…of the distinguished gentleman from Georgia:
I support killing bad guys with drones overseas. Hell, I’m okay with killing bad guys in the United States with drones if they are about to cause imminent harm. But the administration’s standard was far too nebulous. It is opposed by a majority of Americans. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, and others who are okay with drone attacks on bad guys supported Rand Paul because Paul found the sliver of ground on which they could all be opposed to an Obama Administration policy.
– My colleague Erick Erickson, over at RedState. As most of you know, I self-identify as ‘neoconservative:’ and my major problem with Barack Obama’s foreign policy is that he’s trying to do what he thinks George W Bush would do under the same circumstances, only he’s not very competent even at that. But I loved watching that filibuster. It was utterly guilt-free; I’m aware of Rand Paul’s likely defense stances, but he managed to keep the debate framed in terms that I could accept without quibbling. And then he made the administration give way on a point.
That last point is important: because the last time I checked neither, say, John McCain and/or Lindsey Graham (who I don’t actually particularly dislike) have done as well lately.
Moe Lane
PS: I think that the time has come for Senator McCain to announce that this will be his last term in office.
Due process matters.
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Mew
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p.s. I agree that this should be McCain’s last term. I do not much care whether the doddering fool once known as maverick agrees.
I think I’m in agreement with you on this one, Moe. Although, what the White House should have said was something along the lines of, “The responsibility to make decisions like that is mine, as Commander-in-Chief, subject to certain restrictions like the Posse Comitatus act. I hope to always make the right decisions here, but ultimately it is my responsibility, and it is a grave one, to make those calls. And it will be the responsibility of the Congress to impeach and convict me and remove me from office if I make them unwisely.” But that would have required a level of wisdom not present in the current administration.
Moe, I don’t think you are a neoconservative anymore.
A substantive argument; alas, too substantive for my use of the term, which is largely meant by me to be grit on the exposed soul of the Antiwar Left. 🙂
I see. *rolleyes*
The thing with McCain is that he was seldom a maverick when the Republicans were wrong on an issue and almost always a maverick when they were right.
As for Graham, I just wish he would use his many talents on his actual political enemies more often. I think is IFF is busted.
I must sincerely beg to differ.
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I have few quibbles with Seantor Paul’s speech. What I saw of it was, by and large, sound. One issue is the ‘bad people’ and ‘deserves to die’ alternate standards. Rightfully, Paul recognized that this issue was outside of his core argument, and could be legitimately neglected. However, the more correct standard is the interests and needs of America and the Constitution. ‘Do these people need to die or be killed in order to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America?’ His core argument is right and proper. An otherwise correct killing will be wrong if the wrong methods are followed. For example, covertly poisoning a person, and forging their will to let one inherit the money will taint even the most just execution or act of self defense.
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My disagreement is over your characterization of Obama’s foreign policy.
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Obama’s foreign policy is not merely his impression of Bush’s, executed incompetently.
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It has four components.
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Component one is ‘Tough Diplomacy’. He campaigned on this, he continues to try and implement this. Thing is, it ranges from flawed to insane because his understanding of Diplomacy, and the underlying systems and institutions, is so woefully incomplete and lacking.
Component two is ‘Playacting at Manly Firmness’. This is where Obama is trying to give the impression of doing due diligence to the defense portfolio of the Presidency. It appears that he doesn’t understand, and cannot put together a staff that understands the basic principles involved here. He may think he has done a good job, or at least can be considered credible as having done a good job by people who are not being very charitable.
Component three is “Bush’s Legacy”. This is those things that were set up under the Bush administration or earlier, that Obama has been unable to change because of his weaknesses as a leader and as a manager. Simple policy incoherence, coming from poor understanding and incoherent thought, can filter down into little real actual change,
Component four is all the payoffs to leftist voters and social experimentation that he has done that ends up being foreign, military and defense policy no matter the intent.
One problem with using drones is that they tend to take out houses, not just a person. This is akin to the Philadelphia police burning a block down in 1985 after dropping a fire bomb on MOVE or the decision to fricassee the children of Waco in order to save them.
I think a more useful discussion would be when one is justified in using a military – given Posse Comitatus – or police sniper to kill a US citizen on US soil.