Government targeting of US citizens on American Soil

[Darias]

I personally believe this move by our administration verges on insanity and undoes progress we have made since 1215 CE.

I'm not a partisan person because I think parties aren't that much different from one another, but for those of you who are, I have provided the following sources:

For the right:

For the middle: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... t-doj-memo

For the left: http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-secur ... ed-killing

Questions for debate: Does the executive branch have the legal or moral authority to accuse US citizens of "terror/criminal related activities" and then execute them without due process? Is the Constitution obsolete, since the Patriot Act already allows the government to spy on Americans without warrant, and the NDAA of 2012 doesn't care about the right to trial by jury -- is this just the next logical step? Is this a slippery slope argument, or do historic trends of growing government power provide a legitimate reason for concern?

[Darias]

This is the issue where Libertarians fall flat on their face: National security. I would never put a Libertarian in charge of national security because their anti-government zealotry puts innocent lives in jeophardy.

So you eschew a more non-interventionist foreign policy for what we have now? Can you explain to me how everything our nation has done in the last 60 years or so has somehow not put American lives in jeopardy?

I'm sure you are aware of the growing anti-American sentiments in Pakistan and Yemen as the result of the high civilian casualties by our daily drone campaign there... do you not think that this is helping al-Qaida recruit those who lost everything to fight against us? How is that keeping us safer.

How was our decade long detour through Iraq supposed to keep us safer? And if you count non-American civilians among the innocent... how is over 100,000 civilian casualties worth a war we didn't have to fight?

In my view, a pro-active foreign policy of propping up dictators, invading nations and toppling the dictators that don't bow to our will -- this hostile foreign policy is what birthed terrorism to begin with -- and our current trajectory is paving the way for more 9/11s down the road.

Or are you one of those who think that "they hate us because they hate us and no wrongdoing on our part plays any part in that -- they are just born with hatred for America and they are jealous of our freedoms."

Seriously?

Your beloved neoconservative foreign policy created this problem of anti-Americanism. It fueled it. And the blowback from that has killed many Americans. History didn't start in 2001 WinePusher.

For example: The CIA and the UK assassinated Iran's prime minister, and we installed a king. We also shot down one of their passenger airliners and Bush said he would never apologize for America. None of them trust our "good intentions" and we made an enemy that we didn't have to. Now we have that regime to deal with.

I do believe the government sucks at alot of things, but defense and national security is not one of those. The first and foremost duty of a government is to protect the lives of their citizens, even if it means violating civil liberties and the constitution.

But when it comes to the Pentagon and the CIA, they are omniscient and never make mistakes. WinePusher, I know that you aren't that naive. Have you ever read about Operation Northwoods? The US was just about willing to do anything to attack Cuba.. including killing Americans indiscriminately as to rally support for an attack against Cuba.

Our government does a horrible job in everything, including foreign policy. And now the current administration is willing to kill us, in order to protect us.

The problem with your position is that when you give the government the authority to exceed its limits, then it gets to decide what the limits are -- and most of the time it doesn't. Obama said he wouldn't abuse his new power of indefinitely detaining Americans without a right to a trial but his word is meaningless as that power will fall to the next president.

Here's a very simple example. Let's say we have an American citizen who the CIA has deemed to be a co-conspirator in a terrorist plot...

Keyword "deemed." Not proven. This memo says they don't even need any evidence. All you need is an airhead politician and his willingness to kill anyone with a funny sounding name.

This sounds like one of those scenarios that never happen -- you got a terrorist bad guy who planted a nuke in New York City, so you have to pull out all his teeth to get him to tell you where it is.

I, because I care about human lives, would immediately seize him and search and seize anything on his property that I believe is of intelligence value (this would violate the 4th amendment). I would interrogate him, and if he was not giving information, I would not only waterboard him but I would torture the sh*t out of him if it was deemed necessary (this would violate the 8th amendment).

Yeah, who cares about innocent until proven guilty? Citizen Smitizen....

And even John McCain knows that torture is not an effective method of procuring intelligence. Who you torture will say anything you want to hear. Interestingly enough, torture is how we got the "key evidence" for the WMDs in Iraq. Effective my ___

And the outcome would be that I violated his civil liberties but I preserved human lives.

Well that's something you can tell yourself, but if he was innocent to begin with -- oops... your heart was in the right place though.

On the otherhand, a liberal or a libertarian would do the complete opposite. They would wait for a proper warrant before searching and seizing his property, they would give him the right to remain silent, etc. And the outcome would be that his civil liberties were preserved but human lives were lost.

The laws outlined by our Constitution are supposed to protect the innocent. What part about making one man judge jury and executioner is a bad idea do you not understand?

When you give government the permission to violate the Constitution whenever it wants, then there is no point in having one, because the laws won't do you any good if you are falsely accused.

I mean come on WinePusher. Normal law abiding people get put on the no-fly-list by accident all the time. Government makes mistakes... A lot of mistakes... how can you ignore that? Why do you trust it to the extent that you do?

I understand that liberals tend to have an abnormal superioty complex, and that they always strive to prove that they are better than others. And yea, following the constitution in a case like I presented above would prove America to be morally and ethically superior to other nations. But at what price and at what expense? I'm not willing to put peoples lives in jeophardy just so I can claim a moral highground.

Ad-hominems are a great way to support your argument. This has nothing to do with loving thy enemies when they have a gun to your head. This is all about law and rights -- both of which protect the innocent. If the government can just kill anything they perceive as a threat, then we can just do away with courts... just have executions. And don't worry about civilian casualties during war -- just nuke em.

