President Obama: second term turmoil

Politics
Yes, President Obama’s second term is not going smoothly.

Something that is not President Obama’s fault: the IRS “scandal”
Frankly, I wonder why political groups have any tax exempt status at all. But they do, so they should be treated equally. So, we had a lot of small conservative oriented groups applying for this status. The trouble: the larger groups (Karl Rove’s group and the pro-Obama groups) had lawyers write up their applications to make them complete and compliant. No, this is nothing new; liberal groups have been singled out in the past. And no, it wasn’t just a regional office. But:

Even as Obama vowed that his administration “will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this,” however, the IRS offered no new information on how it selected which groups to single out for scrutiny.

The White House is legally barred from contacting the IRS about a tax matter, under a prohibition adopted after the Watergate scandal. And although it can contact the Treasury Department about tax issues, neither Treasury nor the IRS can disclose specific taxpayer information. The IRS can release information about a petition for tax-
exempt status only after it has been approved.

Obama is not in a position to remove Lerner, a career official who can be terminated for cause only under normal civil service proceedings. The IRS has two political appointees: the commissioner, who serves a five-year term, and the chief counsel.

So, this isn’t a matter of the President targeting political enemies; remember that the best funded, most dangerous groups were not targeted.

It doesn’t help matters that top Republicans don’t know what they are talking about:

Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Vern Buchanan each sent letters today to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew seeking more answers about the IRS’ focus on tea party groups. Rubio said the IRS commissioner should be fired (though the commissioner in charge resigned in November).

Benghazi
There is mud being slug here too; this is a timeline.
The news organizations fell for “paraphrased e-mail messages”:

Turns out the press got played again by Republicans. Jake Tapper has the smoking gun of the original email from the Obama administration which differs significantly from the “leaked emails” ABC ran with.

In an exclusive for CNN, Tapper reveals that CNN has the original email sent by a top Obama aide, regarding the administration’s reaction to the Benghazi attacks. Tapper reported, “The actual email differs from how sources characterized it to two different media organizations.”

“The actual email from then-Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes appears to show that whomever (sic) leaked it did so in a way that made it appear that the White House primarily concerned with the State Department’s desire to remove references and warnings about specific terrorist groups so as to not bring criticism to the department,” Tapper concludes (my bold).

The email was sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 9:34 p.m. and was obtained by CNN from a U.S. government source. Ironically, the email points out that there is a “ton of wrong information” coming from Congress and people who are not particularly informed (waving hello to Congressional Republicans and Mitt Romney):

“Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.

“There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

“We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.”

Read the full email here.

Tapper notes how ABC and the Weekly Standard covered the leaked emails, which were “paraphrased” “inaccurately” and “inventing the notion” that the White House tried to protect the State Department:

Add to this the Republicans having a “cartoonish view” of how things work:

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told CBS News that Republican lawmakers who are blasting President Barack Obama’s administration for failing to take military action during last September’s surprise attacks in Benghazi have a “cartoonish” view of the military.

“I listened to the testimony of [Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta] and [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey],” Gates explained to CBS host Bob Schieffer in an interview that aired on Sunday. “And, frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were.”

“We don’t have a ready force standing by in the Middle East — despite all the turmoil that’s going on — with planes on strip alert, troops ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. And so, getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible.”

[...]

“Based on everything I’ve read, people really didn’t know what was going on in Benghazi contemporaneously, and to send some small number of Special Forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, I think, would have been very dangerous,” the former defense secretary observed. “And personally, I would not have approved that.”

“It’s sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces. The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm’s way. And there just wasn’t time to do that.”

But here is the thing to remember: THIS IS POLITICAL. Looking like an idiot to a knowledgeable person doesn’t matter at all, and the Republican politicians understand that. What is important is to fire up their base; to whip them in a lather.

No, I don’t think that the Republican base is any dumber than the Democratic base, but the Republicans are better politicians than we are.

Science, Knowledge (and lack thereof)

Cool Video Dr. Tyson talks for about 12 minutes here. Topics: we (humans) really are a part of the universe….it is possible that earthly life originated on another planet…and for the conclusion: are we (humans) just too intellectually limited to discover how our universe works? Perhaps there are other sentient beings that sees our intellectual level as we, say, see the intellectual level of chimps?

