Bowing to political and public pressures, the Obama administration has released the United States' legal defense for drone assassinations. (The now infamous classified drone memos) Apparently, the decision came Wednesday evening, after a group of senators fired off a letter to the administration, calling the withholding of the legal opinions "practicing secret law."
Reportedly, the leak proof guardians of top secret secrets on the two Congressional Intelligence Committees will now be privy to the Justice Department's actual legal justification for killing an American citizen abroad whose been tagged a high value terrorist/target. According to the White House, the policy is legal ethical and wise! Presumably, "we the people" will just have to accept the administration's word for that. For now!
However, if ever Americans had a right to know something, they have a right to know with absolute certainty, precisely how its leadership explains sanctioning state sponsored assassinations. Since the document still rest only in the hands of a super select few, Americans and the world will simply have to be satisfied with blissful ignorance. Not!
While the unclassified version ferreted out by NBC News and presented for public consumption does describe the legal analysis for killing a U.S. citizen when said citizen has been determined to be (not proven) a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda involved in plots against the country, without the general public having an opportunity to peruse the "real hot copy" document, its impossible to understand how flexible and expandable the policy really is.
Considering the Obama administration has yet to provide full transparency and accountability concerning current policy involving extraordinary rendition, we can not accept a watered down draft of documented policy that could forever diminish the nation's moral standing and fundamentally change its character.
During the Bush era, it became common knowledge that individuals were routinely snatched off the streets and spirited far away to torture resorts like Syria, Egypt and Jordan. A timely exposé by Amrit Singh, daughter of India's Prime Minister shares the dark and gruesome realities of global complicity in the black world of the CIA.
While President Obama has disavowed torture, the administration has yet to disavow extraordinary rendition. If this is the case, Americans really have no idea what's still being done in their names. We think America and the global community needs a fuller accounting of exactly where this so called legal justification for targeted assassinations is taking us, before we arrive there with serious regrets.
This could be huge! This could be the perennial line being crossed. This could be history! This is really scary!
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