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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSpecial drone court needed as check: Gates
WASHINGTON Former US defense secretary Robert Gates on Sunday endorsed the idea of having a special court review drone strikes as a check against a president's power to, in effect, execute Americans.
The issue came to the fore last week during a Senate hearing to confirm John Brennan, President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism chief, as director of the CIA.
Gates, a former CIA director who served as defense secretary under both Obama and former president George W. Bush, said the rules followed by the Obama administration "are quite stringent and are not being abused."
"But who is to say about a future president?" he said in an interview with CNN's State of the Union.
"I just think some check on the ability of a president to do this has merit as we look to the longer-term future," he said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i55W6CXlYyU45CTD7dSj1XqEMccg?docId=CNG.9917593c12f0d715ad1c31f1c3b79f7e.4b1
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Leaving it as a Presidential power that continues to carry a high political cost
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Institutionalizing America's "right" to violate the sovereignty and human rights of any nation/person we deem an enemy.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)We don't need a special court in order to act as a check against drone use, we simply need to end the use of drones, now.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)And the President does not have any authority what so ever to act as Judge.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Creepy, isn't it, how the terms of the conversation get shifted so quickly...
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)than special forces black ops or outright invasions?
MadHound
(34,179 posts)The simple fact is that our current drone policy is illegal under both domestic and international law.
However, for your edification, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan violated international law as well.
Face the fact, for being such a law abiding nation, we sure as hell violate a lot of laws.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong. Given that, why are drones any worse than invasions and use of covert forces?
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)an oxymoron if I ever heard one, obviously need to evolve to consider the existence of drones. Again, I don't see them as fundamentally different from any other act of war where one country invades another for a military purpose.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)I guess being raped. So let's torture instead. But we need a court.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)Jeremy Scahill says that they are more significant than the drone strikes and of course totally ingored. He has a movie about it coming out in the summer called Dirty Wars.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)is as committed as the last one to making sure that we take the fight to the terrorists where they are, rather than letting them take it to us in the United States. If he did not, his would be a failed Presidency.