On the Legality of Drone Strikes

I'm a well known advocate of smaller-lighter-faster, so I'm not exactly against drone strikes, but this article does point to a need for reform in international law.

In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.

Rendition (not the "for torture" kind, but the "for trial" kind) and the surgical application of force are the future. And that's great news for civilian populations. A new framework of international law would be worth the effort.

Methinks the Lady Doth Protest Too Much 2

I guess the Neo-cons aren't aware of the Buchanan wing of the Republican Party, because they clearly don't know that paranoid anti-government, Isolationist, 9/11-Truther rants mostly emerge from fellow-travellers on the Right. They are so completely oblivious to this verifiable fact, that they are willing to take anti-Bush rhetoric as definitive evidence, asking their readers to:

Save this link when Big Media tries to portray him as a Tea Partier or right-winger.

I guess things get confusing when you spend all of your time constructing reality and none actually dealing with it.

Update: This (the Penatagon shooting for the link-lazy out there) is the story of the day in the right-wing blogosphere. Malkin is pretending to take the high road:

But just as I passed on playing the blame game with the global warmicides earlier this week, I’m not playing MSNBC/NYTimes-style “gotcha” with this one, either.

Of course, that's just how she rolls. Pure class, all the time.

But, here's the interesting part. She actually summarizes the substance of the reality-based community's critique of all the Teabag rhetoric perfectly while trying to appear classy:

But the truth is, paranoid people simply feel threatened by the external power structure in general, so they lash out at any symbol of authority, regardless of its political affiliation.

So "respected" public figures playing lip-service to this paranoid ideology is a good idea? These guys are less likely to go postal when Perry un-apologetically implies that he supports secession or Beck emotionally asserts that we are on the precipice of full-blown tyrannical statism?

On a related note ... it's amazing how fast these people find their story and "agree" to stick to it.

Update 2: Yes, I am aware of the 9/11-Truthers in the Anarchist wing of the Left. But my point is not that such crazies don't exist, but that the left-wing establishment doesn't actively try to get them worked up for political benefit (or even really acknowledge their existence).

Update 3: Think Progress is doing a great job of connecting the dots outlining this guy's right-wing philosophy:

The blatant violations of the Constitution’s limitations on the economic role of the government accomplished through many subtle usurpations over many decades are perhaps even more pernicious than and are certainly a key motivation for the violent seizure of the United States government.

Update 4: The "lady" protests again. Make no mistake about it, the party registration of this person does not change the "Libertarian"/"Strict Constructionist" substance of his ideology. Nor does it change the willful insistence by some major players on the right to fan the flames of insurgency.

Update 5: Can we stop pretending this is a question now?

The California man who opened fire last night outside the Pentagon was a property rights extremist who railed against the government's ability to "confiscate the resources of their citizens to fund schemes that need only be justified by lies and deception," and wanted to "eliminate the role of the government in education."

In a recorded manifesto called "Directions To Freedom", the audio of which he posted online in 2006, John Patrick Bedell, of Hollister, California, praised private property as "the most successful basis for structuring society that humanity has ever known."

Bedell shot two police officers last night during the rampage, before being mortally wounded himself.

"Communist and socialist governments that abolished or disregarded private property," said Bedell in the recording, "created poverty, repression and murder on a truly enormous scale." But, he continued, "Even in the United States, however, there has been a continual erosion of protection of private property justified by the belief that government is an efficient instrument for the positive direction of society."

Bedell added: "Governments lack the profit and loss incentives that individuals and private organizations must use..."

And he warned: "When governments are able to confiscate the resources of their citizens to fund schemes that need only be justified by lies and deception enormous disasters can result."

(Emphasis mine.) Does that sound left-wing to you?

Update 6: More from Crooks and Liars pretty much in alignment with my own analysis (emphasis in original):

Remember that DHS bulletin warning of a potential outbreak of right-wing domestic terrorism that so freaked out conservatives because they claimed it "smeared" conservatives? Let's recall what it actually said:

DHS/I&A assesses that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.

[..] Similarly, recent state and municipal law enforcement reporting has warned of the dangers of rightwing extremists embracing the tactics of “leaderless resistance” and of lone wolves carrying out acts of violence.

[...]

As we saw in Austin, far-right extremist rhetoric plays no small role in inspiring these acts. And inevitably, it is ordinary Americans who pay the price.

All I know is that if this had been a Muslim man who had walked into the Pentagon and opened fire, all the talk this morning would be about an "act of terrorism". Instead, it's just another "isolated incident." Funny how that works, isn't it?

Trashing the Euro

"Friends" or no, we've been in a trade war with Europe for over a decade. They've been leveraging the Euro to curry power in all corners of world commerce. Looks like our A-Team has finally decided to fight back:

The single currency has been under enormous pressure because of Greece's debt crisis, plus financial worries in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

But, it has also struggled because hedge funds have been placing huge bets on the currency's decline, which could make the speculators hundreds of millions of pounds.

The euro traded at $1.51 in December, but has since fallen to $1.34. Details of the secretive dinner emerged days after Mr Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, warned in a newspaper article that the euro could 'fall apart' even if the European Union can agree a deal to shore up support for stricken Greece.

Debating a Brick Wall

Chait at TNR characterizes the GOP side of Health Care debate perfectly:

The thing is, that kind of debunked objection is the deepest and most detailed reply I've seen from the GOP all day. The best ones have specific but misinformed views. The worst ones are like Boehner. Now, I'm sure a great many Democrats in Congress also have a pretty sketchy understanding of the issue. But this summit is showing the sheer impossibility of trying to find intellectual common ground. John Podhoretz calls Obama "startlingly condescending at moments." How can that be avoided when you're trying to have a high-level discussion with people who reply either on debunked claims at best and talk radio-level slogans at worst?

Actually, this pretty much describes the current level of GOP participation in most other debates, too. And remember, the party of "no government" always wins a stalemate.

WTF?!

John McCain on MTP again? Does he really have anything to add to Sunday Morning?

Paging Captain Obvious

Finally ... somebody (other than comedians and your diligent political observers here at Post-Boomer) has noticed the truth about the Tea Baggers:

Look closely at the tea partyer and what you see is a familiar American genus: a solidly middle-class, college-educated boomer, endowed by his creator with possessions, opinions and certain inalienable rights, the most important of which is the right to make sure you hear what he has to say.

The tea party is a harbinger of midlife crisis, not political crisis. For men of a certain age, it offers a counterculture experience familiar from adolescence -- underground radio, esoteric tracts, consciousness-raising teach-ins and rallies replete with extroverted behavior to shock the squares -- all paid for with ample cash.

The partyers are essentially replaying the '60s protest paradigm. (We're aging boomers ourselves, so we know it when we see it.) They fancy themselves the vanguard of a revolution, when in fact they are typical self-absorbed, privileged children used to having their way -- now -- and uninhibited about complaining loudly when they don't. It's the same demographic Spiro Agnew called "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

Yeah, those guys. Fuck the Boomers.

Quote of the Day

Christian Finnegan on Olbermann:

For a minute there I treated the Tea Party as a genuine expression of Populism,and not a bunch of spoiled Baby Boomers who are fightened because History is moving on without them.

Indeed. You can see the real demographics of the movement in the latest CNN poll. Here's the "money" stat.

<$50K TP: 26% All: 47%

>$50K TP: 67% All: 43%

They're not populists. Also, they're 80% white.