Re: Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will

yes, he's a college snot, whoop his ass good

imitate his style

beat him at his own game of being vague

On 5/29/12, OccupySpring <soprano.olivia07@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lynn hates me, should I care? :o)
>
> On May 29, 5:12 pm, EARL DOYLE <lesjul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> A few sharp-eyed observers inside and outside the government
>> understood what the public did not. Without showing his hand, Mr.
>> Obama had preserved three major policies — rendition, military
>> commissions and indefinite detention — that have been targets of human
>> rights groups since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
>>
>> But a year later, with Congress trying to force him to try all
>> terrorism suspects using revamped military commissions, he deployed
>> his legal skills differently — to preserve trials in civilian courts.
>>
>> The president "seems to think that if he gives terrorists the rights
>> of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights,
>> we won't be at war," former Vice President Dick Cheney charged
>>
>> F.B.I. agents had questioned Mr. Abdulmutallab for 50 minutes and
>> gained valuable intelligence before giving him the warning. They had
>> relied on a 1984 case called New York v. Quarles, in which the Supreme
>> Court ruled that statements made by a suspect in response to urgent
>> public safety questions — the case involved the location of a gun —
>> could be introduced into evidence even if the suspect had not been
>> advised of the right to remain silent.
>>
>> That same mind-set would be brought to bear as the president
>> intensified what would become a withering campaign to use unmanned
>> aircraft to kill Qaeda terrorists.
>>
>> It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting
>> civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts
>> all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to
>> several administration officials, unless there is explicit
>> intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.
>>
>> Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple
>> logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a
>> top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. "Al Qaeda is an
>> insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don't hitchhike
>> rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and
>> bombs," said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what
>> is still a classified program.
>>
>> This counting method may partly explain the official claims of
>> extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr.
>> Brennan, Mr. Obama's trusted adviser, said that not a single
>> noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent
>> interview, a senior administration official said that the number of
>> civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in
>> the "single digits" — and that independent counts of scores or
>> hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda
>> claims by militants.
>>
>> But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials
>> expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A.
>> accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the
>> agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One
>> called it "guilt by association" that has led to "deceptive" estimates
>> of civilian casualties.
>>
>> It was not only Mr. Obama's distaste for legislative backslapping and
>> arm-twisting, but also part of a deeper pattern, said an
>> administration official who has watched him closely: the president
>> seemed to have "a sense that if he sketches a vision, it will happen —
>> without his really having thought through the mechanism by which it
>> will happen."
>>
>> Asked what surprised him most about Mr. Obama, Mr. Donilon, the
>> national security adviser, answered immediately: "He's a president who
>> is quite comfortable with the use of force on behalf of the United
>> States."
>>
>> On 5/29/12, Leader of 71 <lesjul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
>> > <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www...>
>>
>> > ------------------------------
>> > May 29, 2012
>> > Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and WillBy JO
>> > BECKER<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/jo_becke...>
>> > and SCOTT
>> > SHANE<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/scott_sh...>
>>
>> > WASHINGTON — This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the
>> > intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties.
>> > The
>> > mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook
>> > layout.
>> > Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked
>> > even younger than her 17 years.
>>
>> > President
>> > Obama<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_o...>,
>>
>> > overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen
>> > security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment to
>> > study the faces. It was Jan. 19, 2010, the end of a first year in
>> > office
>> > punctuated by terrorist plots and culminating in a brush with
>> > catastrophe
>> > over Detroit on Christmas Day, a reminder that a successful attack
>> > could
>> > derail his presidency. Yet he faced adversaries without uniforms, often
>> > indistinguishable from the civilians around them.
>>
>> > "How old are these people?" he asked, according to two officials
>> > present.
>> > "If they are starting to use children," he said of Al
>> > Qaeda<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/a...>,
>>
>> > "we are moving into a whole different phase."
>>
>> > It was not a theoretical question: Mr. Obama has placed himself at the
>> > helm
>>
>> > of a top secret "nominations" process to designate terrorists for kill
>> > or
>> > capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He
>> > had
>> > vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the
>> > chart,
>> > introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order,
>> > underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.
>>
>> > Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq
>> > war
>> > and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an
>> > expanding
>> > "kill list," poring over terrorist suspects' biographies on what one
>> > official calls the macabre "baseball cards" of an unconventional war.
>> > When
>> > a rare opportunity for a
>> > drone<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/unmann...>
>> > strike
>> > at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the
>> > president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
>>
>> > "He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and
>> > wide
>> > these operations will go," said Thomas E. Donilon, his national
>> > security
>> > adviser. "His view is that he's responsible for the position of the
>> > United
>> > States in the world." He added, "He's determined to keep the tether
>> > pretty
>> > short."
>>
>> > Nothing else in Mr. Obama's first term has baffled liberal supporters
>> > and
>> > confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive
>> > counterterrorism
>> > record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by
>> > awkward
>> > secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president's own
>> > deep
>> > reserve.
>>
>> > In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and
>> > former advisers described Mr. Obama's evolution since taking on the
>> > role,
>> > without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the
>> > shadow war with Al Qaeda.
>>
>> > They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative
>> > deal-making
>> > required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but
>> > approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant
>> > about
>> > narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he
>> > has
>> > followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he
>> > applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to
>> > enable,
>> > not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it
>> > comes
>>
>> > to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told
>> > colleagues was "an easy one."
>>
>> > His first term has seen private warnings from top officials about a
>> > "Whac-A-Mole" approach to counterterrorism; the invention of a new
>> > category
>>
>> > of aerial attack following complaints of careless targeting; and
>> > presidential acquiescence in a formula for counting civilian deaths
>> > that
>> > some officials think is skewed to produce low numbers.
>>
>> > The administration's failure to forge a clear detention policy has
>> > created
>> > the impression among some members of Congress of a take-no-prisoners
>> > policy. And Mr. Obama's ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron P. Munter, has
>> > complained to colleagues that the
>> > C.I.A.<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/c...>'s
>>
>> > strikes drive American policy there, saying "he didn't realize his main
>> > job
>>
>> > was to kill people," a colleague said.
>>
>> > Beside the president at every step is his counterterrorism adviser, John
>> > O.
>>
>> > Brennan, who is variously compared by colleagues to a dogged police
>> > detective, tracking terrorists from his cavelike office in the White
>> > House
>> > basement, or a priest whose blessing has become indispensable to Mr.
>> > Obama,
>>
>> > echoing the president's attempt to apply the "just war" theories of
>> > Christian philosophers to a brutal modern conflict.
>>
>> > But the strikes that have eviscerated Al Qaeda — just since April,
>> > there
>> > have been 14 in Yemen, and 6 in Pakistan — have also tested both men's
>> > commitment to the principles they have repeatedly said are necessary to
>> > defeat the enemy in
>>
>> ...
>>
>> read more »
>
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