Evolution: This is a type of honest skepticism.
Some top of the line scientists have sequenced the coelacanth genome. The coelacanth is a type of fish that is sometimes misleading referred to as a “living fossil” as its outward features haven’t changed much over millions of years, though perhaps its genome has. The thought is that this fish has had fewer evolutionary changes even at the genome level than other animals. But at least one accomplished biochemist is skeptical though he hasn’t launched an intellectual scientific attack as yet.

The larger point: scientists ARE skeptical people; most (all?) require quite a bit of solid evidence to accept a conjecture or to accept a theory.

Interesting resources for topics
I’ll have to read the rest of these. I’ve finished the first 10 posts about the Higgs boson; now Mano Singham has posted 5 more. You can find a link to all of them here. Singham is a physics professor who knows how to write.

Daily Kos user Major Kong (a former pilot) has a nice series about how airliners work. I’ve read a few; now I want to complete the series.

The United States
We know that the Boston bombers originally came from Chechnya, which is currently a Republic within Russia. But enough Americans thought that they came from the Czech Republic that the Czech embassy had to issue a statement that the Czech Republic is not Chechnya.

The charge of Islamophobia aimed at New Atheists
I’ll be clear from the start: of course Muslims in the United States should have full equality before the law: their schools, mosques, etc. should be treated the same way as Jewish, Christian or Hindu ones. If they want to build a mosque and have the permits, then build it. I decry the protests against these things.

But on the other hand, the behavior of the Islamic republics and the behavior of large groups of Muslims abroad richly deserves criticism and I won’t be deterred by cries of “ISLAMOPHOBIA”. Here is a prime example of what I am talking about: large demonstrations in Bangladesh asking for atheists bloggers to be executed by the state.

Thousands of Islamist protesters marched the streets of Bangladesh’s capital, calling for the death penalty for bloggers who insult Islam. The city ground to a halt as demonstrators demanded the government change the law to punish blasphemers.

The activists gathered in their thousands at Dhaka’s commercial hub on Friday night in protest over blasphemous bloggers who offend Islamist sensibilities on social networks. In a demonstration that lasted well into Saturday, they urged the government to introduce a new law with the provision of the death penalty for those who defame Islam.

As the protesters advanced they chanted: “God is great, hang the atheist bloggers!”

“I’ve come here to fight for Islam. We won’t allow any bloggers to blaspheme our religion and our beloved Prophet Mohammed,” Shahidul Islam, an imam at a mosque outside Dhaka who walked 20km, told AAP [...]

To deny that this is disgusting, backward and barbaric is to be dishonest. And to say that it is somehow atypical in certain parts of the world is also dishonest. From Pew Research:

At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion. Majorities of Muslims in Jordan and Nigeria also favor these harsh punishments.

The Pew article does contain some hopeful news though:

Eight-in-ten Muslims in Pakistan say suicide bombing and other acts of violence against civilian targets in order to defend Islam from its enemies are never justified; majorities in Turkey (77%), Indonesia (69%) and Jordan (54%) share this view. Support for suicide bombing has declined considerably over the years. For example, while 74% of Muslims in Lebanon said these violent acts were at least sometimes justified in 2002, just 39% say that is the case now; double-digit declines have also occurred in Jordan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia.

This is an improvement. So maybe there is hope.

North Korean Threat….

Enjoy.

Misconceptions

Superstition This has an interesting part on how living things (with brains) really operate on a “correlation equals causation” program: Skinner’s pigeon experiment:

Multitasking
You hear this a lot. But in reality, you really can’t; if you split your attention you will do a poorer job at everything. That might not be a problem if you are blogging with a game on, but if you are in a classroom, if you attempt to “multitask”, you will miss a LOT and possibly distract others around you. Now there is evidence to bolster my claim.

Pakistan
A Pakistani argues that Pakistan has more of a “reality” problem than an “image” problem.

The South (in the US)
They can’t wrap their heads around the fact that they were in the wrong during the Civil War.

Seen on facebook

Not true for me but that is because my workout sessions are competitions of sorts, and I regularly test myself. Hence I can see the bench press getting weaker (4 x 225 is now 4 x 180), pull ups getting more difficult (sets of 10 instead of 15), and the 5K taking longer to complete (just under 20 to just under 25).

