WHAT THE FUCKBALLS
NBC has a leaked Justice Dept. memo that talks about drone strikes on Americans. Specifically, it outlines the legal contortions necessary to totally ignore the Constitution and the law and let the president murderize anybody he feels like killing at a given time. Spoiler alert: apparently "imminent" doesn't actually mean "imminent." And assassination isn't assassination! Why?
"A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination...a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban."
BECAUSE OF REASONS.
The whole thing is just fucking absurd. It claims that court cases that say that under some circumstances, a police officer can be justified in shooting a dangerous suspect actually justify the drone program. Because shooting an armed suspect fleeing from a police officer is totally analagous to blowing up the suspect's house with a drone. That's like if the Supreme Court said if an officer had probable cause to believe a person had a gun in their house and might be thinking about using it on someone could go to the suspect's house in the middle of the night and burn it down. Except the Supreme Court would never say that, because it is insane.
The whole point of HAVING a Bill of Rights is to lay out those rights which are absolutely inviolable. Yet somehow, actions such as murdering someone who has never been charged with a crime or subjected to any legal proceeding, who may in fact have never actually done anything wrong but only *thought* about it, becomes okay when the murder victim has brown skin and/or an Arab-sounding name. Because Al Qaeda!
I just. I can't even. I'm so angry and disgusted. It's not like I was unaware this was going on. But seeing all this bullshit laid out this way....it's almost more offensive to me to than if the Obama administration wasn't trying to justify it at all. Like it's not bad enough to do something that's objectively horrible and illegal and immoral by any possible standard, you have to try to convince us it ISN'T horrible and illegal. It's not enough to tell us that Oceania is at war with Eurasia, you have to insist that Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.
The Rude Pundit has more.
"A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination...a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban."
BECAUSE OF REASONS.
The whole thing is just fucking absurd. It claims that court cases that say that under some circumstances, a police officer can be justified in shooting a dangerous suspect actually justify the drone program. Because shooting an armed suspect fleeing from a police officer is totally analagous to blowing up the suspect's house with a drone. That's like if the Supreme Court said if an officer had probable cause to believe a person had a gun in their house and might be thinking about using it on someone could go to the suspect's house in the middle of the night and burn it down. Except the Supreme Court would never say that, because it is insane.
The whole point of HAVING a Bill of Rights is to lay out those rights which are absolutely inviolable. Yet somehow, actions such as murdering someone who has never been charged with a crime or subjected to any legal proceeding, who may in fact have never actually done anything wrong but only *thought* about it, becomes okay when the murder victim has brown skin and/or an Arab-sounding name. Because Al Qaeda!
I just. I can't even. I'm so angry and disgusted. It's not like I was unaware this was going on. But seeing all this bullshit laid out this way....it's almost more offensive to me to than if the Obama administration wasn't trying to justify it at all. Like it's not bad enough to do something that's objectively horrible and illegal and immoral by any possible standard, you have to try to convince us it ISN'T horrible and illegal. It's not enough to tell us that Oceania is at war with Eurasia, you have to insist that Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.
The Rude Pundit has more.