Opinion
Who Can Be Killed By a Drone?
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
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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.