The trust of the speech, as reported by The WashPost is that things are going to be different when the new National Security Strategy (NSS) is issued shortly. Here is the key paragraph:
The administration is set to officially release the president's first national security strategy next week, and Obama's preview on Saturday suggests it will be far different than the first one offered by his predecessor in 2002. In that prior document, President George W. Bush formally called for a policy of preemptive war and a "distinctly American internationalism."One of the things I liked was that the President is calling for civilians to do more—ordinary citizens of these United States:
But he said civilians must answer the call of service as well, by securing America's economic future, educating its children and confronting the challenges of poverty and climate change. He said the country must always pursue what he called the "universal rights" rooted in the Constitution.I am looking forward to looking at the speech and at the new NSS.
"We will promote these values above all by living them—through our fidelity to the rule of law and our Constitution, even when it's hard; and through our commitment to forever pursue a more perfect union," he said.
Regards — Cliff
4 comments:
What a heaping, steaming pile of rhetorical BS. "We will promote these values above all by living them"... Except, of course, if you should happen to be a citizen we do not like, in which case we'll just put the hit out on you.
Where is the righteous outrage???
Kad
Right here. I have outrage. That is why I blogged about it earlier. Unfortunately, you and I are the only ones upset by this. Maybe I can get The Other Cliff to voice an opinion.
I don't think Neal feels as strongly about it as we do. Maybe I can pimp his former colleague, "Loose Threads".
Regards — Cliff
There is a great quote that I cannot find from a father to his son who was heading attending college at the time of the Kent State shooting. It went something like this: "If you engage in insurrection you should expect to be shot, and while your mother and I will mourn you passing, we will gladly buy dinner for the guardsman who shot you."
Thus the source of my dilemma: Those who engage in acts of war should expect to be shot, but citizens should expect due process of law. How to reconcile these two fundamental rules which appear to be in conflict.
I think it is a case by case determination, but if U.S. citizen hangs out with terrorists, he should reasonably expect that he might be collateral damage. If, however, that same citizen is engaged in conduct furthering the terrorist cause to make war upon the United States, then he is no less a legitimate target than anyone else (I note that the legitimacy of extrajudicial-non-battlefield killing is a separate issue that I do not address).
The tipping point, in my mind, comes when their conduct could no longer reasonably be considered protected by the First Amendment guarantees of the right to free speech, peaceable assembly, and redress of grievances. At that point, they are as fair a target as bin Laden himself as they have begun to engage in actual acts of war.
That said, I don't know enough facts of the current case to opine as the application of the above standard.
As a side note, while not addressing the legitimacy of extrajudicial-non-battlefield killings, I think we should be VERY, VERY careful lest one person's turbulent priest become another's incipient terrorist.
I find it terribly difficult to sit in silence and listen to the fecal outpourings of a demented narcissist whose only goal is to hear the beautiful sounds of his interminable BS!!! And to FORCE the entire long gray line to endure yet another diatribe in one years is almost too much to ask of them.
We will follow the rule of law embedded in our Constitution....unless it gets in the way of doing what is more expedient to making me ruler of the world and turning what's left of the greatest country in the history of mankind into another fetid cesspool of socialistic swampland.
I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it, "if you are truly an American and choose to avail yourself of the rights and priviledges thereof, you must by definition not preach her overthrow or seek to harm her by external attacks and means." If this so-called "cleric" was really American, he'd turn over the names of his AQ and Taliban supporters and help the forces of the so-called free world root them out. Instead, he is calling for our demise by any means possible...and we have folks who cry for him because we want to kill him. I'm not sure who is worse.
For my part, he is barely worth the expense of a .45 cal slug in the temple...and certainly NOT worth the expense of tracking him, arresting him, transporting him to some designated location, and then staging a show trial before setting him free for lack of "compelling evidence" that he "actually intended to harm the US" (well...he didn't ACTUALLY attack us did he??).
We are so consumed with the actions of an inconsequential ant that we no longer perceive the herd of elephants about to stampede UP our collective posteriors.
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