Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (March 13, 2013)
Opinion Who Can Be Killed By a Drone? “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor T ED B ANKS Advertising Manager J ERRY F OSTER Account Executive L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor B RUCE P OINSETTE Reporter D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2012 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds Page 4 The Portland Skanner S en. Rand Paul has made no secret of his plan to run for president in 2016. Some say his filibuster last week was simply the first step in his presidential campaign. Maybe so, but there are worse places to begin than with this principle: that American citi- zens have the right to defend themselves against accusa- tions of wrongdoing in a court of law. That’s leadership. Thanks Sen. Paul for showing Con- gress how it’s done. But the debate must not stop here. Since President Bush was in office and increasingly under President Obama, America has been using drone warfare to kill targets in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people – many of them civilians— have been killed in these attacks, including three Americans, one a 16- year-old boy. All of this has occurred with practically no Congressional oversight or public discussion. Is this the kind of America we want – a country that justifies killing civilians with the press of a button, from a computer ter- minal thousands of miles F ROM THE P UBLISHER Bernie Foster away? And dismisses those deaths as “collateral damage”? So could the administration use a military drone to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil, bypassing the legal system charged with a crime.” Holder’s first response said drones would only be used in some unnamed “extraordinary circumstance.” That didn’t sat- isfy Paul. After the filibuster, Holder sent another letter that went further: “Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in com- bat on American soil? No.” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has been pushing the administra- tion to account for what it’s It’s not a stretch to think that Americans might be deceived by our government and the civil rights of American citizens? Paul asked Attorney General Eric Holder for an answer. “As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights,” he wrote in the Washington Post Saturday. “I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and no American should be killed by a drone without first being doing in the name of the Amer- ican people. It took Wyden two years and seven letters to get that information for the Senate Intelligence Committee. That’s unacceptable. Wyden joined Paul’s filibuster on the Senate floor, to highlight the need for Congressional oversight. He was the only Democrat to do so. We applaud him for that. Don’t accuse us of paranoia. It’s not a stretch to think that Americans might be deceived by our government. The “intelli- gence” that persuaded us to go to war with Iraq turned out to be a lie. The CIA has a long, dirty history of killing “enemies” in foreign countries, while pre- tending its hands are clean. Now, we’re supposed to believe that everyone who dies in a military drone strike is a terrorist or an enemy fighter. We’re sorry, but “just trust us” isn’t good enough. This is a 21st century democracy not a third-world country. Who’s to say that a few years down the road, another presi- dent won’t decide to misuse executive authority to get rid of a rival, or for other reasons? Shrouded in secrecy, the mili- tary drone program threatens America’s standing in the inter- national community, as well as our safety here at home. We need an honest accounting of America’s military drone policy and how it is being used. What do you think? Should the American public know how we decide who’s an enemy combatant and can be killed by a drone? Banksters: The Rich are Treated Differently F . Scott Fitzgerald got it right when he said the rich are dif- ferent. We are witnessing that in the sequester fiasco and we heard it in another form last week when Attorney General Eric H. Holder offered an asinine reason for no+t prosecuting bankers/gangsters known as banksters. Testifying before Congress, Holder said, “I am concerned that the size of some of these institu- tions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prose- cute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prose- cute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.” Holder is not the Secretary of Treasury. While he, like all of us, might be concerned about the economy, that’s not his area of responsibility. His job as the nation’s chief law enforcer is to enforce the law. And that should apply to banksters like it applies to gangsters. But, as we know, the rich and institutions they control are treated differently. This variation of banks being “too big to fail” is essentially telling us their CEOs are “too big to jail.” If banks are too big to fail, we should remind ourselves who allowed them to grow that large. Each time big banks gobbled up smaller ones like ATMs suck in your check deposit, they had to first win approval from the federal government. That is the same fed- eral government that bails them out when they get in trouble and the same federal government that now whines that their CEOs are two big to jail. Try explaining that to a first-time, non-violent drug user who is rotting away behind March 13, 2013 bars. Even in clear-cut cases of gang- ster behavior, there is a double- standard. Take the case of HSBC, T HE C URRY R EPORT George E. Curry which signed a $1.9 billion settle- ment with the U.S. after CEO Stu- art Gulliver acknowledged the bank’s failure to catch at least $881 million in drug trafficking money that was laundered through the institution’s accounts. Officials admitted their bank had facilitated illicit financial transfers on behalf of rogue nations, including Iran almost five years since the finan- cial crisis, but the big banks are still too big to fail. That means they are subsidized by about $83 billion a year by American taxpay- ers and are still not being held fully accountable for breaking the law.” The $83 billion a year Warren referred to represents the amount taxpayers pay in insurance to make sure U.S. bank deposits are guaranteed. Think about that. Banks are profit making entities yet the pub- lic pays their insurance. Does any- one else pay for your homeowner’s insurance? Health insurance? Car insurance? So why should the public share in banks’ expenses, but not their profits? It is yet another example of the rich and their powerful institutions being different? Contrast that different treatment with what’s happening in our This variation of banks being ‘too big to fail’ is essentially telling us their CEOs are ‘too big to jail’ and Libya, as well as Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. Their punishment? A fine that equaled 11 percent of last year’s profits and a promise to do a better job of monitoring their accounts. And they avoided criminal prose- cution. Like other banks, HSBC will continue to benefit from American taxpayers underwriting its deposit insurance. Senator Elizabeth Warren [D- Mass.] observed, “It has been nation’s capital. In the never-ending game of chicken, Republicans are threating yet another budget showdown. They are adamant that whatever comes out of the ongoing sequester and deficit debates, all cuts must come from the spending side, including Medicare and Social Security. Although President Obama has used strong, protective language in his State of the Union and inaugu- ration speeches, he has a tendency to cave in when negotiating with Republicans – and that has many Democrats worried. Obama and his advisers have already stated that they are amenable to a “grand bargain” whereby the White House and Republicans will reach an agree- ment on budget cuts. So far, 107 of the 200 House Democrats have signed a letter to the president threatening to vote “against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security benefits – including rais- ing the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need.” In the alternative, they want the grand bargain to “rely on econom- ic growth and more fair revenue- raising policies to solve our fiscal problems.” Those policies should include putting an end to subsidies for big businesses and raising the taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Speaking on CNBC last week, House Speaker John Boehner said, “Listen, we’ve got a structural spending problem that has to be addressed. The president’s sequester is in effect, and it will be in effect until there’s an agreement on cuts and reforms that put us on a path to balance the budget over the next 10 years.” But none of those cuts and reforms on the patch to a balanced budget involve touching the banksters or the rich. After all, as well all know, they are different. George E. Curry, former editor- in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Associa- tion News Service (NNPA.) He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach.
