Targeted Killings

Bringing American Values to Far-Flung Places

December 7, 2010

Dear President Obama,

We write to ask that your administration provide greater clarity about its legal rationale for targeted killings, including the use of Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems (drones), and the procedural safeguards it is taking to minimize harm to civilians.

US history shows that once such a program is initiated, even if in response to a specific contingency like the threat posed by al Qaeda in Yemen, it generally becomes a permanent feature of the national security landscape. You will not be the last US president to claim the authority to conduct such strikes...

(What has happened to the "weblog entry" page? I'm quite confused here.  All the commands have disappeared.)

This is how he sounded, all those years ago.

Jeudi après-midi, je vais me pacser avec la BCV.  Lundi après-midi, nous allons nous pacser avec la maison à Moudon.

J'espère que ce ménage à trois sera aussi long et heureux que mon union libre avec Sh. (qui continue, bien entendu).

(Good luck figuring this one out, M. Bigglesworth.)

[A]nyone of learning, and eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed by rampaging mobs, who proudly took on the name of "Simpletons". Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were destroyed en masse.

(A Canticle for Leibowitz)

Sarah Palin yesterday called for the founder of WikiLeaks to be tracked down as if he were a terrorist.

The former Alaska governor – tipped to run for President in 2012 – said Julian Assange, 39, had blood on his hands. In a Facebook rant she said: “He should be hunted like Osama bin Laden.”

The Daily Mirror

This morning the Illinois House Judiciary Committee voted 4 to 3 to pass SB 3539 – the death penalty repeal bill.

We shall see how far it gets.

The incoming chairman of the US House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee says Wikileaks should be officially designated as a terrorist organization.