And I also want to add that our rights aren't absolute. We have a first amendment that explicitly gurantees free speech, but people are not free to say whatever the hell they want. We have a second amendment that explicitly gurantees the right to own arms, but like I said this is not absolute. You can't own a nuclear or chemical weapon.

Free speech has always had some restrictions. But just because you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, it doesn't mean it's okay for government to decide whether or not you're allowed to speak. And just because that right was granted a long time ago, it doesn't mean you're restricted to a quill pen. And if you leave it to the sole discretion of the government, you won't be able to own any weapon. The nanny state will "protect us." It's all for our own good really. You think its reasonable to let the statists take away our AR-15s --- not because they rarely if ever are involved in a crime, nor because they are more dangerous (their bullets are actually less deadly than hand gun ammo) -- but because they look scarey. This will be a symbolic victory for the gun control folks, and just another step in the direction of banning handguns. And you're siding with them. Go ahead and give yourself a pat.

And the other rights in the Bill of Rights are the same, they are not absolutely binding under every single circumstance. The same case you've made can also be made about the First Amendment. When the Supreme Court began issuing decisions declaring it illegal to libel or slander people, the Darias' of the world were out there decrying it because they believed it would eventually lead to an erosion of all free speech,

In other countries, hate speech is criminalized. That sounds fine until you realize that government or the "moral" majority get to decide what constitutes improper speech. To criticize religion or government might put you in danger one day... it already does in other countries.

just like they believe that things like the NDAA, etc, will lead to an erosion of due process, etc.

I'm sorry, did you say lead? Have you read it? It doesn't lead to the erosion of due process, it renders it obsolete.

What part about "indefinite detention of American citizens without due process at the discretion of the President" do you not understand exactly? This is not a step towards a Constitutional violation. This is the end result. This is a reality. And any president can use it... any idiot that gets elected to that office can use it.

We still have the first amendment, and we still will have the 4th-8th amendments despite the NDAA, etc.

Oh we still have the Constitution in black and white. Some good it does us if laws are made to by pass our rights. Yes, we still have the 4th-8th amendments, until the government decides that we don't. You find solace in that logic?


Wonderful; I feel safer already.

At least we'll all be free to say whatever we want in solitary...

[otseng]

I would torture the sh*t out of him

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[WinePusher]

This is the issue where Libertarians fall flat on their face: National security. I would never put a Libertarian in charge of national security because their anti-government zealotry puts innocent lives in jeophardy.[/color]

So you eschew a more non-interventionist foreign policy for what we have now? Can you explain to me how everything our nation has done in the last 60 years or so has somehow not put American lives in jeopardy?

Sorry to break it to you, but we tried non interventionism and it didn't work. America assumed the responsibility as the world's leader after the world wars. Had America not assumed this responsibility, another nation would have and their outcomes and goals would be drastically different from our outcomes and goals. Our goal is very simple, to move the nations of the world towads political and economic freedom and the most politically unfree region of the world is the Middle East.

And I reject your premise that our foreign policy has somehow brought about terrorism. You seem to ignore a crucial component of terrorism, which is Islam. The real reason why "they hate us" is because of our way of life, and how our way of life is diametrically opposed to their extreme Islamic convictions.

I'm sure you are aware of the growing anti-American sentiments in Pakistan and Yemen as the result of the high civilian casualties by our daily drone campaign there... do you not think that this is helping al-Qaida recruit those who lost everything to fight against us? How is that keeping us safer.

And what would the alternative to drones be? Under your policies, we wouldn't be doing anything to obstruct terrorist activities in the Middle East. Under your policies we'd just be idly sitting around while Al-Qaida grew and grew. Tell me, do you really think that this extremist terrorist ideology would disapper if America simply withdrew its presense from the Middle East?

How was our decade long detour through Iraq supposed to keep us safer? And if you count non-American civilians among the innocent... how is over 100,000 civilian casualties worth a war we didn't have to fight?

Iraq was a threat to peace, plain and simple. Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait and used WMD's, and he continually violated UN security council resolutions. Had we not intervened and neutralized the threat in Iraq, Sadam Hussein would still have continued to pursure his ambitions for a Nuclear weapon and at this point would probably have one. Had we not invaded Iraq, the Middle East would be in far more turmoil and discord than it is today.

Or are you one of those who think that "they hate us because they hate us and no wrongdoing on our part plays any part in that -- they are just born with hatred for America and they are jealous of our freedoms."

You have a simplistic understanding of terrorism. There are two types of terrroists Darias, secular and religious. Timothy McVeigh would qualify as a secular terrorist, the people who blew up the World Trade Center were religious terrorist. Islamic terrorists do what they do because of their Islamic beliefs, not because of American Foreign Policy. I seriously hope you don't reject this fact.

But when it comes to the Pentagon and the CIA, they are omniscient and never make mistakes.

Your argument is trivial. Of course they make mistakes because they're human institutions. But their goal is to protect American lives, and if

]Here's a very simple example. Let's say we have an American citizen who the CIA has deemed to be a co-conspirator in a terrorist plot...[/color]

Keyword "deemed." Not proven. This memo says they don't even need any evidence. All you need is an airhead politician and his willingness to kill anyone with a funny sounding name.

Yup, there's the slippery slope. Because of this law we're going have the government arbitrarily killing people left and right . You're sounding like an Alex Jones, Jesse Ventura type. First of all, I argued refuted this because our rights are not absolute and binding under all circumstances. Again, if you had a terrorist suspect you wouldn't torture him for information? You would give him his right to silence and to an attorney? You would put thousands of lives in jeophardy just to prove that you're an ethical and moral person?

