Obama personally orders every drone attack

[jimmy olsen]

Interesting. Maybe I'm overestimating the number of attacks we make, but I would have assumed that would take up a lot of time.

This article is 8 pages long, here's the first.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=1&hp

By JO BECKER and SCOTT SHANE
Published: May 29, 2012 1208 Comments

Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will

WASHINGTON — This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years.

President Obama, overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment to study the faces. It was Jan. 19, 2010, the end of a first year in office punctuated by terrorist plots and culminating in a brush with catastrophe over Detroit on Christmas Day, a reminder that a successful attack could derail his presidency. Yet he faced adversaries without uniforms, often indistinguishable from the civilians around them.

"How old are these people?" he asked, according to two officials present. "If they are starting to use children," he said of Al Qaeda, "we are moving into a whole different phase."

It was not a theoretical question: Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret "nominations" process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding "kill list," poring over terrorist suspects' biographies on what one official calls the macabre "baseball cards" of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

"He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go," said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. "His view is that he's responsible for the position of the United States in the world." He added, "He's determined to keep the tether pretty short."

Nothing else in Mr. Obama's first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by awkward secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president's own deep reserve.

In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama's evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda.

They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was "an easy one."

His first term has seen private warnings from top officials about a "Whac-A-Mole" approach to counterterrorism; the invention of a new category of aerial attack following complaints of careless targeting; and presidential acquiescence in a formula for counting civilian deaths that some officials think is skewed to produce low numbers.

The administration's failure to forge a clear detention policy has created the impression among some members of Congress of a take-no-prisoners policy. And Mr. Obama's ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron P. Munter, has complained to colleagues that the C.I.A.'s strikes drive American policy there, saying "he didn't realize his main job was to kill people," a colleague said.

Beside the president at every step is his counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, who is variously compared by colleagues to a dogged police detective, tracking terrorists from his cavelike office in the White House basement, or a priest whose blessing has become indispensable to Mr. Obama, echoing the president's attempt to apply the "just war" theories of Christian philosophers to a brutal modern conflict.

[Jaron]

Probably does it so he can be sure no hits get authorized against his friends and family in the Islamosphere.

[Brazen]

When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

Misleading headline, Obama only directly approves drone strikes against specific targets outside current theatres of war. I can assure you plenty go ahead through the usual chain of command.

[CountDeMoney]

Misleading headline,

Imagine that.

[Eddie Teach]

When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

Misleading headline, Obama only directly approves drone strikes against specific targets outside current theatres of war. I can assure you plenty go ahead through the usual chain of command.

How about this one, any better?

Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will

[Berkut]

I actually think Obama's handling of the "war" on terror has been his most impressive achievement.

And I am not even talking about whacking bin Laden - I think anyone in office would have done the same.

But he has been agressive without acting like a d-bag about it, but at the same time has not delegated the job, and is extremely aware of his power and limits.

He handled the exit from Iraq as well as anyone could have (even if it was the Bush/McCain plan he implemented, he does and should get credit for actually implimenting it rather than bowing to pressure from the nutbars to do his own thing), and while the war in Afghanistan is pretty much a fucking mess, I don't think that has much to do with leadership or direction, so much as it does that Afghanistan and Pakistan are a fucking mess, and the window of opportunity for something we can call "success" is ridiculously narrow.

He recognized that Gitmo, no matter how onerous it is, is likely necessary and even unavoidable. Again, while it is a little easy to give him shit for not shutting it down when he bleated about it so much during the campaign, leaving it open is the right move for now. Hell, at this point I think Gitmo is probably going to just end up being a hard core terrorists retirement community.

Anyway, I would give Obama an overall 'A' for the job he has done prosecuting the war on terrorism.

[The Brain]

I don't have a secret kill list.

[CountDeMoney]

I don't have a secret kill list.

No, most of our kills lists here are open source.

[FunkMonk]

I don't have a secret kill list.

http://languish.org/forums/index.php?action=mlist

[DGuller]

about whacking bin Laden - I think anyone in office would have done the same.

You just can't give Obama credit for anything he's done, can you?

[Razgovory]

about whacking bin Laden - I think anyone in office would have done the same.

You just can't give Obama credit for anything he's done, can you?

I seem recall some people making an issue of Obama's claim that he attack juicy targets in Pakistan even without the Pakistani permission back in 2008.  Tim started a thread on it.  I believe he said it was reckless.

Here's the part of McCain's speech that started the row.

"My friends, we live in a world of change, some of which holds great promise for us and all mankind, and some of which poses great peril. Today political change in Pakistan is occurring that might affect our relationship with a nuclear-armed nation that is indispensable to our success in combating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"An old enemy of American interests and ideals is leaving the world stage, and we can glimpse the hope that freedom might someday come to the people of Cuba,'' he said. "A self-important bully in Venezuela threatens to cut off oil shipments to our country at a time of skyrocketing gas prices.

"Each event poses a challenge and an opportunity. Will the next president have the experience -- the judgment, experience informs and the strength of purpose to respond to each of these developments in ways that strengthen our security and advance the global progress of our ideals? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan, and suggested sitting down without preconditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons? I think you know the answer to that question.''

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/barack_obama_target_engaged_tw.html

[CountDeMoney]

about whacking bin Laden - I think anyone in office would have done the same.

You just can't give Obama credit for anything he's done, can you?

Well, considering how the Bush White House rejected an operation to go after Al-Zawahiri in Pakistan in 2005, not anyone in office would have done the same.

A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group's operations.

But the mission was called off after Rumsfeld rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

And never mind the two other GOP candidates in 2008 that gave Obama shit about doing saying he would do it.

[Berkut]

I am evaluating Obama based o what he did, not what he said he would do (or not do). What he SAID in campaigns he would do he most certainly did NOT do, which is actually why I am giving him a high grade.

Comparing that to a bunch of other campaign rhetoric is a bit silly, don't you think?

And I would bet the Obama White House has rejected proposed operations as well - at least, I certainly hope that they have done so. Kind of funny that Seedy is knocking the Bush administration for showing some restraint, of all things.

[CountDeMoney]

Kind of funny that Seedy is knocking the Bush administration for showing some restraint, of all things.

I always knock the Bush Administration for showing restraint when they didn't have to--and for not showing restraint when they needed to.

[Berkut]

Kind of funny that Seedy is knocking the Bush administration for showing some restraint, of all things.

I always knock the Bush Administration for showing restraint when they didn't have to--and for not showing restraint when they needed to.

How do you know they didn't have to in this case?