Drones Overseas Rain Death on American Citizens -- How Long Until the Same Happens in the Homeland?

[Octafish]

A drone strike killed an American teenager in Yemen.



This kid - Abdulrahman al-Awlaki - was found guilty, condemned and killed without a trial, along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people.

I don't know if they were terrorists or if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I do understand the kid's father, also an American citizen, recently was killed in a drone strike.

The government did say he was a terrorist mastermind. If anyone, they should know one when they see one.

Lucky us. The government has started deploying drones in the Homeland, a service to local police paid for by the Department of Homeland Security.

Here's my question:

Now that it's OK to kill American citizens based on hearsay, how long do you think it will it be before any citizen
who opposes the policies of the United States government will be considered an enemy of the state and, thus, eligible for execution?


FYI: Amy Goodman and DemocracyNow have the story of some very brave people who stand in opposition to what's going on...

Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the CIA has made a series of secret concessions in its drone campaign after military and diplomatic officials complained large strikes were damaging the fragile U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Meanwhile, a trial is underway in Syracuse, New York, of 38 protesters arrested in April at the New York Air National Guard base at Hancock Field. The defendants were protesting the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which the 174th Fighter Wing of the Guard has remotely flown over Afghanistan from Syracuse since late 2009. "Citizens have a responsibility to take action when they see crimes being committed," said retired Col. Ann Wright, one of the 38 on trial. "And this goes back to World War II, when German government officials knew what other parts of the German government were doing in executing six million Jews in Germany and other places, and that they took no action. And yet—and they were held responsible later, through the Nuremberg trials. And that is the theory on which we are acting, that we see that our government is committing crimes by the use of these drones, and that we, as citizens, have the responsibility to act."

Col. Ann Wright, (USA ret) and Mr. Ed Kinane are the bravest of the brave. They have stood up to their government when it was wrong. They are true patriots.

PS: Thank you for the kind words, truedelphi! I'd been thinking how to ask the question.

Edit: Reign Rain dream away.

[inna]

1. k&r, and don't miss this if you haven't read it already (links and all):

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/drones-becoming-pervasive-inside-america


ETA: better link here, with urls to all sources spelled out:

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/386021

[Octafish]

2. Thank you, inna! Great link! What planet are we on again?

And whatever happened to the United States of America?

Military, Police Drones May Lead to Supreme Court Ethics Fight

Gee. I wonder how that will turn out with Mr. Roberts and his krew?

[bluesmail]

6. I do not know what to say, 'cept for Really. eom

[Aerows]

4. I like one of the comments under that article

Dept. of Homeland Security

"We'll safe the shit out of you."

[azul]

23. This is a little more chilling than the damned cold war:

"artificial intelligence to seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity. "

What next, AI drones to seek out and destroy suspicious people?

[Aerows]

3. This is why thinking people oppose this

It's just fine when it's "people over there", even when it's a US citizen.

The problem is that this kind of policy ALWAYS comes home. ALWAYS.

It's easy to say "thank God I don't live in Texas" where they have a drone, but just wait. Do you really think it will stop there? It certainly didn't stop in Yemen and Pakistan, now did it?

[Octafish]

5. You are absolutely correct, Aerows. The FAA's opening up new airspace for the drones as we speak.

The FAA plans for the first time allocate part of the domestic skyway to drones

Every single liberty that's been taken away by the war on terror has not come back. Unlimited domestic spying. No more habeas corpus. Property open for taking by the biggest contributor. And now that extrajudicial killing has been "accepted as A-OK" by our elected officials and trusted media watchdogs, it won't be long before people walking down the street will get zapped by an airborne taser or blown to Kingdom Come by a Hellfire missile.

I blame the traitors who stole office in 1980:

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of ‘Counter-Terrorism’

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

The Reagan‑era National Security Council (NSC) used NSDDs to formulate high‑level policy on political and military matters. The directives ranged from presidential orders for testing nuclear weapons to negotiating strategies for US representatives at various international summits.