But, on the other hand, I am still doing those activities and the degradation of my performance is really a “numbers” thing. Ok, it is an appearance thing too; the muscles just aren’t as tight as they once were. And, I don’t notice much of a difference during my “day to day” activities; only in the gym, at the race, and in the pool (which I need to return to).

Whack a Mole with Terrorists…

Workout notes 5K treadmill walk after weights.
Treadmill: I started out at 4.1 miles per hour (about 14:40 mpm) and upped the incline by 1 every minute until I got to 7 at 14 minutes; then I kept it there until 30 minutes. Then I lowered the incline by 1 unit every 2 minutes up upped the pace by .1 mph until I was a 4.8. total time: 42:20 for 3.1 miles.

Weights: rotator cuff, pull ups (4 sets of 10, 1 broken set of 10), incline: 10 x 135, 4 x 155, 6 x 145, 8 x 140.
rows/dumbbell bench: 3 sets of 10 x 65 lb. dumbbells. seated dumbbell military: 2 sets of 10 x 50, 1 set of 15 x 45. Pulldowns: 3 sets of 10 x 160. Curls: dumbbells (10 x 70), machine (10 x 70), EZ curl bar 10 x 55. I also did the ab line 3 times (10 x weighted crunches, twists, sit backs, vertical crunches) and legs 3 times (adduction, abduction, push backs) and some stretches.

I felt good.

Not so good
How bad is it in Pakistan? There is a terrorist group there whose mission is simply to kill Shia Muslims:

The group doing the killing is called Lashkar e Jhangvi, “The Army of Jhangvi” or LEJ. They are Sunnis whose agenda is not much more nuanced than killing Shias. Though South Asia is a region rife with internecine conflict, with factions who have fought each other for all of recent history over land and religion, these attacks are unique. Even in a region violence visits far too often, what’s happening now is singular, and it’s getting worse.

First it was snipers picking off civilians, then LEJ members began stopping busses, shooting Shia passengers and leaving their bodies on the roadsides. Now, LEJ is using massive bombs in places frequented by Shia civilians: social clubs, computer cafes, markets and schools. About 1,300 people have been killed in these attacks since 1999, according to a website dedicated to raising awareness about them. More than 200 have been killed so far this year.

Hazaras are one kind of Shia for which LEJ has a particular fascination. Quetta sits just below the border with Afghanistan, and it’s the city where members of a Shia group from Afghanistan–the Hazaras–have sought refuge whenever they’ve felt their own country doesn’t want them. They’ve been coming to Quetta for over a hundred years, but while they’re coming in search of safety, they’re now being met with slaughter. [...]

If the Taliban is the schoolyard bully who keeps some semblance of order among the other children but then begins to abuse his power, LEJ is the hyperactive kid running around kicking shins, and who has free reign because the teachers are terrified of him, too. After a bombing last month, LEJ waited until rescue crews arrived at the scene, and then set off a bomb to kill them, as well. The message was clear: If you try to help Hazaras, you will end up like them.

Fear may explain why the government isn’t doing anything about the attacks. LEJ is not hard to find and their leadership lives openly, mostly in Punjab. They do not pursue their means discreetly. The bomb LEJ used in February weighed 2,200 pounds, twice the size of the one Ramzi Yousef used to try to topple the World Trade Center towers in 1993. They had to tow it to the bombsite behind a tractor.

Nor do the killers try to avoid blame. On the contrary, they eagerly accept responsibility, post YouTube videos of themselves and tally up death tolls with transparent glee. A twitter update just after a recent attack read:

“Quetta Alert: 50 Shias in hell and over 65 injured due to blast on Alamdar Road.”

If anyone thinks that there is some moral equivalence between the United States and groups like this, they are crazy.

Whines and War….potential

Workout notes 5K walk (38:10, via 12:23/12:15/12:00/1:30) on the track after weights and PT
rotator cuff
pull ups (4 sets of 10, 1 broken set of 10)
incline presses: 10 x 135, 4 x 155, 4 x 150, 6 x 145
dumbbell rows/dumbbell bench presses: 3 sets of 10 with 65 lb. dumbbells.
military presses (dumbbell) 2 sets of 15 x 45, 1 set of 10 x 50
curls: 2 sets of 10 x 25, 1 set of 7 x 30, 5 x 25.
pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 160 (one with rotated grip)
Also did 2 sets of leg sets (adduction, abduction, push backs) and abs (crunches, twists, vertical crunches, sit backs)
Lots of PT and stretching.