Yeah, who cares about innocent until proven guilty? Citizen Smitizen....

I certainly don't care about that if their is an imminent national security threat.

And even John McCain knows that torture is not an effective method of procuring intelligence. Who you torture will say anything you want to hear. Interestingly enough, torture is how we got the "key evidence" for the WMDs in Iraq. Effective my ___

Give me a break, your method is even more ineffective. In fact, your method is the most ineffective and careless method of all them all. How would you handle a national security crisis Darias? Would you read every single suspect their miranda rights, and give every single suspect an attorney and the right to silence? Would you wait for a court to convict them before interrogating them? Sorry, I can't stop rolling my eyes at your ludicrious ideas. This is why people like you are not trusted with national security and defense issues. Because you're willing to let innocent people die just to uphold civil liberities.

Well that's something you can tell yourself, but if he was innocent to begin with -- oops... your heart was in the right place though.

So how would you extract intelligence out of him? What's your alternative to my so called "method?"

[Darias]

My original reply was lost when my Firefox crashed. So this will be attempt 2. Please find time to read it all.

Sorry to break it to you, but we tried non interventionism and it didn't work. . .

The position of non-interventionists is not to create an isolationist republic, walled and moated. Most non-interventionists today look for ways we can scale back. Our debt problem will eventually make those decisions for us if we don’t learn how to get our national priorities in order. We cannot stick our fingers into every pie, even if the facts supported the neoconservative position that such a posture makes Americans safer (and it doesn’t) – our spending problem limits us whether we like it or not.

I don’t understand why neocons complain about being tasked with “policing the world� when our insistence on global hegemony creates that problem in the first place. Not allowing parts of the world to step up that can step up (just in terms of security alone) wastes our money and distracts us from effectively allocating our resources to defend the country and its citizens.

America assumed the responsibility as the world's leader after the world wars. Had America not assumed this responsibility, another nation would have and their outcomes and goals would be drastically different from our outcomes and goals.

America was not given a noble mission or a manifest destiny from on high. America simply found herself one of two superpowers in the bipolar world that emerged from WWII.

[center][/center]

Our goal is very simple, to move the nations of the world towads [sic.] political and economic freedom. . .

The policies that came out of the Cold War reflected that situation. Glorifying them after-the-fact doesn’t justify those policies. And maintaining those policies today, in a world headed towards multi-polarity, makes no sense whatsoever.

Let’s go ahead and get this straight: The foreign policy of the Cold War was more about securing hegemony and resources then it was about ideology and rhetoric; it still is. As for the Cold War, there are many cases where the United States supported dictatorial regimes and even Pol Pot for god’s sake – all to achieve its ends. We carried out assassinations, pointless wars, and McCarthyism – even funded and trained al-Qaida. And what defeated the Soviet Union? Monetary collapse, and pressure from within, not Reagan’s rhetoric.

Our government cared as much about political and economic freedom around the world as Obama cares about Constitutional rights for those he finds threatening. The fact was, as long as you sided with our nation, it didn’t matter how tyrannical your country was. And as long as you were perceived as being tolerant of the Soviet Union, it didn’t matter how free your country was.

and the most politically unfree region of the world is the Middle East.

And considering that the United States historically supported regimes in that region that didn’t care much for political or economic freedom, much less human rights – this should come as no surprise to you. Interestingly enough, according to Osama, US support of Middle Eastern regimes was one of his chief reasons for attacking our nation in the first place. Not pie, not baseball, not church – but this. When we were training and funding his mujahedeen against the invading soviets, Osama thought quite highly of us.

Mubarak, Saddam, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to name a few – and today the Saudi Kingdom, Bahrain, and the Yemeni government. Additionally, our unapologetic support for Israel, even when they use white phosphorous on Palestinians and put them in ghettos – well that never helped our image either. They don’t call us the “great Satan� for nothing.

And I reject your premise that our foreign policy has somehow brought about terrorism. You seem to ignore a crucial component of terrorism, which is Islam. The real reason why "they hate us" is because of our way of life, and how our way of life is diametrically opposed to their extreme Islamic convictions.

You’re welcome to reject the obvious. But I am not going to deny that radical Islamic ideology plays a part in terrorism; it’s especially helpful to terrorists when trying to creative a narrative in which the enemy is portrayed as evil incarnate and the other side is validated by god. If you can sell the message that America is at war with Islam and wants to destroy, subjugate, and steal from Muslims everywhere – you’re going to get recruits… especially if American reaction fulfills that characterization, as was the case with our invasion of Iraq. This is why Iraq was visited by thousands of foreign mujahedeen after our extensive bombing campaign and invasion. Can you fault them for thinking Osama’s message came true?

And what would the alternative to drones be? Under your policies, we wouldn't be doing anything to obstruct terrorist activities in the Middle East. Under your policies we'd just be idly sitting around while Al-Qaida grew and grew. Tell me, do you really think that this extremist terrorist ideology would disapper if America simply withdrew its presense from the Middle East?

You will find that most people who criticize the current way our drones are being utilized take issue with the double tap method. When the US classifies all males as potential militants, and fires at a target that is not identified – and then fires again upon first responders… well you end up with a lot of dead civilians… and nearly 200 children dead.

While it may be true that drone warfare is preferable to full scale bombing campaigns, invasions, and nation building, it does not mean that the current way we use drones is fine and has no consequences.

