Ready or Not, Here I Am!

Most Americans seem pleased to read of another murderous Taliban or al Qaeda leader assassination in Pakistan or Yemen. That’s understandable, if perhaps foolish. Few seem to notice that this is a prime case of the end used to justify the means, an age-old moral fallacy usually carrying a high cost that has often shown up later. Citizens who would indignantly deny the use of vigilantes against crime approve secret drone invasions of other countries to kill people there without due process, not only anyone selected by unknown secret agents but anyone else unfortunately too close. And the Obama Administration has applied this writ to American citizens.

A movement, not very large, has appeared to contest this in the courts. So far, it hasn’t been particularly successful at stopping the practice. But, seeing something wrong with a president simply deciding on his own to have someone of his choice killed from the sky with no oversight or accountability, the opponents of the program fight on. It is probably unfortunate, but they may as well relax and go home; this particular horse left the barn while the door was open and will not return any time soon.

Assassinations haven’t been in common use among political leaders for a long time,  at least  not on a significant scale. Simply, because if you can assassinate me, I can assassinate you as well and it has been tacitly agreed not to start such potentially tit-for-tat exchanges.  Our President Bush began and President Obama has enthusiastically amplified, assassinations in the ‘War on Terror.”  And since, if you can do that, so can I, the tool is finding growing use in many places, a reversion to older historical practices. Drones have not caused this on their own, the growth of civil disorder and declining morality are fundamental to it but the drones have industrialized it, setting up and manning entire military and civilian organizations to provide the services heretofore limited mostly to drug gangs or intelligence agencies.

However, this isn’t about the morality of government assassinations; I leave that to you. Congress has directed the Federal Aviation Administration to open U.S. skies to massive use of drones instanter, or close to that. And in fact, military and police are already using drones in arguably illegal fashion. Given the utility of drones now, we will see a lot of them overhead soon, and there will be many that we won’t see as well. The reason it’s too late to worry about drones is obvious as soon as you consider: How does anyone know who a drone belongs to? And drones come cheap, as well as faceless. Our government has set the pattern of drone assassination and is filling our skies with them; an obvious temptation to many outside the government, some legitimate businessmen and others, whoever sees a benefit. I’m thinking of opening a business offering drone services  to suspicious wives and husbands…

This has already escaped Pandora’s box; Congress opened that lid in a hurry, obviously with about the same thought it put into Obamacare. Hurry at the next election to reelect those guys, right? If you’re a drone manufacturer, anyway. Otherwise, maybe you’ll want to cast a glance over your shoulder from time to time…

Categories: Al Qaeda, Assassination, Congress, Drones, Obamacare, Taliban, Terrorism, The Global War on Islamofascism, U.S. Constitution, War on Terror

Tags: Assassination, Crones, Due Process, The Constitution