Rand Paul Launches a Filibuster Against Drone Strikes On US Soil 693
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that at about 11:45 am today, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul took the floor of the Senate to launch one of the chamber's rarest spectacles: a genuine filibuster. Paul says he is 'alarmed' at the lack of definition over who can be targeted by drone strikes. He called Attorney General Eric Holder's refusal to rule out drone strikes to kill an American on U.S. soil 'more than frightening,' adding, 'When I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It's an easy question. It should have been a resounding, an unequivocal, "No." The president's response? He hasn't killed anyone yet. We're supposed to be comforted by that.' Any senator can opt to hold the floor to speak on any matter, but the practice of speaking for hours on end is rare, especially in the modern-day Senate, where the chamber's rules are used more often to block legislation or to hold show votes on trivial matters. Paul has since been joined in his symbolic effort by Republicans Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Saxby Chambliss (Ga.). He has also gotten some bipartisan support from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.). Paul suggested that many college campuses in the 1960s were full of people who might have been considered enemies of the state. 'Are you going to drop a Hellfire missile on Jane Fonda?'"
But Cruz is a-Pauling? (Score:4, Interesting)
You can (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It is disturbing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Example Headlines: "Drone Strikes, Could YOU Be Targeted?" or "The 5th Amendment: Still Standing?".
Articles could then explore who might be killed, or whether these strikes are a clear violation of constitutional rights.
We could also see these issues brought to the forefront more readily.
If you think about it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It is disturbing... (Score:2, Interesting)
So, that means nobody, not even the police, can for instance shoot someone when they are putting other people in danger or in self-defense???
This is of course the rub. Just being a government official doesn't reduce your rights, and EVERY CITIZEN CAN ALREADY DO WHAT Rand Paul is TECHNICALLY arguing against. If I happen to have a drone and its armed and I see something happening I can shoot people with it. In the state I live in I can do that if I am reasonably sure that force is necessary to prevent loss of life, commission of crimes, etc.
People don't seem to understand what a drone is... (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems apparent that Rand Paul, and many other Americans, don't actually understand what the drones actually are or how they work. The drones are no different to when the US uses cruise missiles launched from warships, or manned warplanes, or CIA wetwork teams to kill people in foreign countries. They're still controlled by the military, flown by actual operators.
There isn't some secret army of robots that Obama unilaterally controls which no one can stop. The only different thing which has happened is that the drones make doing something which tends to annoy other nations way easier since you don't run the risk of political blowback from a downed pilot in a foreign country.
Re:It is disturbing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:2, Interesting)
Sadly, you'll have to wait until there's a Republican in the White House before Reid or Pelosi speak against the drone strikes.
By then, that Republican president might simply execute them with drones. Speaking against drone strikes is equaled to "supporting terrorists" even now (by some).
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:2, Interesting)
Macro Rubio / Rand Paul 2016 (Score:3, Interesting)
The ticket to win 538 electoral votes.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:4, Interesting)
Question: why, exactly, does the citizenship of the victim make a difference?
Murder is murder. It's just as illegal to kill a Yemeni as it is to kill an American, wherever you are.
You're right, there needs to be less "us vs them". But you're not dropping the distinction at all - all you're doing is drawing the boundaries in a different place. But the boundaries themselves are still just as arbitrary.
(Of course there are extenuating circumstances if you're at war. But in that case the citizenship of the victim still doesn't matter. Look at Lincoln: he ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of US citizens on US soil, and history doesn't generally condemn him on those grounds.)
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are all these groups and people now who were protesting against the war.
In jail [wikipedia.org]
once you go Martial Law, you can't go back. (Score:5, Interesting)
I listened for an hour or so while I got other work done and didn't find any room for disagreement with him. Well, 99.5% is pretty good.
Dr. Paul's presentation of Obama's position as a weak form of martial law is airtight in its logic. If the United States is operating under the Rule of Law, then Obama/Holder's position cannot hold. If Obama's position does hold, then the territory of the United States is under battlefield rules, or martial law conditions.