One of them is the fact that other nations are using them – Iran for example. Another consequence is putting gas on the fire of anti-Americanism. Killing a poppy farmer’s family in the middle of the night and destroying his house in the process is not going to win hearts and minds. If anything given the grossly irresponsible amount of civilian casualties, this sort of strategy actually has the effect of increasing support for al-Qaida, in recruits and donations. This is documented in Yemen and Pakistan.

I fear our improper use of drones has put a new face on America, and even if we severely reduced the number of innocents we kill – the terrorizing effect of the United States buzzing overhead, ready to kill you and your family creates an image that cannot be repaired with monetary re-imbursement or apology. The next generation of Americans will very likely be threatened by the surviving generation of Pakistanis and Yemenis who wish to take revenge on us.

If China had drones buzzing over our heads, Americans would go ape. Turns out treating other nations as you would want to be treated severely reduces anti-American sentiments. Installing and propping up dictators, suppressing protestors, patrolling their airspace, invading and bombing – none of that wins friends, or hearts, or minds.

My biggest fear now is that the damage has been done and it is too late to expect a less-heavy handed approach will produce desired results; why would the people we’ve been bombing suddenly sing our praises and thank us? No we’ve made our enemies and now our children have to live with them. But that doesn’t negate from the fact that interventionism led to terrorism, and how we’ve addressed the threat has only made it worse. Maybe we could defend ourselves without maximizing civilian deaths. Maybe we could defend ourselves by letting our allies build-up and pay for their own security; We don’t need thousands of troops and hundreds of bases in Europe anymore, and we don’t need NATO. Let Japan handle more security in its own region. Let’s save some money and save some blood. There’s no point in invading Iran, as that will be met with Russian and Chinese aggression. Let’s have a less idiotic foreign policy. Let’s have a better informed and more humane foreign policy. We don’t have to be angels, but let’s not become the “great Satan� they claim to fight against in the process.

Iraq was a threat to peace, plain and simple. Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait and used WMD's, and he continually violated UN security council resolutions. Had we not intervened and neutralized the threat in Iraq, Sadam Hussein would still have continued to pursure his ambitions for a Nuclear weapon and at this point would probably have one. Had we not invaded Iraq, the Middle East would be in far more turmoil and discord than it is today.

It’s usual to meet anyone who still justifies the Iraq war, let alone thinks it was the best move we ever made. Saddam Hussein was a close US ally, and we used his regime to offset Iranian power (and vice versa). He couldn’t have had chemical weapons without our help. He invaded Kuwait because he thought we had his back and wouldn’t retaliate against him. But the US doesn’t respond well to an invasion of an ally that’s an oil rich, strategic nation. The evidence that he still had chemical or nuclear weapons – or that he and Osama were buddies was non-existent and based solely on false confessions procured via torture. We sent thousands of our boys to die and we blasted 100,000 Iraqi civillians off the face of the planet – plus wasted billions of dollars to occupy and rebuild – all for a lie. The war was a pointless diversion, made only to project American hegemony in the region and to secure markets for oil companies. It’s called mercantilism. We postponed our war on terror for this goose chase.

You and McCain think you’re doing a service to our men and women by justifying their slaughter and mamming in the name of them “defending our freedoms� – trying to justify the surge after the fact… look at Iraq now. I wrote my senior thesis on Iraq. Their prime minister is trying to get all of his political rivals executed. Democracy my ___. The cute rhetoric of neocons and invasion apologists does nothing but insult the intelligence and sacrifice of our men and women. What sickens me the most is that most neocons never served themselves, like Newt Gingrich… but they’re never hesitant to send your sons off to die in another pointless campaign.

You have a simplistic understanding of terrorism. There are two types of terrroists Darias, secular and religious. Timothy McVeigh would qualify as a secular terrorist, the people who blew up the World Trade Center were religious terrorist. Islamic terrorists do what they do because of their Islamic beliefs, not because of American Foreign Policy. I seriously hope you don't reject this fact.

I have a simplistic view of terrorism, says the guy who doesn’t recognize the reality of overlap, such as those found in the IRA and al-Qaida. Read bin Laden’s letter to America, and you’ll find he has a lot of political grievances against our country. If we re-examined our posture and policies in the world, we would not be able to convince the most radical to lay down their arms, but we’d starve their organization of support from those who suffer from our actions. I don’t understand how this rationale escapes so many.

But when it comes to the Pentagon and the CIA, they are omniscient and never make mistakes.

Your argument is trivial. Of course they make mistakes because they're human institutions. But their goal is to protect American lives, and if [?]

Perhaps I used sarcasm to the point of straw manning your position… but I just don’t understand why you place so much faith and trust in this human institution yet are critical of the government in every other regard. Why are you setting the way in which we conduct our foreign policy and counter-terrorism on a pedestal? Why do you trust that those powers claimed by the DOJ for the president will always be used in a responsible way, knowing that most politicians are better at campaigning than knowing anything about the world? You could at least meet me half-way and understand why there’s cause for concern by my side.

Yup, there's the slippery slope. Because of this law we're going have the government arbitrarily killing people left and right . You're sounding like an Alex Jones, Jesse Ventura type. First of all, I argued refuted this because our rights are not absolute and binding under all circumstances. Again, if you had a terrorist suspect you wouldn't torture him for information? You would give him his right to silence and to an attorney? You would put thousands of lives in jeophardy just to prove that you're an ethical and moral person?

I don’t see this happening anytime soon. And I don’t care for the conspiracy types. I’m outraged by what the laws can do now, not by how they might be abused in the future. We already killed 3 Americans in separate drone strikes. One was a radical teacher, the other two were killed separately – one was 16 who did not share his dad’s views. And no one cares because he has an Arabic sounding name—greater good and all that.

