After Obama’s remarks on drones, White House rebuffs security questions

[alp227]

White House spokesman Jay Carney rebuffed questions Tuesday about whether President Obama had violated intelligence restrictions on the secret U.S. drone program in Pakistan when he openly discussed the subject the day before.

Obama, speaking Monday at an online town hall sponsored by Google, twice uttered the word “drones” as he explained their precise and “judicious” use against al-Qaeda targets. Asked if the president had made a mistake, Carney said he was “not going to discuss .?.?. supposedly covert programs.”

He suggested that nothing Obama had said could be a security violation: “He’s the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States. He’s the president of the United States.”

On Monday, Obama was responding to “Evan in Brooklyn,” who said that the president had “ordered more drone attacks in your first year than your predecessor did in his entire term.”

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/after-obamas-remarks-on-drones-white-house-rebuffs-security-questions/2012/01/31/gIQA9s2LgQ_story.html

[JayhawkSD]

1. If the president does it it's not illegal. n/t

[JDPriestly]

2. With regard to military secrecy, that is true.

The president is the commander in chief. What he says pretty much goes. Congress has some authority over the armed forces, and the president can't do anything he wants in every areay, but the president, regardless of his party, is the commander in chief. As we saw with GW Bush, that is not always a good thing.

[MADem]

3. He can unclassify a classified operation with a comment.

It is true; the people doing the classifying work for him. Up until he told us that Bin Ladin was history, that operation was highly classified, as an example.

[joshcryer]

4. Congress fully legalized targeted killing.

If there was no security issue and he was fully transparent about each and every one, it would still be legal under the Third Geneva Convention. Basically Obama can kill anyone anywhere who is an unlawful combatant (ie, not represented by a state but using arms against people) and there's no law, nationally or internationally, that stops him.

[EFerrari]

5. This is just the usual right wingnut bullying of Obama. nt