Obama’s private war

[Geee]

Washington Times:

Did you know the U.S. government is using drones to kill innocent people in Pakistan? Did you know the Pakistani government has asked President Obama to stop it and he won’t? Did you know Pakistan is a sovereign country that has nuclear weapons and is an American ally?

Last week, the Obama administration not only acknowledged the use of the drones, it also revealed that it has plans to increase the frequency and ferocity of the attacks. White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan argued that the attacks are “in full accordance with the law” and are not likely to be stopped anytime soon.

Mr. Brennan declined to say how many people were killed or just where the killings took place or who is doing them. But we know Mr. Obama has a morbid fascination with his plastic killing machines, and we know that those machines are among the favored tools of the CIA. We also know that if the president had been using the military to do this, he’d be legally compelled to reveal it to Congress and eventually to seek permission.

We know about the need to tell Congress and ask for permission because of the War Powers Act. This law, enacted in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, permits the president to use the military for 90 days before telling Congress and for 180 days before he needs congressional authorization. Mr. Obama must think he can bypass this law by using civilian CIA agents, rather than uniformed military, to do his killing.

The Constitution limits the presidential use of war powers to those necessary for an immediate defense of the United States or those exercised pursuant to a valid congressional declaration of war. In the case of Pakistan, the president has neither. International law prohibits entering a sovereign country without its consent. But Mr. Brennan argued that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which Congress enacted in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to enable President George W. Bush to pursue the perpetrators, is essentially carte blanche for any president to kill whomever he wants. The use of drones, rather than using the military or arresting those the government thinks have conspired to harm us, is a “surgical” technique that safeguards the innocent.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. made a similar unconstitutional argument a few months ago when he stated in defense of the president’s use of drones to kill Americansin Yemen that the AUMF, plus the careful consideration that the White House gives to the dimensions of each killing and the culpability of each person killed, somehow satisfied the Constitution’s requirements for due process.

What monstrous nonsense all this is.

[Draggingtree]

I am sorry the Judge has gone on to being a bleeding heart.