Drone Debate

Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY] just concluded an almost 13 hour long filibuster of the US Senate. This filibuster has delayed the confirmation by the full Senate of Brennan to head the CIA. The reason why Sen. Rand spoke, with able assistance for 13 hours, is very simple as he wants a simple answer to a very serious question.

Sen. Paul wants to know if the Obama administration, via the CIA that Brennan is nominated to head, is willing to use drones to kill American citizens on American soil without the due process of the law. Yes or no, that is all Sen. Paul wanted to know.

The response he got from Attorney General Eric Holder can be charitably called a 'maybe' answer. Two strawmen were brought out by Holder in his answer – Pearl Harbor and 9/11. There is a simple logical fault in using these two examples, neither attack was carried out by American citizens. Unlike Hassan Nidal at Ft. Hood or Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City.

In the case of Nidal and McVeigh, regular means were used to apprehend the killers. A routine traffic stop detained McVeigh long enough for them to connect the rental truck VIN to him. Nidal was bodily tackled and stopped in his killing spree.

So this administration wants a blank check to determine if an American citizen is an imminent danger. Without recourse to the American judicial system to rule if they have enough evidence to make such a finding. And then to send a remote control aircraft to kill that American citizen. Let me rephrase that, this administration wants to have the ability to assassinate American citizens on US soil without any oversight.

If you are not disturbed at that thought, just contemplate the government getting bad intelligence and sending out a drone on that information. Remember that wedding party in Iraq that American aircraft bombed by accident? Now imagine that happening on Main St in Peoria, IL – a drone fires a Hellfire missile at someone's SUV. Its noon in Peoria. The Hellfire hits and detonates, exploding the gas tank for good measure. Besides Betty Sue and her twin girls getting murdered because of bad information, how many people in the surrounding area just got killed or maimed also.

Now do you think armed drones over the US is such a good idea?

P.S. You may want to look up a movie from the 1980s called 'Blue Thunder' with Roy Scheider. LAPD is loaned a new helicopter. An armed helicopter that can also spy. Scheider's character Murphy finds out the organization supplying Blue Thunder has an ulterior motive of eliminating domestic threats. This administration is trying to replace Blue Thunder with something almost like a video game, just press the R1 on your X-Box controller to fire a Hellfire missile to blow up the target and get Achievement Points which is now a medal that can be worn between the Silver Star and Bronze Star.