Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Glenn Greenwald on Obama's License to Kill Americans

I frankly disagree with much of the analysis here, although Greenwald's moral outrage is always a riot, "Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens." This part is very good, regardless:
When the New York Times back in April, 2010 first confirmed the existence of Obama's hit list, it made clear just what an extremist power this is, noting: "It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing." The NYT quoted a Bush intelligence official as saying "he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president". When the existence of Obama's hit list was first reported several months earlier by the Washington Post's Dana Priest, she wrote that the "list includes three Americans".

What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch - with no checks or oversight of any kind - but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president's underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president - at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as "Terror Tuesday" - then chooses from "baseball cards" and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark.
I didn't have time, but I would've loved to post all the progressive hypocrisy on the administration's murderous, unprecedented executive tyranny. As I always say, leftist don't care about liberty. They care about power. We should have long ago seen protests up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, calling for Obama war crimes trials at the Hague. But that only happens when a Republican's in the White House. The moral bankruptcy is just stunning.

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