NEEDED: A NEW LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR WAR

We need a solution to the ‘killing by drone” problem. Clearly, the President needs a legal framework to defend the country.  This morning Jane Harmon, ex-congressional representative from California, laid it out beautifully this morning on Morning Joe (MSNBC). She has the experience and understanding of how things work in Washington to make working suggestion.  Her suggestion centered on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. One of her major points was that our intelligence net works (CIA, FBI, and NSA) follow a large number of people (suspects) for a long time under the watchful eye of congress. In other word, a person is not put on the much-touted “Obama kill list” in some flippant, mystical, or in a haphazard manner. Our spy agencies have investigated them and collected evidence. Still, there is no legal procedure or “trial” convened to find them guilty.

Congress has to step forward and create that this legal procedure or framework in a way that is transparent to the world—meaning it is open to criticism by all people worldwide and if it is a fair system, they can give tacit approval to the system as being fair; including fair of U.S. citizens as well. The guidelines related to “kill” verses “capture” must be clearly laid out. Whether everyone in the world approves or not is not the point; in this flat world, dealing with a process that involves crossing international boundaries with weapons and deciding whether to kill of capture, world opinion counts.  We need as many countries on our side as we can get. The conservatives in Congress, the ones that America a “bully” nation, will object to this step because they will claim it gives foreign nations power over America—it does not do that—just as they object to the United Nations.

This suggestion does not mean that the FISA court needs to identify each individual and publically judged them any more than our U.S. domestic jury system needs to identify individuals before we can described the system in a way that allows everyone to judge that it is fair. The FISA court must operate under written laws that confine judgment to terrorist operatives and not political leaders—political assignations. This is no more than the political axiom; we only want to be judged by a court we agree with.

Ms. Jane Harmon pointed out that the President needs the equivalent of the War Powers Act to over step the FISA court in case of emergency, a rogue terrorist. Regardless, above all else what he desires are the legal guidelines he called for and needs congress to provide them and stop criticizing his every move for not “following” the law, or as they say stop taking extra legal actions. We should all realize it is a herculean task equivalent to asking the U. S. Congress to step into the leadership position and develop a new system of warfare for the world to follow. The truth is they are the world leaders so such start acting like leaders.