OBAMA ON THE BATTLEFIELD

The dilemma Obama faces is to try to design an entirely new paradigm for protecting the country and its citizens including the position of the executive and legislative branches in that scheme. The Constitution was not written to cope with what the world has become. Unlike in the past, it is a “war” without political boundaries. Equally perplexing is the position in which this president finds himself in respect to the congress in that war. He has the responsibility to protect the citizens of the United States and needs the authority to do so; the authority must match the responsibility. In the past world ,where country fought country, the president had time to make protective strikes then ask congress to declare war. That is all different; it is more personal. As Commander in Chief, unlike any predecessor in history, he is in the same position as a soldier in the front lines. If he has an enemy in sight, he decides if he should pull the trigger or not—his kill list. Even for a battle-scarred soldier, this is not an easy decision. If a drone finds a rarely visible target in the embraces of his or her family does he pull the trigger: how dangerous is the individual to our nation; how much collateral damage, if any, is acceptable, etc.

The fact that a panel of people hand Obama a list of “targets” means other people are really the ones responsible for making the decision and the President accepts the final responsibility; he has the assume responsibility of pulling the trigger. The “kill list” is not just a haphazard list of names for the president to sort through frivolously by some sort of lottery as Joe Scarborough mocked the process this morning. The people on the list have committed acts of war, or if citizen of the United States, people who have committed treasonous acts.

The people of the United States have to catch up to fast moving political events. What people seem to be calling for is to be in on the secret decisions of who to put on the list—to be on some sort of mammoth jury. As trite as it sounds, I am sure if they were the ones making the decisions they would agree that the decisions were the right ones. For example, the chair of the armed services committee reviewed the decisions of the panel and agreed with those names.  There are those who live in a make believe world off peace and love where there is no death and destruction and wants the president to do nothing to defend the country. By the way, they would the first to condemn him for allowing any acts of terror to happen. I think the majority of people think the process followed is as good as it can be; they are also the ones who want to open the system to improvements—to make it better. The great majority of people agreed that our president is doing a good job defending us while designing a new paradigm to do so.