Yeah, who cares about innocent until proven guilty? Citizen Smitizen....

certainly don't care about that if their is an imminent national security threat.

You failed to answer my question. How are they determined to be a national security threat? By what standard? Presidential whim? Our intel has been disastrously erroneous before, and it probably will be wrong again. Having this law in place puts more innocents at risk than your imaginary scenario does.

One things’ for sure, our policy of bombing, invading, locking up, drone bombing, and supporting dictators poses much more of a threat than your NCIS episode ever has. Thousands of Americans are dead because we thought being an empire would make us safer.

Give me a break, your method is even more ineffective. In fact, your method is the most ineffective and careless method of all them all. How would you handle a national security crisis Darias? Would you read every single suspect their miranda rights, and give every single suspect an attorney and the right to silence? Would you wait for a court to convict them before interrogating them? Sorry, I can't stop rolling my eyes at your ludicrious ideas. This is why people like you are not trusted with national security and defense issues. Because you're willing to let innocent people die just to uphold civil liberities.

The fact is, there are innocents held up in Guantanimo, and we have refused to try them in court. One of the grounds for keeping innocent people in there is that they would turn against us if we let them go – that’s the reasoning they gave for holding people like Moazzam Begg, who was eventually released by demands from the British government.

Innocents have also been tortured to death. Even when torture is used on known terrorists, it doesn’t lead to the truth. It’s about effective as getting honest conversions from an inquisition.

Guantanamo is a symbol that serves the propaganda of terrorists and spits in the face of our justice system. I’m not surprised Obama chose to leave it open given everything else he has done.

Again, my outrage about the NDAA is that it can be used to detain innocent people indefinitely… and not just anyone but Americans. Maybe not you or me, but probably a brown person with a funny name – hey let’s be honest if we’re gonna be honest. That still doesn’t make it right just because John Smith might not be targeted for an illegal arrest.

Again, which is more troubling, your carefree accepting attitude towards big government or my concern? Which attitude in reality has led to more anti-Americanism and American deaths? History points to yours.

[East of Eden]

I personally believe this move by our administration verges on insanity and undoes progress we have made since 1215 CE.

I'm not a partisan person because I think parties aren't that much different from one another, but for those of you who are, I have provided the following sources:

For the right:

For the middle: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... t-doj-memo

For the left: http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-secur ... ed-killing

Questions for debate: Does the executive branch have the legal or moral authority to accuse US citizens of "terror/criminal related activities" and then execute them without due process? Is the Constitution obsolete, since the Patriot Act already allows the government to spy on Americans without warrant, and the NDAA of 2012 doesn't care about the right to trial by jury -- is this just the next logical step? Is this a slippery slope argument, or do historic trends of growing government power provide a legitimate reason for concern?

I also have a problem with this policy towards American citizens. What would prevent a leftist POTUS from targeting Tea Party people, for example, or a right-wing one from going after the Occupy people, especially after one of their lawless binges?

As far as foreign terrorist combatants, IMHO they are not covered by the Geneva Convention, which means we have the right to waterboard the daylights out of them, and execute them, AFTER they cease to be useful.

[JohnPaul]

WinePusher wrote:

I certainly don't care about that if their is an imminent national security threat.

I recently heard a TV commentator say that the dismal state of American public education was a national security threat, because 75 percent of American young people now lacked even the basic education necessary for military service.

Perhaps we should waterboard school administrators to get to the bottom of this terrorist conspiracy?

[WinePusher]

My original reply was lost when my Firefox crashed. So this will be attempt 2. Please find time to read it all.

I'm not going to be able to give a full line by line rebuttal as I normally would because of constraints on my time, but I'll try to respond to your overall points. I'

The position of non-interventionists is not to create an isolationist republic, walled and moated. Most non-interventionists today look for ways we can scale back. Our debt problem will eventually make those decisions for us if we don’t learn how to get our national priorities in order. We cannot stick our fingers into every pie, even if the facts supported the neoconservative position that such a posture makes Americans safer (and it doesn’t) – our spending problem limits us whether we like it or not.

You don't need to explain non interventionism to me, I understand it quite fine. For example, if genocide is being committed in a particular country the non interventionist would just ignore it. Same thing with the proliferation of nuclear weapons by unstable, fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Just ignore it. No economic sanctions, no military interventions. Just leave them alone and they'll leave us alone .

And the so called "debt problem" you're bringing up is just false. We've fought wars on a much larger scale than we are fighting today. WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea and in the aftermath of those wars we didn't have horrible debt crisis'.

I don’t understand why neocons complain about being tasked with “policing the world� when our insistence on global hegemony creates that problem in the first place. Not allowing parts of the world to step up that can step up (just in terms of security alone) wastes our money and distracts us from effectively allocating our resources to defend the country and its citizens.

Actually Darias, I suggest you go study some history. If America created the problem of terrorism because of its aggresive foreign policy, then that means that terrorism would have came into existence after the fact. In simplier terms: Cause: American Foriegn Policy, Effect: Islamic Terrorism. American foreign policy causes Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately for you, history completely destroys your argument. The aggressive nature of Islam towards the west has existed long before America began interfering in the Middle East. In fact it began before America even existed as a country. Since the birth of Muhammed in the 600's Islamic nationals have constantly tried to expand through conquest and war. These tenants of Islam are rejected by the majority of Muslims, moderates, but are clearly still embraced by the radical Muslims, terrorists. We didn't create the problem, the problem has existed for over a thousands years.

