[Vision2020] Rand Paul

Thu Mar 7 05:41:42 PST 2013

Joe,

Guessing here, but I think R Paul is keying on constitutional rights, not moral issues. I also think there is an element, maybe a large one, of political grandstanding, but he's one of the few who's even addressing this. Besides Oregon's Ron Wyden, where are the Ds on this issue? Completely absent, if not completely complicit. Plus this is a good time to raise the issue, in the Brennan hearings, and with the release of the repugnant Holder's comment.

Unfortunately, as I've noted here before, we seem to be blind and deaf to the killings on non-citizens in the drone campaigns. We seem to only pay attention when we kill US citizens abroad, though again, we have killed Muslims so that seems to be okay. People who hate Obama and don't believe a word he says on domestic policies lap up his rationales for killing Americans outside the country without any due process.

I agree with your comment about the Iraq war, but I'd expand it to the entire war; we killed civilians the whole time, just in fewer numbers as the war went on. But the hell we unleashed continues to lead to their deaths now, but by fellow Iraqis in the low-grade civil war that is going on there now.

Sunil

CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
From: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Rand Paul
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 05:01:03 -0800
To: sunilramalingam at hotmail.com

I'm suspicious of R Paul. Why did he make it simply a domestic concern? What exactly is the number of people that we've killed in the US with drones? Say what you wish but the problem that Rand actually talked about is not a pressing issue at the time (not as pressing as the economy for instance) IMO. The timing is curious.
No one who has posted on the thread is in favor of the current drone policy. When it comes to drones, my concern has more to do with the death of innocents than with the issue of rights but we've killed far more innocents without drones than with them. I didn't here R Paul talk about that. 
I don't see how the innocent folks who died in the initial Iraq invasion are merely an acceptable cost of war but when an innocent dies from a drone intended for a terrorist, that is atrocious. To me the Iraq war was and is one horrible mistake and drones are just part of that.
Given the timing and the content of the speech, R Paul's comments strike me as purely political. 
On Mar 6, 2013, at 10:23 PM, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:

I'm with Paul R and R Paul on this. Like Paul R, when I read Sen. Paul's statement, my regret was that he limits his concern to US citizens on US soil. We should be concerned about these atrocities wherever they occur. This, and his expansion of the security state and executive power, and his refusal to prosecute torturers (but his willingness to prosecute those who expose it) led me to vote for Jill Stein in the last election. That was the first time since 1980, when I could first vote, that I didn't vote for the Democratic Party candidate. And I'm not coming back while the Democrats embrace and take Bush-Cheney policies to heart.

Sunil

Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2013 18:43:14 -0800
From: godshatter at yahoo.com
To: donaldrose at cpcinternet.com
CC: Vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Rand Paul

      "Showboating", huh?  Whatever.

      The vast amount of drone strikes overseas have either been against
      people on their kill list going about their day, not currently
      involved in a violent attack, or they have been against people
      they can't identify but that they are reasonably sure are
      terrorists because of their associations.  Again, not taking them
      out while they are actively engaged in combat, just assassinating
      them wherever they happen to find them, doing whatever they happen
      to be doing at that moment.  Doing the dishes, blam, dead, along
      with who knows how many people nearby.  No due process, no vetting
      of evidence, no jury of their peers, no idea even what criteria
      our President uses to determine who gets to die that day.

      Nobody I've seen is saying that we can't use drones, even on
      American soil, against people actively involved in combat.  The
      problem is that that isn't what they are being used for.

      If you want to wish this away as some kind of stunt because he's a
      Paul or because he's a Republican or because you don't like his
      haircut, then you're part of the problem.  Our President is out of
      control with these assassinations, and our police departments are
      out of control in their militarization.  Drop the damned Us vs.
      Them crap, please.

      Paul

      On 03/06/2013 06:06 PM, Rosemary Huskey wrote:

        Should
            there be a disclaimer with this “purist’s” showboating?  
            Where does shooting someone in self-defense, or those
            occasions when law enforcement  officers are forced by a
             critically dangerous situation (for example  a gun battle)
            to shoot to kill come into this equation?  I am sure that
            Rand will zoon right to the top of the list of right wing
            nutbags with this stunt.  
        Rose

            From:
                vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
                [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of
                Paul Rumelhart

                Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 5:55 PM

                To: Vision 2020

                Subject: [Vision2020] Rand Paul

        I found this on Google+, I didn't make it
          and I don't claim it.  

          I don't agree with this guy on everything by any means and I
          wish he'd left out the "on American soil" part, but I am
          behind him on this.

          <ATT00001>

          Paul

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