It is ok for Obama to kill people because he is not Bush?

This graphic ((ht) says a lot, right, about how we have escalated the killing campaigns?:

As if the old stories on the kill list (have my colleagues nominated my name to be in the list?) were not enough to make us worry about due process and the constitution, the Washington Post reports:

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”
The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.

WTF!

I thought "kill list" was enough of a new and unwanted phrase in our dictionaries.  "Disposition matrix"???

As I expected, Glenn Greenwald is furious about this, and he is way smarter and informed than I ever can be:

The Post's Miller recognizes the watershed moment this represents: "The creation of the matrix and the institutionalization of kill/capture lists reflect a shift that is as psychological as it is strategic." As he explains, extra-judicial assassination was once deemed so extremist that very extensive deliberations were required before Bill Clinton could target even Osama bin Laden for death by lobbing cruise missiles in East Africa. But:

Targeted killing is now so routine that the Obama administration has spent much of the past year codifying and streamlining the processes that sustain it.

To understand the Obama legacy, please re-read that sentence. As Murtaza Hussain put it when reacting to the Post story: "The US agonized over the targeted killing Bin Laden at Tarnak Farms in 1998; now it kills people it barely suspects of anything on a regular basis."

Oh my freaking lord!

To hell with Obama and Romney!

More Greenwald:

It is literally impossible to imagine a more violent repudiation of the basic blueprint of the republic than the development of a secretive, totally unaccountable executive branch agency that simultaneously collects information about all citizens and then applies a "disposition matrix" to determine what punishment should be meted out. This is classic political dystopia brought to reality (despite how compelled such a conclusion is by these indisputable facts, many Americans will view such a claim as an exaggeration, paranoia, or worse because of this psychological dynamic I described here which leads many good passive westerners to believe that true oppression, by definition, is something that happens only elsewhere).

Need I remind you that Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . What a wonderful living illustration of George Orwell's 1984 scenario of war is peace :(

Going after Obama's Kill List leakers makes case for WikiLeaks

Finally, Jon Stewart has something to say about the emperor's President's Kill List. 

Now, before you click play and laugh away, here is more for you about those darned drones; let us see if you will laugh now!

Senator Rand Paul is introducing a bill to protect us--yes, you and me living in America--from those darned drones:

Like other tools used to collect information in law enforcement, in order to use drones a warrant needs to be issued. Americans going about their everyday lives should not be treated like criminals or terrorists and have their rights infringed upon by military tactics

WTF, right?  We have reached a situation where the Constitution and the Bill of Rights apparently aren't enough, and we need additional legislation to protect us and our rights from our own government. 

Meanwhile, Obama's don't-take-prisoners-to-Guantanamo-but-kill-them approach via drones is, as one can easily predict, triggering (yes, awful pun!) the growth of anti-American sentiments in those countries where drones are extensively used:

The New York Times has an extraordinary Op-Ed this morning by Ibrahim Mothana, a 23-year-old democracy activist and Al Qaeda opponent in Yemen. The headline is “How Drones Help Al Qaeda,” and it explains in compelling detail how the principal U.S. tactic ostensibly devoted to fighting Al Qaeda in his country — repeated drone attacks — is having exactly the opposite effect.

At the end of his post, Greenwald also refers to the Jon Stewart clip on the Kill List.  But, wait, there is more for you.  As Stewart point out, those pompous Congressional folks are upset--not at the fact that the President has his finger on a Kill List, but about the fact this was leaked.  How dare they leak it!

You see why the likes of Julian Assange are important for democracy?  If in a supposedly democratic US there can be so much of a secrecy about government programs, and when there is bipartisanship against leaks, one can imagine how incredibly opaque things might be in many other countries around the world. 

Speaking of Assange, he lost his legal battle against extradition. 

Ok, here is the Daily Show segment; watch and weep!

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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