHELON system.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
The commander in chief of the most powerful army, navy, and air force in the world has a list of people he wants dead? STOP THE PRESSES! Targeting specific people is not news... it's war. People die when they're killed. Derp.
Pres. Ford issued Executive Order 11905 banning political assassination
Pres Carter: EO 12036 banning US involvement in assassinations
Pres. Regan: EO 12333 No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
Pres. Obama: DoD Directive 2310. Incorporates prohibitions against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Bans Water boarding.
Drone assassinations are apparently OK. In fact a "kill list" is perfectly acceptable during an election year...
...for the first sitting president to be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Something's really fucked up here.
Sixteen is a minor, at least in all 50 US states.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
He probably confused Anwar Al-Awlaki with a minor.
No, I am pretty sure GP was referring to Al-Awlaki's son. here. I guess he was killed by accident. Then again, since the deliberations are secret, maybe he was killed on purpose.
if i close my eyes and fire into a crowd, that this somehow mitigates my legal responsibility since i didn't really know whether i was shooting anyone?
Obligatory Simpsons:
Nelson: Shoplifting is a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark.
The internet exposes people to a disproportionate number of loud, partisan hacks. The reality is, anyone with any bit of independent thinking condemns the Obama administration as harshly (or more harshly, since we thought he would know better) as GWB. Or maybe it's just the people I keep company with. Either way, I'm done playing this game, "none of the above" will be getting my vote this fall. Electing the least bad of two terrible choices just slows our downward spiral, we're still going the wrong direction and we may be better off hitting rock bottom as soon as possible so the oblivious masses take notice, until then nothing will change.
what your references are saying is that he thinks its disappointing that while most Americans will mix during work and work related functions at the weekends America is still segregated along racial lines pretty much the same as in the 1950's.
The 2nd amendment attacks you refer to are that maybe it isn't a great idea for people to be carrying guns routinely. Not banning guns but discouraging people from having them.
I can understand your feelings in a country where you have to look out for you and yours with no safety net sure puts you at a disadvantage and defenceless if you don't have a gun (but the criminals still have guns). If everyone was equal there would be nobody to look down upon and be able to have the comfort of saying at least i'm not black. Oh and that superior attitude you have because your not black also can come back to haunt you now you have no guns but the black dudes still have them.
It is strange that the most powerful nation on earth will bankrupt it's citizens with private health care supply cheap food to it's people but not tell them whats in it (and that cheap crud is destroying the health of the nation). Seems the only way to get health care in your declining years is to have fought for your country. America as a country has some great achievements but at what cost to its citizens. How much of a nightmare is it if you were to lose your job next month with the current number of jobless Americans how long could you last if you didn't get rehired quickly?
America is a great place to be if your high enough up the ladder to have some stability in your life but that could easily be taken away from you by cancer a heart attack or even a simple car wreck just to name a few.
Jobs get exported oversea's for better profit margins and cheaper toys from china. The sad thing is i doubt there is anything anyone could do to change things in the US now, you just have to ride the roller coaster and hope you don't get flung off. Maybe I have the wrong impression of the usa and don't get me wrong of all the Americans i have met i wouldn't say i'd met anyone other than decent hard working people. If anything the internet has shown me is that we are all generally decent people with similar ethics and values.
http://atlanticreview.org/archives/434-Murder-Rate-in-the-United-States-and-Germany.html
is an interesting page comparing murder rates between germany and the the usa.
maybe this comment explains things quite well.
"Perhaps it is just a cultural gulf, and I do think that Americans in general place a lot more faith in self-reliance than they do on collective solutions such as giving the police a monopoly on the use of force to deter criminal conduct. And yes, when it comes to defending yourself against thugs, nothing works so well as a gun. Even a small woman can turn a 250 pound would be rapist into a corpse if she has a pistol and knows how to use it.
It may be a cliche, but an armed society does tend to be a polite society. In the more rural areas of the US where the rate of gun ownership tends to be high, the crime rates tend to be low, mainly because of the willingness of the local folks to deal out their own rough justice to people who attempt to victimize them."
As an American you may well say as a European it is no concern of mine of how America treats it's people but much as you can feel sympathy for kids in African countries with no clean water it is also easy to feel sympathy for the many Americans let down by their own nation.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
The Emir of Kuwait was rather peeved that the US made him free his slaves after handing him his country back.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Precisely - SWAT teams are police called into action when it is unlikely that the suspect is going to surrender peacefully. They are fully equipped and prepared to shoot to kill. IE there is some information that so-and-so did something bad, and is waving a gun around, possibly with a hostage. What does the police do? Call in the SWAT team, who can and have killed people without a trial. Generally it was because they were being shot at.