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

http://books.google.com/books?id=YZqRyj_QXf8C&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=christopher+simpson+The+Uses+of+%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&source=bl&ots=8klB0PzATX&sig=hi9DpE3qF43Oefh7iGn79W4jXQs&hl=en&ei=zAFQTeriBsr2gAfu1Mgc&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=christopher%20simpson%20The%20Uses%20of%20%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&f=false

On November 22, we will be 48 years through the Looking Glass.

[KoKo]

7. Yes...that's the concern and, as you say..."why thinking people oppose this."

Would that there were many "thinking people" still here in my DU Community. But, it's what it is.

[truedelphi]

9. I think about what you are sayng all the time.

Like recently on the medical marijuana issue, people were saying, "Well The DOJ isn't coming here to my enlightened region of the Country. Only to California."

But once it happens one place, it will happen others.

First it happened with jobs being outsourced. The textile mill workers lost their jobs in the southern states during the mid-eighties. But people who had their computer courses under their belts congratulated themselves because they were making $ 45 to $ 75 an hour. They also felt cool about sneering at the textile workers, "You should have gone to college and gotten a computer college degree like we did.'

And then in the nineties - the computer crowd watched their jobs go overseas.

Now we can watch and see the physical assaults on our populace.

If this nation could kill off one million people in Iraq, no problem, there really is no stopping that happening here. Scott Olsen was the first to have his body impacted as though he were some foreign terrorist, but he will not be the last.

The only answer I have is this one, copied from what others have in their sig lines:

SOLIDARITY !

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. No offense, but it's "rain" not "reign". K&R

[Octafish]

10. Thank you, Tierra_y_Libertad!

Eres chévere!

[Turbineguy]

11. OK, but what if it's

Limbaugh, Rove, Norquist and Beck (and a few others)?

[Octafish]

13. The Slippery Slope

You ask a question at the heart of the matter, Turbineguy. The turds you named all seem in favor of killing Liberals, based o their public statements.

Once we kill somone identified as an enemy of the state, what will stop us from killing those who support the enemy, whether liar or thief or traitor? Then, will the state kill those who merely oppose the state's killing policy? And will the state then devolve to kill those who merely oppose the government?

The first killing of an American citizen without trial by drone must have been the hardest. The nation has already moved on to kids who were citizens.

[Turbineguy]

15. You are completely correct.

But that's the problem. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than they hold themselves. That give them an advantage. The advantage the criminal has over his victim is his victim's willingness to obey the law.

[Octafish]

28. Gen. Doolittle's justification for CIA, eh, ops...

It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever costs. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the US is to survive, longstanding American concepts of "fair play" must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated means than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.1

SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol36no3/html/v36i3a05p_0001.htm

[truedelphi]

12. My heart stopped dead in its tracks at seeing the photo of

The young man killed by the drone.

Abdulrahman could have been one of the kids sitting and sharing a beer with my son in his dorm room at University. And my son would have loved the guy's first name - what a neat set up for nicknames, from Top Ramen to a dozen others.

Somewhere a mother and grandparents, uncles, aunts, and siblings are crying like their world has ended. Which in many ways it has.

The term, "Terrorist" is just a synonym for the war industry saying, "We need another half trillion of dollars a year, there, Congress and Mr President."

[Octafish]

14. Absolutely. As a grandpa three times, I know exactly what you mean.

Recently visited a nephew for the football game at K-State. Saw the picture and flashed back to all the faces.

From Reagan's time:

Terrorism and U.S. Policy

EXCERPT w/links to PDFs...

V. Presidential Directives and Executive Orders

NSDD 179 established a task force, to be headed by Vice President George Bush, to review and evaluate U.S. policy and programs in the counterterrorism area. In particular, the task force was to assess national priorities assigned to combat terrorism, especially concerning intelligence responsibilities; the assignment of responsibilities after a terrorist incident; and evaluate laws and law enforcement programs concerning terrorism.

Gee. Poppy just pops up at the most interesting times, always in service to the 1-percent.

[truedelphi]

16. It is truly amazing how much of the information that us

"Conspiracy types" rely on comes right off the archives of the CIA, or in this case with your links, The National Security Archives!

So when someone alls us conspirtacy nuts, are they suggesting that there isn't any CIA? Or any National Security Agency?

Until recently I could check out most of what I believed about the Shock Doctrine techniques used to get us into Iraq by visitng the CIA's offical website!

