Drone Apparatchik Crocodile Tears

The lead story in today's New York Times, purporting to describe how certain conscientious members of the Obama administration do care about the war crimes that are being committed daily by them and their co-workers in the drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and who-knows-how-many other countries, is good news in at least one respect: it suggests that the vocal and growing opposition to U.S. actions with drones is being heard.

However, it's bad news in another respect. Look: clearly the sources for this article are the kind of "team players" whose first priority was to assure that their boss was re-elected in November. It is pathetic that they cannot even see how fallacious their own statements are: what, it was urgent to impose rules if Romney was using drones, but Obama's use of drones can proceed in a legal vacuum????

It is even more pathetic that these apparatchiks think that some end is served by telegraphing their twinges of conscience to the rest of the world . . . as if that somehow makes the drone killing alright.

If they really saw that what Obama and the rest of his administration are doing is wrong -- and if they really wanted to throw a wrench in the works -- there is a clear course of action.

Resign.

(Can you say "Cameron Munter"?)

When I see "unnamed members of the State Department and Justice Department" -- the people who allegedly are concerned that the Obama administration is doing something wrong on drones -- use their power of exit to influence their erring masters, I'll fly to Washington to shake their hands.

Until then, it's just crocodile tears.

Related posts

More than anyone else, the beneficiaries of permawar are the politicians who thrive on the power to make and control wars.

(See J'ACCUSE: The Beneficiaries of Permawar)

There can be no question but that Americans and the rest of the world will eventually wake up to the terror being inflicted in their name on Pakistanis and others. The only question that will then remain will be whether Obama, Panetta, and the whole drone "kill chain" will be prosecuted as war criminals or as ordinary criminals. (And God help them if they are condemned to the limbo of "unlawful enemy combatant" - entitled to neither civil nor military justice.)

(See #NATOvictims - Drone Strikes in Pakistan )

"In response to the consequences of war, each of us is presented with the responsibility to say something and do something to prevent more killing. For better or for worse, how we respond to the moral challenges of our times defines who we are, as citizens, as parents, as neighbors, and as members of the global community."

(See #RemembranceDay2012)