Tag Archives: Anwar al-Awlaki

February 7, 2013 · 3:04 AM

House Intel Chair on White House drone policy: “There is oversight”

I saw this very insightful report on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell yesterday.  Yet somehow, because it removes the sensationalism and hysteria found in most recent news reports, the information given in to Ms. Mitchell is grossly under reported.

Justice Departments Memo Describing Legal Case for Drone Strikes on Americans

Mike Rogers Interview on Andrea Mitchell: Video

TPM Livewire

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that “there is oversight” on the Obama administration’s drone strikes against U.S. citizens who are believed to be senior al-Qaeda leaders.

“I review all of the air strikes that we use under this title of the law,” he told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Rogers added that Americans who decide to join al-Qaeda become enemies of the U.S. “If you have someone who has joined this organization, and they may not be engaged in plot a today, but part of an organization plotting to kill Americans, and so they’ve joined the enemy. So you don’t just kill the enemy when they’re at the gate.”

Rogers insisted there is not a long list of Americans on any “kill list.” “I can candidly tell you that,” he said.

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October 4, 2011 · 8:19 AM

Nice Try, Dick!

Recently,  Dick Cheney demanded that the POTUS apologize for saying torture doesn’t work in the war on terror…

The Dish – Andrew Sullivan

The incompetent, panic-stricken war-criminal won’t give up trying to whitewash his crimes and military disasters by citing Obama. But this weekend was a new low. He cited the al-Awlaki killing as a sign that the Obama administration is no different when it comes to the war on terror than the Bush administration, and demanded an apology. Yes, an apology! He wants to elide surgical, intelligence-based drone attacks with his own torture program. Mercifully, McCain set him right:

Cheney still has no idea what the rule of law is, or what American values are. The idea that anyone owes this war criminal an apology is preposterous. The real apology, it seems to me, should come from Cheney himself, for both betraying core Western values, violating the rule of law, undermining his successor as commander-in-chief with constant self-serving jibes, attacks and condemnations for at least a year and a half after Obama took office, and losing two wars that Obama has largely won.

Bush knew better and with a modicum of dignity, let his successor govern without back-seat driving. And somewhere, deep down, I have to believe, Cheney must surely feel some kind of remorse – or he wouldn’t feel so desperate to justify his own membership of the ranks of war criminals through the ages. Why else try to appropriate the victories of Obama in a war the Bush administration hopelessly compromised and bungled? He senses history is not going to be kind. On that, at least, he’s right. I just want justice to stay one foot in front of history so this war criminal gets the punishment he deserves – while he is still alive.

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October 2, 2011 · 3:24 PM

Dick Cheney Takes Credit for al-Awlaki Strike, Wants Obama to Apologize

:::Gagging:::

Proponents of the last administration are trying their best to undermine President Obama’s foreign policy successes.  Cheney is the latest in a long line of pundits and ex-Bush administration officials trying to give Dubya credit for his foreign policy programs which enabled Obama’s latest foreign policy coup.

Firedoglake

I realize that Dick Cheney is basically a troll these days, but I’m going to go ahead and feed him a little for this one.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney applauded the U.S. drone strike that killed American-born al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki but added that President Obama now owed the Bush administration an apology for claiming they “overreacted to 9/11.”

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Cheney said Obama was inconsistent for criticizing the former administration’s approach to terrorism while also using “some of the same techniques the Bush administration did.”

“We developed the technique and the technology for it,” said Cheney of the drone strike that killed Awlaki.

Cheney sounds a lot like Dubya, who basically took credit for killing bin Laden. But reports indicate that al-Awlaki was killed by a Predator (introduced during the Clinton administration) armed with Hellfire missiles (developed during the Reagan administration) — so it’s not clear what Cheney is talking about here.

“The thing I’m waiting for is for the administration to go back and correct something they said two years ago when they criticized us for ‘overreacting’ to the events of 9/11,” said Cheney. “They, in effect, said that we had walked away from our ideals, or taken policy contrary to our ideals when we had enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Most Americans agree that setting up torture gulags all over the world, illegally spying on Americans, creating a sprawling new department of the federal government and launching a preemptive, unrelated war of choice that killed half-a-million people — was an overreaction.

But is Cheney claiming that the Obama administration found Awlaki through torture? If so, that’s news.

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