George C. Wilson: Targeted Assassinations Abroad Could Lead to a Police State at Home

[unhappycamper]

Targeted Assassinations Abroad Could Lead to a Police State at Home
George C. Wilson
Fmr. National Defense Correspondent, The Washington Post
Posted: September 22, 2010 12:59 PM

How ironic it will be if historians blame Barack Obama, a liberal who used to teach constitutional law and became the first black man to be elected president of the United States, for turning our democracy into a police state because he provoked terrorist attacks on our homeland by authorizing so many assassinations abroad.

I think attacks on our vulnerable country in retaliation for assassinations Obama authorized are a chilling but real possibility. To combat such attacks, American citizens would lose freedoms they now take for granted, such as the ability to move throughout the United States without carrying identification papers to show police day and night.

I hope some congressional committee or subcommittee will delve into the cause-and-effect relationship between White House-approved assassinations abroad and retaliatory attacks here at home. After all, the Founding Fathers in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the powers to "provide for the common defense" and "to declare war." So the House and Senate, no matter which party controls them next year, have every right to ask whether Obama's authorized assassinations are indeed helping "the common defense" or sowing the seeds for our own destruction as a democracy.

The New York Times revealed in its lead story on Aug. 15 what it termed

"the Obama administration's shadow war against al-Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries -- from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife -- the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic aircraft and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.

[the other one]

1. Unrec'd for faulty logic

The author assumes Obama will turn this country into a police state if terrorists attack us. Just because Bush tried to doesn't mean Obama would also.