[Hydra]

30. Why would we go anywhere else but the source?

The fact that people don't believe that the rich and powerful plan anything is laughable. Has anyone working in a business lately been to a long term planning meeting?

It's ironic, but I think the CIA and others WANT us to know what they are doing. They know most of us will never believe it, and the rest won't be listened to.

Maybe they want an audience for their grand schemes?

[Mnemosyne]

18. Poppy is quite the popper upper isn't he? For too many decades... K&R n/t

[Octafish]

20. Since Nov. 22, 1963.

Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and "Conspiracy Theorists" at Ford Funeral

Of course, he didn't bring up his own connections with the case. With a family motto that goes: “Deny Everything, Claim Everything, Admit Nothing” it's easy to see how that would be.

[Mnemosyne]

34. "If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us."

~ George H.W. Bush to journalist Sarah McClendon in December, 1992.

This is probably the only admission of any guilt made by him, ever.

Evil, evil old bastard...

[moondust]

17. Just wait.

Republicans are especially notorious for their bellicosity and lack of restraint. Combine that with the casual ease of launching drone strikes without risk and without accountability and there's no telling what may happen or where. One day a Republican may be sitting comfortably in the White House calling in the strikes without fear of any consequences.

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[Octafish]

37. It's gotten bad since 1980...

Carla Binion explains why it is so chilling for may be ahead:

Nazis and the Republican Party

Gee, the idea that the GOP is populated with authoritarian killers is no surprise for those who know where to look.

Unfortunately, it's just the tip of the Aryan iceberg:

A fact curiously missing from American history and any mention of the Warren Commission

Which doesn't even address the point that not a single member of the Warren Commission was a Liberal Democrat.

[provis99]

19. they already fly drones along the Mexican border.

It's only a matter of time before drones there start killing illegal immigrants.

[Octafish]

38. That would lead to killing innocent people -- including children, as now is the case in Pakistan.

US Drones Killing Children in Pakistan: One Reporter's Story

Once we start killing innocents on the border, it'll be a lot more "acceptable" to kill them when they stray into border towns. And then we'll go after those who shelter "illegals"...and those who support those who shelter...and those who oppose the government over the question of immigration...

And it'll happen a lot faster than most can imagine.

[Time for change]

21. This is very scary stuff, Octafish

I've always had qualms about Obama. But I did not think he would stoop this low.

[Octafish]

40. CIA Drones Kill Large Groups Without Knowing Who They Are...and that's OK if they ask first.

Women, children, old people, babies. All dead. On suspicion of being a terrorist or allied with a terrorist or related to a terrorist or mistaken for a terrorist.

CIA Drones Kill Large Groups Without Knowing Who They Are

By Spencer Ackerman
Wired
November 4, 2011

EXCERPT...

The expansion of the CIA’s undeclared drone war in the tribal areas of Pakistan required a big expansion of who can be marked for death. Once the standard for targeted killing was top-level leadership in al-Qaeda or one of its allies. That’s long gone, especially as the number of people targeted at once has grown.

This is the new standard, according to a blockbuster piece in the Wall Street Journal: “men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known.” The CIA is now killing people without knowing who they are, on suspicion of association with terrorist groups. The article does not define the standards are for “suspicion” and “association.”

Strikes targeting those people — usually “groups” of such people — are called “signature” strikes. “The bulk of CIA’s drone strikes are signature strikes,” the Journal’s Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes report.

And bulk really means bulk. The Journal reports that the growth in clusters of people targeted by the CIA has required the agency to tell its Pakistani counterparts about mass attacks. When the agency expects to kill 20 or more people at once, then it’s got to give the Pakistanis notice.

I've got friends whose kid works for Obama. They say he's the real deal, a good guy. I've heard him speak where he stated he was "to the left of center," so, I can't explain it...

[azul]

22. Is this a failure of all our lawyers?

Or it this acceptable murder by the state the result of the corruption of judges?

[moondust]

26. Where's John Yoo when you need him?

:)

[Octafish]

27. Yoo's on board!

From Inna's link above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzisji8C6Uo&feature=player_embedded

It's truly incredible what else besides a child's testicles this guy thinks about.