America assumed the responsibility as the world's leader after the world wars. Had America not assumed this responsibility, another nation would have and their outcomes and goals would be drastically different from our outcomes and goals.

America was not given a noble mission or a manifest destiny from on high. America simply found herself one of two superpowers in the bipolar world that emerged from WWII.

You completely miss the point. Throughout the history of civilization there has always been one nation at the forefront. For most of human history that nation was Britain, now it's America. If America was not actively leading and engaging in foreign affairs, some other nation with some other ideology that isn't consistent with political and economic freedom would. I would rather have America as the world's superpower than the Soviet Union or China.

Our goal is very simple, to move the nations of the world towads [sic.] political and economic freedom. . .

The policies that came out of the Cold War reflected that situation. Glorifying them after-the-fact doesn’t justify those policies. And maintaining those policies today, in a world headed towards multi-polarity, makes no sense whatsoever.

Let’s go ahead and get this straight: The foreign policy of the Cold War was more about securing hegemony and resources then it was about ideology and rhetoric; it still is. As for the Cold War, there are many cases where the United States supported dictatorial regimes and even Pol Pot for god’s sake – all to achieve its ends. We carried out assassinations, pointless wars, and McCarthyism – even funded and trained al-Qaida. And what defeated the Soviet Union? Monetary collapse, and pressure from within, not Reagan’s rhetoric.

Our government cared as much about political and economic freedom around the world as Obama cares about Constitutional rights for those he finds threatening. The fact was, as long as you sided with our nation, it didn’t matter how tyrannical your country was. And as long as you were perceived as being tolerant of the Soviet Union, it didn’t matter how free your country was.

And considering that the United States historically supported regimes in that region that didn’t care much for political or economic freedom, much less human rights – this should come as no surprise to you.....

Mubarak, Saddam, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to name a few – and today the Saudi Kingdom, Bahrain, and the Yemeni government. Additionally, our unapologetic support for Israel, even when they use white phosphorous on Palestinians and put them in ghettos – well that never helped our image either. They don’t call us the “great Satan� for nothing.

I agree with part of this. I wouldn't be pumping billions of dollars of foreign aid into these countries, however, there is a difference between financially supporting a government (which I don't agree with) and being allied with a government because we share similiar goals. People, including you probably, were probably rejoicing at the sight of the Arab Spring. I wasn't one of those people. The uprising in Iran was a good thing because the Iranian regime is a clear threat. However, the Egyptian government wasn't. Mubarak was our ally. Yet Obama backs the mob in Egypt but ignores the mob in Iran.

And as for our image, well I really don't care about that. Do you know what would hurt our image even more? Distancing ourselves from Israel, condemning Israel, etc. Israel has no legitimacy has a state in the Middle East and negative American-Israeli relations would only strengthen that perception.

If China had drones buzzing over our heads, Americans would go ape. Turns out treating other nations as you would want to be treated severely reduces anti-American sentiments. Installing and propping up dictators, suppressing protestors, patrolling their airspace, invading and bombing – none of that wins friends, or hearts, or minds.

That's your problem. You're going to base your foreign policy on the golden rule? Give me a break. If China had drones buzzing overhead for no reason, and we simply taking out Americans for the fun of it then it would be outrageous. However, if America was a hive for terrorists who hated China, and if a group of American extremists blew up China's WTC, then it wouldn't be as outrageous for China to be doing that.

Iraq was a threat to peace, plain and simple. Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait and used WMD's, and he continually violated UN security council resolutions. Had we not intervened and neutralized the threat in Iraq, Sadam Hussein would still have continued to pursure his ambitions for a Nuclear weapon and at this point would probably have one. Had we not invaded Iraq, the Middle East would be in far more turmoil and discord than it is today.

It’s usual to meet anyone who still justifies the Iraq war, let alone thinks it was the best move we ever made.

No, it's actually unusual to think that Iraq wasn't a threat to the US, and that Sadam Hussein wouldn't still be trying to create nukes if we hadn't taken him out. I'm not saying it's the best thing, it obviously turned out to be wrong. But what I am saying is that turning a blind eye to Iraq, just like what you want us to do with Iran, would be even worse.

Saddam Hussein was a close US ally, and we used his regime to offset Iranian power (and vice versa). He couldn’t have had chemical weapons without our help. He invaded Kuwait because he thought we had his back and wouldn’t retaliate against him.

This is really just your biased opinion. I am merely using Kuwait as an example to show that Sadam Hussein was a threat, a real an imminent threat. Many people today fear Iran, well at the time Iraq was ten times as worse. Iran hasn't invaded another country, Iran hasn't visibly used chemical weapons. Iraq was a real threat, will you just admit that?

I don’t see this happening anytime soon. And I don’t care for the conspiracy types. I’m outraged by what the laws can do now, not by how they might be abused in the future. We already killed 3 Americans in separate drone strikes. One was a radical teacher, the other two were killed separately – one was 16 who did not share his dad’s views. And no one cares because he has an Arabic sounding name—greater good and all that.

Well you actually are engaging in some type of pseudo conspiracy theory because you fear that the government will begin taking out citizens at random without any precaution. We're talking about a particular branch of government, the CIA and the Defense. You nor I understand the internal workings of these agencies. We only see the visible failures, but we don't see the successes because they are invisible. We took out 3 Americans who the CIA believed we threats, but what we don't see is the lives that are saved because of that action.