How different is this really from what we're doing to people like al-Awlaki? Instead of sending in a SWAT team, we just send in a drone. Presumably, we could ask him to come down to the station, but since we're pretty sure how that's going to turn out (either with dead messengers, or a general finger to the messengers), we figure we cut short the charade and just shoot him.
I don't really see the problem. Unless you think that Americans somehow deserve more protection than some random schmoe on the street, in which case I would recommend all non-Americans to immediately leave the country, because they are clearly second-class citizens and can be killed for not much reason at all.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
>>>In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
What you SHOULD be concerned about is the President already ordered the execution of 3 U.S. citizens, including an underage minor. I didn't realize the death penalty could be applied without a right to trial (or against juveniles... I thought they were exempt). We live in dangerous days.
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
You have started down the path where arbitrary murder by the state is sometimes acceptable. You can still turn back, but you need to turn back right now, in relation to all human beings.
It will be interesting to see how the US reacts when, with its power in decline, China or India or Russia start killing civilians in other countries because they are on some "kill list" or other.
Read Pynchon.
Killing foreigners? Okay. Killing Americans? A violation of the president's oath to uphold Constituional Law
I hope this is a joke. In case it's not, I assume you agree that by parity of reasoning, other countries have the right to launch missiles into US territory to kill US citizens if they decide they are beyond the reach of those countries' domestic legal systems?
Read Pynchon.
This is starting to sound like the "if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?" or "is a virus alive?" type questions, which are incredibly stupid because people act like they're talking about actual things, when in fact they're just arguing over definitions of words ("sound" and "alive", respectively).
The question isn't "can war exist without nation-states"; the question is whether hostilities between non-nation-states should be called war or not. The answer doesn't change the fact that group A is trying to kill group B, and you can reasonably expect group B to try to prevent that.
Now possibly it has legal ramifications because the word "war" has been used sloppily in treaties, etc, but none of that changes the reality of people killing and/or defending. Besides, there isn't a clear definition of "nation-state", so even if we can't redefine "war" we'll just re-define "nation-state" to mean whatever we need it to mean in order to fit the offensive / defensive actions we think are appropriate into whichever subset of the treaties we'd like to continue to pretend matter.
There's a world of difference between shooting at a suspect because he's armed and has already taken shots at you, and shooting a suspect while he's walking to the store or whatever just because you think he's not going to surrender peacefully.
In theory, the police (except when breaking policy somehow) NEVER kill anyone without a trial; when a death happens, it's because the officer was exercising self-defense because a suspect was attacking them, and that self-defense unfortunately resulted in the suspect's death. When someone shoots at you, you're allowed to shoot back to neutralize the threat; otherwise, you can't.
A drone attacking some guy as he's driving down the street, blissfully unaware that anyone is out to get him at the moment, isn't remotely the same.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. This video shows some clips of Bush's speeches back when he was running for governor. He comes across as intelligent and articulate. Now, the video's voice over concludes that Bush has some sort of early onset dementia. But I think the far more likely answer is that he concluded, correctly, that most Americans would rather vote for "someone they can have a beer with" than someone who sounds smarter than they are.
You don't get to be president, or attain any other position of power, by being a moron.
What is war, if not killing human beings without charge or trial? What defines the borders of a war zone? During WWII, Japan floated balloons full of bombs over to the American Pacific coast, with the obvious intent of "killing human beings without charge or trial", even though no one would have considered California to be an active war zone. That is, unless you define war zone as "a place where our enemies live", in which case the targeted killings by the US lose all meaning.
Personally, I prefer targeted killings to the alternatives. If there is person Y in country X planning to kill citizens of country Z, there are only so many ways to handle it.
Country Z can try to defend its borders and keep the killers out, but that's simply not practical. Homeland security is just theater. Terrorists can always, if nothing else, slip into the country as a tourist, acquire a weapon, and kill some people. Look at the guy who shot up the summer camp in Norway, or the stabbings of school children in China a while back. Both of those were native attackers, but they could just as easily have been outsiders.
Country Z can demand that country X's government intervene, but most terrorists are based in lawless countries.
Country Z can go to war, as the US did in Afghanistan, but I think we all agree that that leads to far more death and destruction.
Country Z can sit back and let its people die, but those people will respond by voting out the current government. Complain all you want, no people on Earth will respond to repeated terrorist attacks by turning the other cheek.
