Wednesday, October 12, 2011

"HEY, WHO PUT THIS TARGET ON MY BACK?" (Obama's Other Death Panel)


Much was made of the Death Panel alleged to be in the ObamaCare legislation back in 2009.  But this is not about any alleged ObamaCare Death Panel.  This is about the most dangerous Death Panel in existence now!  This about the assassination of an American citizen deemed to be an enemy of the state. 

The assassination last week of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American born citizen, is more chilling than pulling the life support plug on Grandma.  There is a "kill or capture list" created by a secret panel of senior U.S. government officials that makes these life or death decisions.  These officials inform the president of its "death penalty" decisions.  But according to a Reuters news story,
The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.  
Wow, a mysterious man of action is in the White House!
 
Erstwhile bystander Obama at the left near VP Biden "takes command" of the
Osama Bin Laden situation.  White House picture from Infowars.com, May 5,
2011.


There's nothing worse than a milquetoast that wants to show that he's a tough guy.   This is beginning to be a recurring theme as we approach the 2012 Presidential Elections. It started in earnest with the Bin Laden killing in May of this year. A look at the White House photo above of the Bin Ladin Assassination Situation Room shows Obama looking more like a bystander than as an active participant. 

But with this latest terrorist killing by Obama's posse we've got a mixed message, because according to the above-mentioned Reuters news story:
The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki's killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.
But as mentioned above, we still don't know Obama's true role in this "death panel" by arbitrary decree.  It gets worse when you wonder how far our "man of action" might be willing to go to show that he's a "tough guy" in order to be re-elected.  There's also no indication of any due process afforded to these potential enemies of the state--even if they are American  citizens.  This is from the Administration that wants to give Miranda rights to enemy combatants.

But political assassination is  an unspoken of taboo in American politics.  But when it happens usually it doesn't involve an American citizen, except for perhaps the mysterious death of American actress Jean Seberg, who it seemed offended FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, by raising money for the Black Panthers in the 1960s.  There were unsubstantiated rumors that FDR had populist Huey Long assassinated. 

The assassination of foreign leaders is a different matter.  There was no real uproar when under JFK's watch, President Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated on November 1, 1963, following a coup in South Vietnam.  Ironically or coincidentally if you prefer, JFK was assassinated 21 days later in Dallas, Texas.  Richard Nixon caught hell, as he did for merely breathing, for the assassination of Chilean President Salvador Allende, although the leftists couldn't definitively show American involvement in Allende's death.  The 1967 assassination death of Che Guevara by Bolivian soldiers trained by the CIA and Green Berets did not create as much controversy as would have been expected.  Maybe it was because Lyndon Johnson had other problems like an escalating Vietnam war.  Democrats always get away with murder it seems.

Given the lousy, unquestioning Lame Stream Media that we now have, it's doubtful that Obama will ever be held in check or to account.  And that scares the rest of us law abiding citizens, a.k.a., the putative enemies of the state."  Be assured that I'll be practicing my duck and cover skills on a regular basis.