Running: when do you replace shoes? Upshot: there isn’t much data on what “works”.

Education Yes, excessive “helicopter parenting” can cause more harm than good:

Over-controlling parents may cause depression and other negative psychological effects in college students, according to a recent study. Boston University faculty said this trend of “hovering parents” and its repercussions could be tied to the cost of college.
“On a societal level, it could be partly the rising costs of college education,” said Julian Go, a BU sociology professor. “Parents are rightfully thinking of education as an investment. It pushes parents to be more concerned, or intrusive, in their investment.”
Researchers studied about 300 college students between the ages of 18 and 23 at a public liberal arts college and found those with overactive parents reported significantly greater depression and a lesser sense of fulfillment, according to a study released in the February 2013 issue of the Journal of Child and Family studies.
“Our data suggest that an inappropriate level of parental behavioral control is associated with negative child outcomes,” the study stated. “Specifically, we found that helicopter parenting behaviors were related to higher levels of depression and decreased satisfaction with life.”

Tidbits Guys, if you donate sperm, make sure you do it through official channels and anonymously. Otherwise: you could be liable for child support.

Grumpy Cat doesn’t like this movie!

Language I’ve known for some time it is “toe the line” and “cut the muster” (“pass muster”) and, yes, “champing at the bit” and “nip it in the bud”. But I didn’t know where “baited breath” came from (it is “‘bated breath” as in: “abated breath”) and one other. Not in this article, but it is “hare brained” not “hair brained”.

Politics

Some conservatives like to bellow about “personal responsibility” and to noisily decry “victim mentality” until….they don’t get their way in an election. They whine about losing an election. They whine about a policy getting “more votes” than their preferred policy. They whine about science ridiculing their ideas. They whine about their religion not being put “front and center” in the public arena. In fact, modern conservatives, with exceptions, constitute the biggest bunch of crybabies and whiners that I’ve ever seen.

World Events
As I stated before, there is tension between Japan and China. As for the cause of tension: old rivalries and natural resources…what else?

It still amazes me how much media interest there currently is in the various maritime disputes of Asia. Five years ago, to find information on these then-obscure disagreements over tiny pieces of land required diligence and patience. Now, and in particular since the much-vaunted U.S. pivot to Asia, every week seems to bring new stories about these islands.
It is therefore worth our taking a step back and asking how we got here. What have been the drivers for the maritime disputes over the past five years, do they share any similarities, and why, when these disputes have existed for decades, have they become so tense now?
First, a reminder of the context. The islands in dispute are the Kurils (claimed by Japan and Russia); the Dokdo/Takeshima islands (South Korea and Japan); the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyu islands (China, Taiwan and Japan); and the four major island groups of the South China Sea (in whole or in part by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam). Other island disputes exist in East Asia (such as the Northern Limit Line between the Korea), but these four comprise the most contested and contentious.
These disputes are usually viewed in isolation, but there are similarities that they all share. Although claims of occupation and administration stretch back centuries, all of the disputes exist, to some extent, as legacies of imperial Japan’s expansion through East Asia in the first half of the 20th century, and its immediate withdrawal following its defeat in World War II. Before this period, most of the states in East Asia were too militarily weak to effectively enforce their claims; some were entirely occupied by imperial powers, and the modern international legal concepts of territorial sovereignty were arguably still alien to the region.[...]

Obviously, war between China and Japan would prove to be horrific. Perhaps there are steps that can be taken to prevent such a catastrophe:

