Just look at this couple. Look at the guy, with that charming smile. How can anybody not trust him to always do what is right.
And that is the rub, a big part of me thinks it must be right if Obama did it instead of looking at it objectively. For the first time, I am starting to understand why otherwise sane Republicans overlook Bush’s many flaws. Like I look – or, maybe, overlook is more accurate – at Obama’s ordering of Drone Strikes backwards, they must do the same with Bush’s overspending.
I read where one of the mothers of the children killed at Newtown wanted her son shown in an open casket at his funeral service. She wanted people to actually see the damage that a modern assault rifle causes: the child’s face half missing, his left hand almost gone (the weapon used is designed to cause as much damage as possible, the damage is not collateral, it is the point). I think we should do the same with drone strikes.
The strike above killed 12 civilians – three were children – on their way back from the market. According to Yemeni paper that printed this picture, The villagers who rushed to the road, cutting through rocky fields in central Yemen, found the dead strewn around a burning sport utility vehicle. The bodies were dusted with white powder — flour and sugar, the witnesses said — that the victims were bringing home from market when the aircraft attacked. A torched woman clutched her daughter in a lifeless embrace. Four severed heads littered the pavement. I think that this should be in The New York Times, I think that it should be on television.
Obama ran on transparency, or – at least – that is what I most resonated with. I didn’t think that he was going to be a wild eyed liberal but I thought that he would be more transparent than the Bush Administration. I did think we would get away from the Under Siege mentality that justified The Patriot Act – what a hypocritical name! – that justified torture: I did not think we would get an administration that would deny – for a year – even the existence of a paper authorizing the killing of Americans. It never occurred to me that we would get an administration that says it has the right to kill Americans without a trial, or even a hearing, or even a judicial second opinion. An administration that issues a white paper that says: Were the target of a lethal operation a U.S citizen who may have rights under the Due Process Clause and the Fourth Amendment, that individual’s citizenship would not immunize from a lethal operation. An administration that uses that kind of Orwellian language to hide what is really going on. That wants to keep the lid on the casket.
The Obama Administration is saying We have the power – the legal right – to kill anybody we want without a trial. Trust us we won’t abuse that power. I do trust them, but I didn’t trust Chaney and that is a problem. We are supposed to be a nation ruled bu Law not the decision, no matter how well considered, of one man. Even if if that one man is Barrak Obama.
