Former presidential candidate and Texas congressman Ron Paul (R) is criticizing President Obama for the “targeted assassination” of Americans in al Qaeda.
While Obama apologized Thursday for airstrikes that killed two hostages, American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, Paul said the media should be paying more attention to the two American terrorism suspects who were killed.
“There were other people killed, but you won't read about it in the media I’m quite sure because they were two Americans who had joined al-Qaeda, so they are automatically very bad people,” he said during the “Ron Paul Liberty Report,” which was postedto YouTube.
“Being an American citizen means nothing in this day and age of no law and order so they were literally assassinated, this was a targeted assassination of Americans because they were doing something we didn’t want them to do.”
Paul is the father of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is running for president in 2016.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said President Obama hadn’t signed off on the two strikes on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and that counterterrorism officials followed protocol that seeks to ensure that al Qaeda members are the target.
But the White House stressed that the government did not know the two American terrorism suspects, Ahmed Farooq and Adam Ghadan, were present. That means it’s unlikely that the strikes were cleared through the Justice Department, as has been standard practice other times where American citizens are targeted.
It’s unclear how the strike was carried out, but TheWall Street Journal and other media outlets have reported that it was a drone attack.
Paul is a noted anti-interventionist and a frequent critic of the administration’s drone program. On the campaign trail during the 2012 presidential election, he bashed the president and said that the strategic gains don’t outweigh the animosity against America that is fostered by the accidental killing of civilians.
“It's still heartache no matter what because I don’t think we should be hitting anybody with drones under the conditions we have today,” he said.
RP is definitely taking hits at Obama who was visibly disturbed when he explained that he was responsible except that the CIA actually ordered this and carried it out without his orders.
The element missing here is that Obama has now delegated his drone-kill authority to CIA (and possibly others) to take himself off the hook for ordered murders that will inevitably include innocent civilians.
When Rand took aim at drones used on Americans (3 that Obama admitted to later), Obama pulled back on his drone program for a while. Apparently, he has now delegated this to the CIA so he can pretend to be out of the loop.
Good for Ron Paul. He has definitely landed a few blows on Obola.
"The element missing here is that Obama has now delegated his drone-kill authority to CIA (and possibly others) to take himself off the hook for ordered murders that will inevitably include innocent civilians."
But if some bigwig terrorist is killed, Obama can still claim that he, personally, ordered it.
But if some bigwig terrorist is killed, Obama can still claim that he, personally, ordered it.
And if something goes wrong, Obama can nobly claim his responsibility while pointing the finger at the CIA and its operatives. And will use executive privilege to shield them and obstruct Congress as long as he is in office.
So, yeah, win-win with special political implications.