What is needed are some guidelines or an agreed declaration of expected behavior in disputed areas that could avert such confrontations. More specifically, China and Japan need to forge at least a rudimentary “incidents at sea agreement” – and fast!
So what is an incidents at sea agreement (INCSEA) and why would it work? In the late 1960s, there were several incidents between the U.S. and Soviet navies, including planes of the two nations passing particularly close to one another or ships and aircraft making threatening movements – very similar to what has been happening in the East China Sea between China and Japan.
But in March 1968, the United States proposed talks on how to prevent such incidents from becoming more serious or even leading to an outright military clash. According to the State Department, the military-to-military agreement provided for:
– Steps to avoid ship collisions
– Non-interference in the “formations” of the other party;
– Avoiding maneuvers in areas of heavy sea traffic;
– Requiring surveillance ships to maintain a safe distance from the object of investigation so as to avoid “embarrassing or endangering the ships under surveillance”;
– Using accepted international signals when ships maneuver near one another;
– Not simulating attacks at, launching objects toward, or illuminating the bridges of the other party’s ships;
–Informing vessels when submarines are exercising near them; and
– Requiring aircraft commanders to use the greatest caution and prudence in approaching aircraft and ships of the other party and refraining from simulated attacks against aircraft or ships, performing aerobatics over ships, or dropping hazardous objects near them.
The agreement appears to have helped the two sides’ militaries avoid clashes. In subsequent years, such agreements were reached between Russia and South Korea and Russia and Japan, and there is a maritime consultative agreement between the United States and China that they have now agreed to reactivate.

IMHO, war is NOT an option for these two countries, for a number of reasons.

A LITERAL Blast From the Past

This was made in 1951; a friend of mine posted this on her facebook wall. The discussion reminded me of past history.

First of all, this was made only 6 years after the United States had used atomic weapons in war…twice. We had also burned scores of cities to the ground (mostly in Japan) with conventional weapons.

The atomic bomb was a “fission” weapon; the thermonuclear weapon (“fusion” weapon) was still in development; the first large scale test explosion was a year away. The Russians had the a-bomb though.

ICBMs were still in the future; the delivery mechanisms were relatively slow, clunky aircraft. Sure, we had the B-47 and the Russians had a B-24 knock-off, and our main strategic bomber was this clunky plane:

The Russian Badger and Bear bombers were still in the future, as was our B-52. Oh yes, we had B-29 and upgraded B-29′s called B-50′s.

Of course, nuclear tipped ICBMs were in the future as well.

So, at the time this video was made, the bombs were smaller and the delivery mechanisms less reliable.

Egg on my face, sort of.

Workout notes
I was still sore and the back has been sore (too much sitting?) so I jogged a 10:15 mile on the track and walked 5 more:
12:45, 12:16, 12:19, 12:10, 12:25 (1:01:57) 1:42 for 1:03:39 (41 laps)

Then I did a light weight routine (legs, abs; did some of what Tammy does)

Egg on my face
This New York Times article about the Obama drone program and targeting Americans is interesting:

f President Obama tuned in to the past week’s bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself.

Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country’s core values in the name of security.

The debate is not an exact parallel to those of the Bush era, and Mr. Obama can point to ways he has tried to exorcise what he sees as the excesses of the last administration. But in broad terms, the conversation generated by the confirmation hearing of John O. Brennan, his nominee for C.I.A. director, underscored the degree to which Mr. Obama has embraced some of Mr. Bush’s approach to counterterrorism, right down to a secret legal memo authorizing presidential action unfettered by outside forces.

At the same time, a separate hearing in Congress revealed how far Mr. Obama has gone to avoid what he sees as Mr. Bush’s central mistake. Testimony indicated that the president had overruled his secretaries of state and defense and his military commanders when they advised arming rebels in Syria.[...]

That memo coming out, I think, was a wake-up call,” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union. “These last few days, it was like being back in the Bush days.”

“It’s causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for a lot of people,” he added. “It’s not the President Obama they thought they knew.”

The dissonance is due in part to the fact that Mr. Obama ran in 2008 against Mr. Bush’s first-term policies but, after winning, inherited Mr. Bush’s second-term policies.

By the time Mr. Bush left office, he had shaved off some of the more controversial edges of his counterterrorism program, both because of pressure from Congress and the courts and because he wanted to leave behind policies that would endure. He had closed the secret C.I.A. prisons, obtained Congressional approval for warrantless surveillance and military commissions, and worked to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

So while Mr. Obama banned harsh interrogation techniques, he preserved much of what he inherited, with some additional safeguards; expanded Mr. Bush’s drone campaign; and kept on veterans of the antiterrorism wars like Mr. Brennan. Some efforts at change were thwarted, like his vow to close the Guantánamo prison and to try Sept. 11 plotters in civilian court. [...]

Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University professor and former Bush national security aide, said Mr. Obama “believed the cartoon version of the Bush critique so that Bush wasn’t just trying to make tough calls how to protect America in conditions of uncertainty, Bush actually was trying to grab power for nefarious purposes.”

