"Trayvon Martin looks like he's up to no good ..."Thank God Zimmerman didn't have drones/ Will Bunch

Tuesday, May 29, 2012
If you're "probably up to no good," President Obama wants to kill you
Posted by Will Bunch


Quote from NYT investigative article:: "Secret ‘Kill List’ Tests Obama’s Principles" - NYTimes.com

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

---------

This may be the ultimate example of something we've seen a lot in the last three and a half years, which we'll call, "If President Bush did this, liberals would be outraged." For what little it's worth, I'm fairly outraged. I do certainly approve of the raid and killing of Osama bin Laden and believe there was a time when al-Qaeda was stronger and more of a threat that these kind of attacks could be justified with solid intelligence.

But today the harm that's caused by raining death from machines in the sky down onto far too many civilians -- including someone's son, brother, or father who wasn't "up to no good" at all -- vastly outweighs any good. Righteous anger over the killing of civilians creates new terrorists faster than the killing of any old ones. As for the morally indefensible position that any male killed in such an attack is "probably up to no good," isn't the Obama administration saying the EXACT same thing that George Zimmerman said about Trayvon Martin?

Ponder that for a moment.

One more revolting thing is the news that a political adviser, David Axelrod, sat in on some of these meetings at which it was decided who would live and die.

If Karl Rove had done that (which he did, by the way). liberals would have been outraged.

UPDATE: Actually, the similarity with Zimmerman is even greater than I first thought. What he said to the Sanford police dispatcher was that Trayvon Martin "looks like he's up to no good." Thank God Zimmerman didn't have drones, huh?

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/If-youre-probably-up-to-no-good-then-President-Obama-wants-to-kill-you.html