Hail to the Chief – Assassin (Tuesdays with Obama)
Tuesdays Obama sits around
Making decisions most profound
Perusing his high-value target lists
Making certain nothing is missed
So that when the drones are sent flying
The alleged culprit will end up dying
We all thought with Obama in power at last
Assassination and torture would be a thing of the past
The 2006 Military Commissions Act
Essentially made Bush a dictator in fact
Thus, while George W. Bush did things first
Obama it turns out has actually been worse
For extrajudicial killings are becoming the rule
And death sentences ever more cruel
For contrary to what the public was told from the start
Drone technology is just not that smart
And no matter what‘s done it’s impossible to manage
The inevitable horrific collateral damage
The irony is that here we have a man of unquestioned intelligence
Who should by all rights be exercising due diligence
And who has instead become judge, jury and executioner
Who listens not to the hapless petitioner
And since we know Obama is clearly no fool
And as a constitutional scholar must have learned this in school
What we have here and I’m afraid it’s too late
Is the hated embodiment of the totalitarian state
For it is a slippery slope you see
Before he comes after you and me
For there is a razor thin margin which is easily rent
Between terror and legitimate constitutionally sanctioned dissent.
Howard P. Charman, MD 12-11-2012
See: Medea Benjamin: Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, and the Drone Papers in the Intercept, October 2015. In addition, Jeremy Scahill presented the Drone Papers on Democracy Now 10-16-2015.
Double Down Game Change 2012 Mark Halperin and John Heileman. P 55.
Obama didn’t need to run through this preamble. Everyone knew the litany of his achievements. Foremost on that day, with the fresh news about al-Awlaki, it seemed the president was pondering the drone program that he had expanded so dramatically and with such lethal results, as well as the death of bin Laden, which was still resonating worldwide months later. “Turns out I’m really good at killing people,” Obama said quietly. “Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
6-10-2020
And Obama killed Anwar Al-Alawki an American Citizen and Imam in Yemen. Two weeks later, Aw-Lawki’s 16 y/o son, Abdulraman Al-Alawki and his cousin were droned and blown up. In January, 2017 Trump OK’d a raid in Yemen. It went badly, and Carryn’s husband, Seal Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens was killed in this raid that killed Al-Alawki’s American citizen daughter, Nora. Trump played on the widow Owens’ emotions and a perfect TV moment as she was clutching her heart and looking to heaven as she wept Trump famously stated “Ryan is looking down”. The crowd cheered. I almost vomited as this demonstrated Trump to me has no empathy and was totally using this poor woman for a TV stunt. See my poem “Trump’s Presidential Moment” which is what the pundits called it (including the liberal Van Jones.
See: Spencer Ackerman The Guardian March 1, 2017.