(emphasis mine).

I had to think long and hard about that. So, what DID I disapprove of when President Bush was in office?
Mostly: he got us into the war in Iraq TO BEGIN WITH. Also, I felt he did so under either false or fraudulent pretenses. Example: remember the State of the Union where he talked about Iraq and the “aluminum tubes”? Anyone who read Scientific American knew that those tubes couldn’t have been for nuclear weapon program purposes! But yet, there he went, giving such a bogus reason.

This made me think: “he is either a liar or is clueless”; hence he lost the benefit of the doubt from me; I no longer trusted him. Either he was dishonest, or had horrible judgement.

As far as President Bush’s drone strikes: note that I never said much about them. Why: once we were in a war of that type, there is only so many ways one can deal with terrorists in lands where there are no functioning police forces; really, what can you do? If you go in with troops, you risk the lives of the troops and many innocents die in a firefight. If you do conventional airstrikes: more innocent deaths. I thought that way then and I think that way now.

Where President Obama is different from President Bush and Republicans: his basic outreach. Remember the so-called “apology tour”? Remember “leading from behind”? Yes; President Obama is acting in a way to make future wars less likely, and THAT is what I like. When the wars are going on, there are really only so many ways to fight them. That is probably why President Bush and President Obama seem similar (though not the same) in this area.

Drones, Belief, and Rabbit Hugs…

Science Fun
Jerry Coyne’s website: has some fun “nature” GIF files (animated photos). If you like nature, check them out.

Another “I am going to see this” film:

Morons Neo-Nazi Bill White is back in the news again, this time for threatening his ex wife.

Drone Strikes and US Citizens: are we headed toward establishing a “drone court” (like a FISA court)? The new nature of threats plus new technology means new challenges.

I am still conflicted on this.

The New Civil Rights Things have changed. In days past, civil rights dealt with issues such as people being denied admission to public placed due to the color of their skin. Now, this has become a dispute over whether someone in a rabbit costume hugged their kids. I think that this will be a hard lawsuit to win.

Rant: journalism and discussion about the Obama drone program

I’ve been following the “drone attack program” and the “authority to kill US citizens” issue closely. This will come up during the confirmation hearings for proposed CIA head John O. Brennan.

I’ve also tried to follow some of the discussions. Many have been extremely simple-minded.

I think that the problem is very difficult. What happens when a US citizen joins an Al Qaida-like organization, including one that has carried out, plotted attacks that have killed others? On one hand, it isn’t exactly the same thing as a US citizen who joins the army of a belligerent nation; obviously in the latter case, the “citizen” can be killed by standard military operations.

On the other hand, isn’t it at least similar? What constitutes an “army” anyway, if it is a non-state agency?
On the other hand: what if this person hasn’t really joined the organization but is in the area doing something else (say, humanitarian work). How is the person declared a “belligerent”, and who/what makes that declaration? What is the standard of proof?

Will this escalate into an excuse to kill political opponents? What safeguards (checks/balances) are there to prevent this from happening?

And what do you do? We are talking about areas that have no effective law-enforcement, and standard operations (military ones) usually result in many civilian injuries and deaths.

So, I am conflicted; I can see several sides of an issue.

However, some in the liberal media (that is the “liberal subset of the media”) think that a lack out outrage means that liberals are ignoring the problem.

Why isn’t there more outrage about the president’s unilateral targeted assassination program on the left?
BY JOAN WALSH

Note: the article itself isn’t that bad; it contains a decent summary of the program and principled objections to it. But as far as the headline….

No, it isn’t that we are “ignoring” justice. It is that some of us have the intellect to see that this is a complicated, sticky issue and some of us are still working through our own thoughts.

I find it especially ironic that such charges are coming from a media that showed, among other things, that it doesn’t understand science and can’t even digest a simple collection of poll numbers (re: “the 2012 election is razor tight!”). Frankly, I doubt if many journalists and pundits have the mental firepower to give this issue proper examination.

Note: If you want to comment, fine. However I’d like for you to explain how your plan would work “right now” and what the potential weaknesses are, as well as why you might be wrong. If you can’t give me the weakness of your ideas or analysis, then you probably aren’t worth talking to about this.