That it's "soft martial law" isn't comforting to anybody who's read history or studied the Constitution and laws.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:4, Interesting)
Click the link in my sig. I've not updated it in some time, but Obama is worse or equal to GWB on so much it is disgusting. But more to the point:
What powers are the MOST characteristic of a dictator? How about this:
arbitrary execution
arbitrary indefinite detention
arbitrary war
Obama has taken on each and every one of those powers (if you didn't notice, Libya hits the third). So yeah, Obama is a lesser evil like being crushed to death by million pounds of crap is a lesser evil than being crushed by a million and one pounds of crap.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially now that Obama has launched three new ones
I don't disagree with most of what you said, but this part stands out to me. I've seen it mentioned by people who identify themselves with the Tea/Republican party but I don't know what three wars they speak of. At best, I can think of our involvement in Libya (where most of Europe got involved too) and possibly a reference to Syria (where in truth we are sitting and watching the government kill it's people). I don't believe we got involved in Mali (yet).
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
Fast forward to protests held during Obama's tenure, the Occupy Wall Street movement. This time it wasn't a single day, but weeks, and months, of protest camps across hundreds of cities. The end result: ? How many bankers have been arrested? How many laws have changed? What impact has it had aside from a media sideshow?
And now the GP wonders, why aren't people protesting more? Why aren't people making a big protest against the president's claim to kill political dissidents? It's ridiculous to claim that partisan politics are what stand in the way. It didn't prevent OWS from happening did it?
Can anyone name a single protest in the past 20 years that has actually caused a change? Thats why people aren't protesting now.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
This filibuster isn't actually doing anything about the drones. He's just playing it up for public opinion.
Which in a democracy is the most important type of "doing something". There are 100 senators and 500-odd representatives in congress most of which would never vote for anything that their opponent could distort as being weak on crime/terrorists/etc. Simply introducing legislation that will go nowhere wouldn't help anything. To effect change you need to hold a fire on the feet of all the rest of the Senators and force them to act. That is what this filibuster is about. It is about refusing to let the senate continue in it's stupid political game of trivialities, until they start address the real problems in this country.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
Mali? Mali, of all the places, where the isn't a single American boot on the ground or in the air? Libya was for once a required war that prevented much greater suffering. If you want to know what would have happened without that intervention - which was supported by the UN, largely carried out by NATO forces, and was over in weeks - look at Syria. And Yemen is a war now? Holy crap, by that measure Oakland is a warzone and LA is the longest on-going war since the 100-year war.
They aren't big, flashy wars, they aren't wars, they aren't even police actions by any measure of the word. Not to mention that one of them was necessary, and the second one you mention is barely a drone action.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
I find the key phrase to be killing people without due process. Whether American or not, it is wrong to randomly kill people for their political beliefs.
Could be worse, here in Canada the right wing is going to remove citizenship from terrorists to get around that problem. Of course the definition of terrorist seems to constantly grow.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:0, Interesting)
People are going to pretend that those 3 actions are on the same scale as the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan because it allows them to draw a false equivalence between Obama and Bush. They're cowards and HAVE to promote the idea that, "meh, they all suck equally", as that's the point of view that requires the least effort.
Obama is no saint, but there's no doubt that Bush was much more of a warmonger and had a much worse foreign policy agenda than Obama does.
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
A few weeks before the Iraq war started, the world saw the largest coordinated protest in history across hundreds of cities, with millions upon millions of people calling for peace. The end result: Nothing.
That's because most people supported the Iraq war right before it started. I was really upset at Bush for a while, for taking the country in a direction the people didn't want go. Then I realized, America did want to go that direction. So I stopped being so mad at Bush and got mad at the American people. Including all the congresspeople who authorized the war.
I would add that your point is a good one, protests don't make a huge difference, at best they draw attention to a problem. But everyone already knew about the Iraq war, so what's the point?
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anyone name a single protest in the past 20 years that has actually caused a change?
Yes. The 1999 WTO protests in Seattle (and the follow-up S11 protests in Melbourne) caused lots of changes. After that, the authorities could no longer trust protestors to behave themselves, and so became far more adversarial. These protests effectively undid the multiple decades of goodwill that had been established between police and activists since Vietnam.
I'm guessing that's not the kind of change you meant, though.
Oh, and while I think of it, the early Tea Party protests gave the Koch Brothers a ready-made astroturf front to help in their campaigns to sway public opinion. I guess you could say that had long-lasting effects.
On a more serious note, the SOPA/PIPA protests seem to have worked, though of course the work isn't finished.
It's the new normal (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The enemy of my enemy (Score:2, Interesting)