Or finally, Country Z can try to kill person Y, and only person Y. To me, that seems like the least bad of a bunch of bad options.
User-agent: Predator
Disallow: mother
Disallow: father
Disallow: wife
Disallow: son
Disallow: daughter
# Disallow: mother-in-law
Have gnu, will travel.
No one put a gun to their heads and forced them into a building with an al-Qaeda leader.
I'm amazed at how cheaply some of you value human life, and assume the Moon to justify your beliefs.
"Dad, are you an Al Quaida leader?"
"What?!? Who've you been talking to?"
I seldom knew what my dad was doing most of the time when I was his age. He could have been robbing banks for all I knew. The Mafia make a point of keeping family separate from "business." Teenage civillians snuffed as collateral damage, and you just blow it off as simply another raghead who should have known better.
No wonder they hate you.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Militarization of the police is a big thing going on, and to me it's a really disturbing trend. Where you'd send a cop or two twenty years ago to safely arrest someone on the street, they now send in assault team dressed in black to bust the door down, with guns drawn, who shoot the dogs and anything or anyone else that looks remotely threatening. The worst part of it is I don't think we've even begin to see the beginning of it.
Government agencies not typically associated with the policing of -anything- are developing paramilitary squads. Example: recently the IRS put together a SWAT style team team. The DoE (education, not energy), Customs, the Department of Agriculture and EPA also have their own dedicated jackbooted goon squads, whereas in the past they'd bring in the FBI SWAT team if it were thought to be really necessary. Hell, the California Dept of Food & Agriculture sends in their own police squad to arrest...hippies dealing in raw foods. So, why the redundancy; are existing teams so occupied that it's necessary? Or is it because they're trying to get under the DHS umbrella, and have money bleeding out of their asses?
Some features of one of my jobs place me adjacent to local police, SWAT teams in particular. These teams draw in a lot of veterans retiring from the military, and many of the younger guys are newly-former special operators. They're naturals at every demand the job can throw at them, they've been there and done that, know how to operate as a team, and once they go though the police schools they naturally gravitate there. To say they're not becoming 'military' is wishful thinking. I don't have the data to back it up, but I'm sure it's a national trend.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
It's taken me a long time to come to the realization that the only war that can be justified is if you are fighting on your own land directly against invaders to repel them. The reason is the same as in your personal life. You can use force to defend yourself. But you have to be careful in that you only use force against those attacking you. If someone attacks you and the runs into a crowd you aren't justified in firing into the crowd hoping to hit that person. But that is what war is once you go into another country. You are punishing and killing innocent people in the hopes you might hit a few of the guilty. There is no moral argument for this.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
He's still dead, and it was still done by a president-ordered attack. In this case, the Obama Sadministration uses the killing of Derwish as a precedent to justify its own program. I don't give a crap if it was Warren Harding creating the kill order, US presidents do not have the right to order murders. End of story.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
What is war, if not killing human beings without charge or trial?
Assassination is not a just or legitimate part of war. In war, a person must be engaged in combat in order to be considered a legitimate target. Any person who is a danger when not engaged in combat is either a criminal—and should be treated as such: attempt to capture for trial—or an important military or political figure—and should be treated as such: attempt to capture for the duration of hostilities. This is an important moral and practical boundary, and it was devised to help to prevent abuse of force and to encourage international affairs that produce improved results. It may be that there is a better moral or practical arrangement that includes assassination, but it is not in evidence. The outcomes of military strategy without rules are well known and atrocious and we should all be prepared to reject them; and when we pick and choose rules according to what the public and the international community is willing to accept without effective resistance, the difference is only a matter of degree.
Personally, I prefer targeted killings to the alternatives. If there is person Y in country X planning to kill citizens of country Z, there are only so many ways to handle it. [Snip your list of alternatives]
There is another alternative, but it requires a sobering, honest appraisal of the grievances motivating person Y (or those who support or appease person Y). Given such an appraisal, it is often, maybe usually, possible to address the grievances in a productive manner and undermine person Y's motivations. Given the actual outcomes of the approaches you listed, the approach I'm suggesting should be pretty attractive. It's impossible to predict the future, but it's difficult to imagine that the outcomes of the approaches you listed will differ from those of previous applications of those same approaches. We shouldn't forget that the events which precipitated our war in Afghanistan-Pakistan involved nearly 3,000 civilian deaths in surprise attacks. We also shouldn't forget that those attacks, just like the ones which are no doubt being planned now, didn't occur in a vacuum.
