National "Do Not Kill Registry" Launched In Response To Drone Kill List 484
First time accepted submitter crtitheories writes "In response to the national kill list revealed by the New York Times a few weeks ago, an online "Do Not Kill" Registry has been launched where users can sign up to avoid being mistakenly added. From the Do Not Kill website: 'Through an active collaboration between the Do not Kill Registry, the brave pilots and operators of the U.S. drone program, and the American public, we believe that we can find the political and moral solutions needed to both protect the security of the United States while also satisfying the concerns of the broader global community'. "
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
As an European, let me say that the president of a democracy should not have a list of people he wants dead. Arrested, maybe, although such a list should better be established by Justice, but not dead.
Re:Ooops? (Score:3, Insightful)
How does that make it a "joke" site instead of site trying to bring attention to the matter?
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing foreigners? Okay.
This bit is absolutely right; but it doesn't agree with the bit of the constitution you claimed to quote. I think you must have done a misquote. The constitution actually reads:
"No person who is for sure 100% known to have American citizenship shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law (or being mistaken for a foreigner); nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation (except for foreign property)."
It's shocking the way that people make these kinds of basic mistake.
Re:Ooops? (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>this is registered to an individual who worked in 2009 as a San Francisco Art Institute teaching assistant.
So?
Art teachers or students don't have a right to make a political statement? How Hitlerian of you. Next I suppose you'll want this site thrown on a book-burning pile because it's "degenerate" art.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
What you SHOULD be concerned about is the President already ordered the execution of 3 U.S. citizens, including an underage minor. I didn't realize the death penalty could be applied without a right to trial (or against juveniles... I thought they were exempt). We live in dangerous days.
Re:It should be Opt-In, not Opt-Out. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Don't put me on any List" list.
That list couldn't exist, obviously.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ooops? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never understood this concept, that moral rights only apply to American citizens. May be I am not smart enough to grasp the idea.
It seems to be Ok to kill any non-american without due process or self-defense. Even to kill anyone including (or around) his family/kids. It seems also fine to detain and torture foreigners for an undetermined amount of time as long it is done outside USA soil.
Can someone explain it to me? Does it mean, for example, that I can own a slave, as long is not American?
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that Obama hasn't been impeached yet is the most damning indictment of our political system I could imagine. He has utterly failed in his oath to uphold the Constitution.
Pass the tea, please.
Seriously, people said this through 12 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, and 8 years of Reagan. The side not in power always whines that the President is not upholding the constitution while doing everything in Congress possible to prevent work from getting done. The reality is that most of the HSA, TSA and health care actions taken by this administration (by it's own choice) have origins in either the Bush administration or conservative thinkers. Suddenly it's against the Constitution because it's a Democrat wanting to do it.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am also concerned that there are three US citizens that most likely are dangerous enough to warrant such an order.
I am much less concerned by who makes this decision at the moment. Right now, for the first time in my life, the sitting President of the United States, an elected official, is personally reviewing the data on terrorists and personally deciding whether or not to attempt to take these people out. He's not handing the job to an analyst or to an assistant-to-an-undersecretary or some other unknown, non-elected bureaucrat. He is personally taking the responsibility and accepting the ramifications of these decisions.
These individuals are members of an organization that has successfully attacked us in the past and that has pledged to attack us in the future. There is no practical way to bring them to legal justice, as they operate as a de facto government in territory that they control. In that sense they nearly are members of a nation-state and the rules of war can be found to apply to them as lieutenants in that de facto government's military structure.
I think that the situation is a terrible, horrible one. But, I also have less qualms about how this is being run than I do about the entire detention/torture system that was in place before it.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
And if it weren't for the fact that the GoP wants this power for their next candidate elected to the Presidency, there might even be an impeachment.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is at war with sanity, and has been for quite some time. And sanity is loosing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, but most US citizens don't seem to consider foreigners to be persons, or even human, or deserving of the most basic human rights. Many probably don't even comsider most of their fellow US citizens to be. The US governement certainly doesn't.
At least that is what it looks like from outside.
It's about time the US started to realize how sad, sick and twisted they have become. That they don't have the moral high ground they feel entitled to. That they have just become another bully, another rogue terrorist state for people in the civilized world to have nightmares about.
US, the terrorists have won. And you are them.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep telling people these "dumb" politicians are the alpha sociopaths, but people keep choosing to believe they are so much smarter.
Hey, they know how to install a Linix distro and write program in C++! Let's see some idiot politician do that, huh? Amirite? Yeah! Stupid politicians! Bunch of old dudes who can barely work a phone! Ha!
Meanwhile, the politicians are laughing their asses off at the "useful idiots", raking in the power and the money, and partying it up like there's no tomorrow.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The commander in chief of the most powerful army, navy, and air force in the world has a list of people he wants dead? STOP THE PRESSES! Targeting specific people is not news... it's war. People die when they're killed. Derp.
Pres. Ford issued Executive Order 11905 banning political assassination
Pres Carter: EO 12036 banning US involvement in assassinations
Pres. Regan: EO 12333 No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
Pres. Obama: DoD Directive 2310. Incorporates prohibitions against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Bans Water boarding.
Drone assassinations are apparently OK. In fact a "kill list" is perfectly acceptable during an election year...
...for the first sitting president to be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Something's really fucked up here.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
What you SHOULD be concerned about is the President already ordered the execution of 3 U.S. citizens, including an underage minor. I didn't realize the death penalty could be applied without a right to trial (or against juveniles... I thought they were exempt). We live in dangerous days.
