[…] the most precious part of the “bureaucratically, legally and morally sound” approach to “targeted killing” that the Obama geniuses have devised is its premise: the profiling of Muslims.
Recall the fawning — and, at times, unintentionally hilarious — New York Timesprofile of The One as philosopher-warrior, personally picking the targets to rub out between chapters of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas:
The president’s directive reinforced the need for caution, counterterrorism officials said, but did not significantly change the program. In part, that is because “the protection of innocent life was always a critical consideration,” said Michael V. Hayden, the last C.I.A. director under President George W. Bush.
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.
Funny … when I said such things, Obama’s pals in the Lawyer Left — many of whom became the makers of Obama administration policy — said I was a Constitution-shredding, Islamophobic racist. Go figure. The Times continued:
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 bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.”
I guess, to answer the Pakistani comander’s question, that’s how 20 gets to be a few hundred without ever getting to 20.
Or to extend this out even further, how Obama can claim to have created 4million jobs, cut taxes 18 times, and will cut $4 Trillion off the debt over the next decade.
It’s the new new math. Which is evidently based upon a system of wishing and asserting, without ever having to worry about actual calculations or even identification of the requisite variables, constants, coefficients, or operators.
It is the math of hope and change — equations that are settled by repeated assertions and the perception of plausibility.
Incidentally, it’s the same math Kim Jong Il would use when scoring his golf game, or I’m certain Hugo Chavez uses to tally his bowling scores.
But that’s probably just incidental.
Well, everyone knows that labels are more important than actual principles. Who has time to be honest when you’ve got Cava to drink?
That’s not how O’Brien explained it to Winston.
Obamian justice could not be plainer: “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.”
Not only is it just to kill the man without considering his innocence before his killing (though he be innocent), it is not just to count him as innocent until his innocence is proven after his “just” killing under presumption of guilt.
There’s a name for this stance, surely. Ah yes. Injustice, I think we used to call it.
Throw them in the lake. If they sink and drown then they were innocent. If they float then they are in league with the devil and should be burned at the stake.
Socialized Justice is just a Déjà vu.
Isn’t the textbook definition of ‘profiling’, as explained to us post-SB1070, the assumption that one might be an illegal because of his being in an area overrun with illegals ?
Meanwhile, the mainstream media is all over the blatantly political move made by the Romney campaign to actually try and help out with hurricane relief.
Also, Americablog is all over it like shit on a blanket.
Why anyone could possibly ever think of Andrea Kramer as a neutral party in any political arena at all is a mystery.
Andrea Mitchell. Agh.
Obama is going to New Jersey tomorrow to tour the damage and get in the way with Gov. Christie.
BLATANT CAMPAIGN STUNT, leigh!
“. . . not in Ohio?” says Andrea.
Because whatever that is you are feeling in Ohio Ohioans, it isn’t a storm. Not at all. Nor will you suffer on its account, nor have you. It’s merely the wind at Barack Obama’s back, so be of good cheer. Obama will be there for you, just as he has these last four years.
Only the government can come to your rescue. That devastation? You didn’t destroy that.
BLATANT CAMPAIGN STUNT
Fer sure. No one but us’ns will say so, though.
Romney is bagging up groceries and supplies in Ohio (or if you’re Obama ‘Oiho’) with a bunch of youthful volunteers. He made a nice little speech about helping others in their time of need, &c.
What a glory-hound. All teh newsies will tell us so as they try to find stills taken at unflattering angles. An impossible task, I might add.
Obama did say he was bad at math.
Math, spelling, grammar. What’s the difference?
Hey, I like that Obama Justice doctrine. So, like, the Wonce would have nothing to say about Israel turning Gaza into a giant lake of glass, then? They’re all combatants, for Pete’s sake!