We should end our support for the colonization of Muslim societies and land (Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Palestine were detailed in explaining the 9/11/2001 attacks; we can add Afghanistan and Pakistan to the list now, and while we're at it all of the other little dictatorships and fiefdoms we support). Not to appease terrorists, but because in an honest and moral analysis, it's the right thing to do, for ourselves and for those Muslims who are so enraged by it. It would truly advance our own security, and it would be a much more moral choice than even the naive picture of "kill person Y, and only person Y", especially when considering the murder and misery of our broader foreign policy.
That such an approach isn't even considered betrays the fact that none of our approaches are aimed at security, but rather at an agenda that sacrifices security in favor of hegemony and global privilege.
Not even kings have had the right to order the murder anyone they wanted for the last several centuries. When did the president get that privilege? Where in the Constitution or the Legal Code does it say that the president is above the law? If he's allowed to murder with impunity, can he also take bribes? Maybe act on insider information to play the stock market? The latter two are generally considered less offensive than the former. Where do you draw the line?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Hypothetical:
US citizen A joins enemy army.
US citizen A takes action against US while in enemy army.
Is Citizen A guilty of treason?
Yes, he's guilty of treason. Given sufficient evidence for action against the US, Citizen A may even be convicted of treason without a trial.
Traitors are killed. Treason is the only law in the US Constitution that defines its punishment. Technically, they should be hanged, but somehow I don't think it really makes a difference.
Don't drone me bro!
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
You are right. You have to wait 10 turns before you can declare war again after making peace.
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
Semantics? That is "the heart of what is wrong with your country"? "Wrong with your country" is what... pretentious motherfuckers who post online?
There are many problems in the world and many problems in our country. The only problem identified by your post is you.
American exceptionalism is the problem I am referring to. More traditionally known as 'hubris'. There are some good plays about it, you should check them out. The Greeks had the concept nailed down about 2500 years ago.
Your government and many of your citizens operate on the basis that there are "Americans" and "others". You regard yourselves as special, privileged, the chosen people. You have failed to register that this is obviously not true, nor have you registered that your supposedly permanent hegemony of only a few years ago is already gone.
Once you decide that some are "more equal than others", you lose the ability to impartially assess any situation. The concepts essential to a just, democratic world become unworkable, because they rely on the opposite view, that no-one person or group should be more privileged than any other.
The GP's comment exemplifies the (majority) American mindset - murdering people is only problematic if it offends your constitution. Well, guess what? Fuck your constitution. It's problematic because it's fundamentally wrong, not because it offends some American document which you guys tend to ignore most of the time anyway.
Hence you cannot understand (a) your immense economic problems (b) your immense geopolitical problems or (c) your immense problems with groups of angry foreign men wanting to hurt you. None of it makes sense to you because you cannot see that you are not special, and therefore that there will be no automatic Hollywood ending to these dramas.
Bill Clinton made a speech towards the end of his presidency where he argued strongly that the US should strengthen international institutions and human rights standards as much as possible. His reasoning was that America's time in the sun wouldn't last forever, and that when some other power - China, for instance - was dominant, America would be grateful for strong and liberal democratic international governance. Sadly Bush II and Obama haven't heeded that warning, and have contributed to a world of unilateral murder and mayhem as a result. The precedent of the powerful being entitled to murder the weak instead of pursuing them according to law will have terrible consequences for all of us, I fear.
Read Pynchon.
You need to read the Laws of Armed Conflict. It can be summed up as "Use the minimum force necessary to kill only those that you intend."
I don't give a crap if it was Warren Harding creating the kill order, US presidents do not have the right to order murders. End of story.
Actually, yes, they do. And it's probably not at all the end of the story. Several recent US presidents have ordered such murders, and they've all gotten away with it. Obama is even using it successfully as campaign material. Even the professional comedians have picked up on this, characterizing Obama's campaign approach as "I killed Osama bin Laden", and little else. There isn't the slightest chance that Obama will be charged with any crime for this action. So it's clear that US presidents do have the "right" to order murders.
A couple of centuries ago, one of the many reasons that the US declared independence was to end the right of monarchs to order summary (without trial) punishment, including execution, of people charged with crimes. Supposedly the US Constitution put an end to this, requiring "due process" before punishment. But this is no longer applicable, as the US legal system has clearly reinstated summary execution, when ordered by the president. We just need to also reinstate inheritance of the presidency (by primogeniture?), and we'll be back where we started.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
What other nations do is up to them. I'm not a globalist, so I wouldn't let them have an influence over what we do.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100