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
You have started down the path where arbitrary murder by the state is sometimes acceptable. You can still turn back, but you need to turn back right now, in relation to all human beings.
It will be interesting to see how the US reacts when, with its power in decline, China or India or Russia start killing civilians in other countries because they are on some "kill list" or other.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing foreigners? Okay. Killing Americans? A violation of the president's oath to uphold Constituional Law
I hope this is a joke. In case it's not, I assume you agree that by parity of reasoning, other countries have the right to launch missiles into US territory to kill US citizens if they decide they are beyond the reach of those countries' domestic legal systems?
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a world of difference between shooting at a suspect because he's armed and has already taken shots at you, and shooting a suspect while he's walking to the store or whatever just because you think he's not going to surrender peacefully.
In theory, the police (except when breaking policy somehow) NEVER kill anyone without a trial; when a death happens, it's because the officer was exercising self-defense because a suspect was attacking them, and that self-defense unfortunately resulted in the suspect's death. When someone shoots at you, you're allowed to shoot back to neutralize the threat; otherwise, you can't.
A drone attacking some guy as he's driving down the street, blissfully unaware that anyone is out to get him at the moment, isn't remotely the same.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. This video [youtube.com] shows some clips of Bush's speeches back when he was running for governor. He comes across as intelligent and articulate. Now, the video's voice over concludes that Bush has some sort of early onset dementia. But I think the far more likely answer is that he concluded, correctly, that most Americans would rather vote for "someone they can have a beer with" than someone who sounds smarter than they are.
You don't get to be president, or attain any other position of power, by being a moron.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one put a gun to their heads and forced them into a building with an al-Qaeda leader.
I'm amazed at how cheaply some of you value human life, and assume the Moon to justify your beliefs.
"Dad, are you an Al Quaida leader?"
"What?!? Who've you been talking to?"
I seldom knew what my dad was doing most of the time when I was his age. He could have been robbing banks for all I knew. The Mafia make a point of keeping family separate from "business." Teenage civillians snuffed as collateral damage, and you just blow it off as simply another raghead who should have known better.
No wonder they hate you.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's taken me a long time to come to the realization that the only war that can be justified is if you are fighting on your own land directly against invaders to repel them. The reason is the same as in your personal life. You can use force to defend yourself. But you have to be careful in that you only use force against those attacking you. If someone attacks you and the runs into a crowd you aren't justified in firing into the crowd hoping to hit that person. But that is what war is once you go into another country. You are punishing and killing innocent people in the hopes you might hit a few of the guilty. There is no moral argument for this.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Al-Awlaki wasn't "blissfully unaware that anyone was out to get him". He had openly and loudly proclaimed himself to be at war with America. He had insisted that it was every Muslim's duty to kill Americans. He had declared death sentences against people for drawing pictures of Mohammed, forcing them to spend their lives in hiding or face the same fate as Theo van Gogh. Most importantly though, he had been behind multiple attempts to set off bombs in the US.
Lots of people criticize the United States. It's a more popular international pastime than soccer. We don't go around killing them. Al-Awlaki was different. He actively and repeated tried to kill American citizens. It would have been nice to bring him in for a trial, but that wasn't possible. So we can either sit back and let people die, or we can defend ourselves.
As you said: "When someone shoots at you, you're allowed to shoot back to neutralize the threat." What does it matter, whether we're shooting bullets or bombs?
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypothetical:
US citizen A joins enemy army.
US citizen A takes action against US while in enemy army.
Is Citizen A guilty of treason?
Yes, he's guilty of treason. Given sufficient evidence for action against the US, Citizen A may even be convicted of treason without a trial.
Traitors are killed. Treason is the only law in the US Constitution that defines its punishment. Technically, they should be hanged, but somehow I don't think it really makes a difference.
Re:Yeah, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
Semantics? That is "the heart of what is wrong with your country"? "Wrong with your country" is what... pretentious motherfuckers who post online?
There are many problems in the world and many problems in our country. The only problem identified by your post is you.
American exceptionalism is the problem I am referring to. More traditionally known as 'hubris'. There are some good plays about it, you should check them out. The Greeks had the concept nailed down about 2500 years ago.
Your government and many of your citizens operate on the basis that there are "Americans" and "others". You regard yourselves as special, privileged, the chosen people. You have failed to register that this is obviously not true, nor have you registered that your supposedly permanent hegemony of only a few years ago is already gone.
Once you decide that some are "more equal than others", you lose the ability to impartially assess any situation. The concepts essential to a just, democratic world become unworkable, because they rely on the opposite view, that no-one person or group should be more privileged than any other.
The GP's comment exemplifies the (majority) American mindset - murdering people is only problematic if it offends your constitution. Well, guess what? Fuck your constitution. It's problematic because it's fundamentally wrong, not because it offends some American document which you guys tend to ignore most of the time anyway.
Hence you cannot understand (a) your immense economic problems (b) your immense geopolitical problems or (c) your immense problems with groups of angry foreign men wanting to hurt you. None of it makes sense to you because you cannot see that you are not special, and therefore that there will be no automatic Hollywood ending to these dramas.
Bill Clinton made a speech towards the end of his presidency where he argued strongly that the US should strengthen international institutions and human rights standards as much as possible. His reasoning was that America's time in the sun wouldn't last forever, and that when some other power - China, for instance - was dominant, America would be grateful for strong and liberal democratic international governance. Sadly Bush II and Obama haven't heeded that warning, and have contributed to a world of unilateral murder and mayhem as a result. The precedent of the powerful being entitled to murder the weak instead of pursuing them according to law will have terrible consequences for all of us, I fear.