You failed to answer my question. How are they determined to be a national security threat? By what standard? Presidential whim? Our intel has been disastrously erroneous before, and it probably will be wrong again. Having this law in place puts more innocents at risk than your imaginary scenario does.

At the whim of the CIA and other intelligence officials.

[Untraveled Trail]

Some very interesting and important points have been made so far. I do not believe the executive branch, or any other branch of government, should have the right or moral authority to execute/kill a person without due process. Throughout our two hundred plus year history numerous Presidents have exercised questionable authority in difficult circumstances. Under the Bush Administration's the policies to practice torture as "enhanced interrogation" we began traversing a slippery slope. Supposedly, torture is no longer acceptable but are we and the world any better off under the Obama Administration's policy of taking out people without due process?

Obama's record has revealed he is significantly more aggressive on terror than Bush... to the point of alienating and angering allies. But what I find interesting (and tragic) is that many people are so focused on Obama's Party affiliation and our economic situation that they hardly give his actions on terrorism a thought. And if they do, quite often they see no problem with denying due process to persons labeled "terrorist". Taking them out without due process saves the taxpayers money. They fail to make the connection towards a totalitarian ideology... that is, unless mention is made of gun control. Then all hell breaks loose.

[WinePusher]

My original reply was lost when my Firefox crashed. So this will be attempt 2. Please find time to read it all.

I'm not going to be able to give a full, concise line by line rebuttal as I normally would because of constraints on my time, but I'll try to respond to your overall points.

The position of non-interventionists is not to create an isolationist republic, walled and moated. Most non-interventionists today look for ways we can scale back. Our debt problem will eventually make those decisions for us if we don’t learn how to get our national priorities in order. We cannot stick our fingers into every pie, even if the facts supported the neoconservative position that such a posture makes Americans safer (and it doesn’t) – our spending problem limits us whether we like it or not.

You don't need to explain non interventionism to me, I understand it quite fine. For example, if genocide is being committed in a particular country the non interventionist would just ignore it. Same thing with the proliferation of nuclear weapons by unstable, fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Just ignore it. No economic sanctions, no military interventions. Just leave them alone and they'll leave us alone .

And the so called "debt problem" you're bringing up is just false. We've fought wars on a much larger scale than we are fighting today. WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea and in the aftermath of those wars we didn't have horrible debt crisis'.

I don’t understand why neocons complain about being tasked with “policing the world� when our insistence on global hegemony creates that problem in the first place. Not allowing parts of the world to step up that can step up (just in terms of security alone) wastes our money and distracts us from effectively allocating our resources to defend the country and its citizens.

Actually Darias, I suggest you go study some history. If America created the problem of terrorism because of its aggresive foreign policy, then that means that terrorism would have came into existence after the fact. In simplier terms: Cause: American Foriegn Policy, Effect: Islamic Terrorism. American foreign policy causes Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately for you, history completely destroys your argument. The aggressive nature of Islam towards the west has existed long before America began interfering in the Middle East. In fact it began before America even existed as a country. Since the birth of Muhammed in the 600's Islamic nationals have constantly tried to expand through conquest and war. These tenants of Islam are rejected by the majority of Muslims, moderates, but are clearly still embraced by the radical Muslims, terrorists. We didn't create the problem, the problem has existed for over a thousands years.

America assumed the responsibility as the world's leader after the world wars. Had America not assumed this responsibility, another nation would have and their outcomes and goals would be drastically different from our outcomes and goals.

America was not given a noble mission or a manifest destiny from on high. America simply found herself one of two superpowers in the bipolar world that emerged from WWII.

You completely miss the point. Throughout the history of civilization there has always been one nation at the forefront. For most of human history that nation was Britain, now it's America. If America was not actively leading and engaging in foreign affairs, some other nation with some other ideology that isn't consistent with political and economic freedom would. I would rather have America as the world's superpower than the Soviet Union or China.

Our goal is very simple, to move the nations of the world towads [sic.] political and economic freedom. . .

The policies that came out of the Cold War reflected that situation. Glorifying them after-the-fact doesn’t justify those policies. And maintaining those policies today, in a world headed towards multi-polarity, makes no sense whatsoever.

Let’s go ahead and get this straight: The foreign policy of the Cold War was more about securing hegemony and resources then it was about ideology and rhetoric; it still is. As for the Cold War, there are many cases where the United States supported dictatorial regimes and even Pol Pot for god’s sake – all to achieve its ends. We carried out assassinations, pointless wars, and McCarthyism – even funded and trained al-Qaida. And what defeated the Soviet Union? Monetary collapse, and pressure from within, not Reagan’s rhetoric.

Our government cared as much about political and economic freedom around the world as Obama cares about Constitutional rights for those he finds threatening. The fact was, as long as you sided with our nation, it didn’t matter how tyrannical your country was. And as long as you were perceived as being tolerant of the Soviet Union, it didn’t matter how free your country was.

Communism was the antithesis of freedom, Islamic radicalism is also the antithesis of freedom. The United States has always been hostile and opposed to nations and groups who promote ideologies that do not coincide with freedom. And our constitutional rights are not absolute. Free Speech is not absolute, the right to own guns is not absolute, and neither is the right to due process, etc. While I consider myself a libertarian in many ways, I am not a libertarian zealot. I understand that my rights end at the point where your rights begin. People have an inalienable right to life, and if my rights to due process and just criminal proceedings puts their right to life in jeophardy then my rights have to end.

And considering that the United States historically supported regimes in that region that didn’t care much for political or economic freedom, much less human rights – this should come as no surprise to you.....