[tex-wyo-dem]

24. K&R!

[eppur_se_muova]

25. We believe this hasn't happened already?

Why is that?

[eShirl]

29. How long before they start using them in the War on Drugs?

[firehorse]

31. Or the war on Main Street ..."if you are not with me - then you are against me"... George Bush style

Drones -- the loophole for assholes to declare their own war without going through congress. It makes the things like Abu Graib and Gitmo, seem old school.

[lonestarnot]

32. And what of when they are of the same size as a flying bug, and the objects already fly, but do not

have bombing capability, or maybe they do. Scarey indeed.

[leveymg]

33. The firm that builds these things, General Atomics, will be remembered in infamy.

I can appreciate that under some circumstances drones can do the same thing as an attack helicopter or a jet fighter without endangering the American aircrew, but most often they attack undefended targets, such as small Taliban enclaves. They're really a way to step around the diplomatic objection that accompany an airstrike involving manned US combat planes - for some reason there seems to be some distinction drawn in Washington that frankly eludes me.

The fact that the Obama Administration has used robots to kill US Citizens without trial -- when there were alternatives, and these persons were essentially propagandists and not armed combatants -- is a monster step toward a dark and uncertain future in America.

[Octafish]

35. CIA Increases Drone Killings of Pakistanis Who “Might be Militants”

Perhaps Washington defines "presence mission" as boots on the ground. Ike told Krushchev the U-2 was just an off-course weather research aircraft until the Soviets produced Francis Gary Powers. If all had gone to plan, and Powers had died and the wreckage rendered unidentifiable, we'd have had a real nice Red Scare just in time to help Nixon in the 1960 election.

What DUer TheStraightStory brought to our attention:

It's like events reflect the paranoid nightmare that our nation has become.

CIA Increases Drone Killings of Pakistanis Who “Might be Militants”

The slipperiest of slopes leads to the PHOENIX Program American Style.

[leveymg]

41. PHEONIX Program American Style - sounds like Chile post 9/11 1973 to me

The Generals called the 30,000 they rounded up and disappeared after their 9/11 "terrorists", too.

[Octafish]

42. Exact same authoritiarian fascist mindset responsible for both holds Democracy in contempt...

"The issues are too important for the Chilean people to decide for themselves," Henry Kissinger, the American 'architect' for overthrowing Chilean democracy, as well as his work to decommunize, desocialize and destabilize the Southern Cone for capital, said. "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people."

Which would bring us to Operation CONDOR, ehh, Drone Style.

Not that there's a connection other than the one through Langley, but it is weird how Kissinger is a consultant to President Obama and Blackwater/Xe is still involved in the Drone program.

[leveymg]

43. You know the old saying:

"If a terrorist lives long enough, he becomes a senior statesman." - e.g., Kissinger.

And as for Blackwater/Xe, it was always a proprietary created to (comfortably) safe house the 9/11 and UBL Unit executive operations officers who were too hot to keep in the Agency (Black, Buzzy, Rodriguez, etc.)

[Javaman]

36. When it's believed that someone shot at one.

just like the cops who claim they had to fire their rubber bullets and tear gas at the OWS protesters because they said bottles and rocks were thrown at them.

no proof is required. just the "word" of the cops.

the same will eventually happen with the drones.

we will hear some half ass half backed fabricated report of someone "shooting" at a drone. The next will be a strike in a "justified" retaliation.

we are dying.

[gratuitous]

39. Oh come on!

I have been assured repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that this is perfectly acceptable, even desireable behavior for the United States and people should just be more careful about who they pal around with. See, I used to think that that whole "due process" thingy in the Constituwhatchamacallit was the way to go, being the supreme law of the land and stuff, but thanks to fellow DUers, I now know that firing missiles indiscriminately at people is really the only way to ensure our national security and put those goddam terrorists on notice that the United States is not to be fucked with.

Maybe next time, al-Awlaki will be a little more careful in choosing his parents and where he goes abroad. As for al-Awlaki père, even though I hadn't heard of him before our faultless star-spangled fightin' men and women blew him to Kingdom Come, it apparently serves him right for crossing the mighty U. S. of A., and woe to anyone anywhere who bad-mouths the Red, White and Blue!