Administration Officials Perform Some Very Public Handwringing Over Extrajudicial Drone Killing

[unhappycamper]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140210/11562026168/administration-officials-perform-some-very-public-handwringing-over-extrajudicial-drone-killing.shtml

Administration Officials Perform Some Very Public Handwringing Over Extrajudicial Drone Killing
from the the-eternal-martyrdom-of-the-executive-branch dept
by Tim Cushing
Mon, Feb 10th 2014 2:59pm

The administration has sort of painted itself into a corner with its new rules on drone strikes. It's apparently seeking to take out a US citizen who has joined al-Qaeda and is "actively plotting" against the US. Multiple issues have arisen, thanks to Obama's better-late-than-never drone guidelines, which were issued last year to appease the many countries perturbed by the US government's increasing reliance on drones to take out suspected terrorists.

The CIA drones watching him cannot strike because he's a U.S. citizen and the Justice Department must build a case against him, a task it hasn't completed

Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him. And President Barack Obama's new policy says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.

~snip~

It may not even need a case. It may just need to offer sufficient justification for carrying out a death sentence without due process. That's the sort of thing Rep. Mike Rogers seems to think the US should be doing anyway. His unwavering belief that the US is a country constantly besieged by attackers leaves no room for constitutional nuances like due process. This, along with "transparency" is referred to by Rogers as "red tape."

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Are they still hiding from the Judiciary?

Why?

[bemildred]

2. It seems to me it would have made more sense to think this through in the first place.

All this patching and hand-wringing over a flawed and ill thought-out policy appropriate for more primitive times.

[MisterP]

3. like the 80s! (in all seriousness, these actions are all to buy time, not consent--like with

Iran-Contra: by then everyone's a Retired StatesmanTM or Persecuted PatriotTM or off on a technicality

[bemildred]

4. Bush was Raygun Redux, that's for sure.

And Raygun was Nixon the Nice Guy.
But always the same stupid policies, and always the same negative result.