Mubarak, Saddam, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to name a few – and today the Saudi Kingdom, Bahrain, and the Yemeni government. Additionally, our unapologetic support for Israel, even when they use white phosphorous on Palestinians and put them in ghettos – well that never helped our image either. They don’t call us the “great Satan� for nothing.

I agree with part of this. I wouldn't be pumping billions of dollars of foreign aid into these countries, however, there is a difference between financially supporting a government (which I don't agree with) and being allied with a government because we share similiar goals. People, including you probably, were probably rejoicing at the sight of the Arab Spring. I wasn't one of those people. The uprising in Iran was a good thing because the Iranian regime is a clear threat. However, the Egyptian government wasn't. Mubarak was our ally. Yet Obama backs the mob in Egypt but ignores the mob in Iran.

And as for our image, well I really don't care about that. Do you know what would hurt our image even more? Distancing ourselves from Israel, condemning Israel, etc. Israel has no legitimacy has a state in the Middle East and negative American-Israeli relations would only strengthen that perception.

If China had drones buzzing over our heads, Americans would go ape. Turns out treating other nations as you would want to be treated severely reduces anti-American sentiments. Installing and propping up dictators, suppressing protestors, patrolling their airspace, invading and bombing – none of that wins friends, or hearts, or minds.

That's your problem. You're going to base your foreign policy on the golden rule? Give me a break. If China had drones buzzing overhead for no reason, and we simply taking out Americans for the fun of it then it would be outrageous. However, if America was a hive for terrorists who hated China, and if a group of American extremists blew up China's WTC, then it wouldn't be as outrageous for China to be doing that.

Iraq was a threat to peace, plain and simple. Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait and used WMD's, and he continually violated UN security council resolutions. Had we not intervened and neutralized the threat in Iraq, Sadam Hussein would still have continued to pursure his ambitions for a Nuclear weapon and at this point would probably have one. Had we not invaded Iraq, the Middle East would be in far more turmoil and discord than it is today.

It’s usual to meet anyone who still justifies the Iraq war, let alone thinks it was the best move we ever made.

No, it's actually unusual to think that Iraq wasn't a threat to the US, and that Sadam Hussein wouldn't still be trying to create nukes if we hadn't taken him out. I'm not saying it's the best thing, it obviously turned out to be wrong. But what I am saying is that turning a blind eye to Iraq, just like what you want us to do with Iran, would be even worse.

Saddam Hussein was a close US ally, and we used his regime to offset Iranian power (and vice versa). He couldn’t have had chemical weapons without our help. He invaded Kuwait because he thought we had his back and wouldn’t retaliate against him.

This is really just your biased opinion. I am merely using Kuwait as an example to show that Sadam Hussein was a threat, a real an imminent threat. Many people today fear Iran, well at the time Iraq was ten times as worse. Iran hasn't invaded another country, Iran hasn't visibly used chemical weapons. Iraq was a real threat, will you just admit that?

I don’t see this happening anytime soon. And I don’t care for the conspiracy types. I’m outraged by what the laws can do now, not by how they might be abused in the future. We already killed 3 Americans in separate drone strikes. One was a radical teacher, the other two were killed separately – one was 16 who did not share his dad’s views. And no one cares because he has an Arabic sounding name—greater good and all that.

Well you actually are engaging in some type of pseudo conspiracy theory because you fear that the government will begin taking out citizens at random without any precaution. We're talking about a particular branch of government, the CIA and the Defense. You nor I understand the internal workings of these agencies. We only see the visible failures, but we don't see the successes because they are invisible. We took out 3 Americans who the CIA believed we threats, but what we don't see is the lives that are saved because of that action.

You failed to answer my question. How are they determined to be a national security threat? By what standard? Presidential whim? Our intel has been disastrously erroneous before, and it probably will be wrong again. Having this law in place puts more innocents at risk than your imaginary scenario does.

At the whim of the CIA and other intelligence officials.

[Darias]

I also have a problem with this policy towards American citizens. What would prevent a leftist POTUS from targeting Tea Party people, for example, or a right-wing one from going after the Occupy people, especially after one of their lawless binges?

As far as foreign terrorist combatants, IMHO they are not covered by the Geneva Convention, which means we have the right to waterboard the daylights out of them, and execute them, AFTER they cease to be useful.

To answer your questions, once a legal precedent has been set: Nothing and Nothing.

I think you might appreciate my position further when you take your concern for American citizens being falsely labeled as "threats" or potential "terrorists" by the government -- and apply equal skepticism to our government when it labels brown people with funny names as "militants" and "terrorists." Or when it labels one side of a civil war a "terrorist group." One nation's terrorists are another's freedom fighters -- regardless of who has the moral high ground, that's just the way the world works. Russia sees Syria as a government assaulted by radical Islamic terrorists and the US sees Syria as a government that terrorizes and kills off its own people.

Our government has made many mistakes in the past, locking up innocents at Guantanimo, killing innocent teens and children (American and non-American alike). The fact that government makes mistakes so often is the biggest reason I am appalled by the recent DOJ memo. Otherwise we must assume that the government knows what they are doing and never makes mistakes -- and we both know quite the opposite is true.

Of course I am not saying we should send actual terrorists hugs and kisses. I know that there are people out there who intend to kill us; I don't oppose defending ourselves -- but I would like it if our government at least tried to spare more innocents from being lost. You can't bomb a militant's house and then nuke the whole neighborhood because the neighbors might become potentially hostile towards us in the future. The double tap method must end. The kill first, confirm identity later must end. It's just a counter productive policy and it's making more terrorists than it's eliminating. And that's precisely why it's dumb.