Targeted Killing

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In a long piece, Glenn Greenwald writes,

Ultimately, what is most extraordinary about all of this – most confounding to me – is how violently contrary this mentality is to the ethos with which all Americans are instilled: namely, that the first and most inviolable rule of government is that leaders must not be trusted to exercise powers without constant restraints – without what we’re all taught in elementary school are called “checks and balances”.

He discusses Presidential exercise of power in the name of fighting terrorism. Read the whole thing. There are many interesting issues here. My thoughts:

1. One hundred years ago, if you did not have a mass of men wearing uniforms, you could not pose much of a threat to society. One hundred years ago, governments did not have available to them the surveillance technology and drone strike technology that some governments have today. I am not saying that I am confident about which old rules, if any, no longer apply, but it is worth thinking about the issue. For a book-length treatment that pre-dates 9/11 (but anticipated it), see David Brin’s The Transparent Society. To see my alternative to Brin’s solution, read The Constitution of Surveillance.

2. My general view is that if we want the government to have new powers, then we ought to build in new checks and balances. I think this applies to much more than just the issue of terrorism, drone strikes, and surveillance. I have written about the generic benefits of having a strong audit function in government.

3. It could be that the best principle to follow when it comes to drone strikes is “never do them.” I think it is easy to develop the hypothesis that they will do more harm than good. It is also quite hard to think of a way to test that hypothesis reliably.

4. At the very least, it would seem better to arrive at a “kill list” by having suspects tried in absentia under some form of courtroom procedure (obviously not with full rights for the accused, and not necessarily public, but subject to audit) than simply have suspects nominated by the intelligence bureaucracy and approved by the President.

5. How does this issue play out with libertarians, progressives, and conservatives? One of Greenwald’s main points is that progressives are not consistent on the issue. They distrusted the Bush Administration but not the Obama Administration. I would say that conservatives fairly consistently support the use of unusual powers. Remember that, as I see it, conservatives’ main focus is on the struggle between civilization and barbarism. Through that lens, provided that you see our side as representing civilization and the members of terror organizations as representing barbarism, drone strikes look good. I would say that libertarians are fairly consistent on the opposite side, because libertarians fundamentally distrust government exercise of power.

6. I think of the essence of progressivism as being on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors. I suspect, as does Greenwald, that because progressives see Obama as on the side of the oppressed they have difficulty imagining that he would abuse power. That does not strike me as a very charitable interpretation of the progressive position. Can one do better?

11 thoughts on “Targeted Killing”

  1. I have seen some conservative outrage on Obama’s use of drones, although I don’t know if it’s so much an outrage of his use of drones overseas as much as their domestic implication:
    http://www.conservativehq.com/article/8291-obama%E2%80%99s-drones-outside-your-bedroom

    I am sure there are plenty of issues where once Bush got in power, he moved to the left and conservatives kept quiet because it was “their guy” in office. Maybe libertarians are just more consistent because “their guy” has never been in power to shift to more authoritarian stances.

  2. As a self-identifying progressive, you are certainly being charitable. I can only try and explain it through some sort of Big Tent Progressive construct. One may have been an Obama supporter for environmentalism, class warfare, equal rights etc. and then anti-war posturing was way down on your list. The only “Yeah, but” I can muster for progressives like myself who similarly hold the anit-war position of libertarians is that you mostly stayed home this past November.
    Indeed, head over to Code Pink’s website right now and take a look at the book they are promoting on their front page:
    http://www.codepink4peace.org/

  3. A charitable view is beyond my biased imagination. I’d have to find an actual defense of letting Obama have this power, made by an actual progressive. The most charitable view I can muster is that most progressives would be against this, but view Obama as the much lesser of two evils on all other matters of oppression/oppressed.

  4. Fear of government “black helicopters” was once mostly associated with a subgroup of social conservatives and Republicans, wasn’t it? Likewise for “New World Order” conspiracy theories, or just plain concern over the spread of communism. At least before the fall of the USSR, many US conservatives saw totalitarianism to be as great a threat to our civilization as barbarism.

  5. Don’t… tempt me! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good… But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.

  6. 6 might not be charitable but it strikes me as accurate.

    More thoughts on the need for being charitable: I get that you might not want to be demeaning to people and to have civilized debate but sometimes the truth is not something that is going to come across as nice. I prefer truth to nice 100% of the time when it comes to political discussions. On the other hand, if a person is advocating a position of violence and evil, I’m not sure I get the need to be nice to that person. The person who advocates political evil is the same as the person who carries it out because, in politics, evil is only possible if people advocate for it.

  7. Here is an attempt at a more-charitable version of the progressive case for keeping quiet about Obama’s abuses (not my position by any means, but close to what I think friends have expressed).

    Obama will abuse this power, but no more than any remotely electable potential Presidential candidate. Thus our expressing outrage over his abuse will do nothing to reduce the likelihood or severity of the abuse. So our choices are to support him and be quiet about his abuses, and get continued abuse but also things we want, or to oppose him over these abuses, and get no less– possibly more– continued abuse and also not get other things we want. Expressing opposition to Bush’s abuses, on the other hand, was a way of rallying the Democratic base against Bush, and so worth doing even if it didn’t do anything to curtail the abuses.

    • I don’t know where that rates on the charity-meter, but it resonants pretty well with me on the accuracy-meter.

      And anyway, charity is only charity if it is in reference to what is true (caritas in veritate).

  8. 6 seems somewhat accurate given the language used when describing President Obama’s decisions and actions.

    He “inherited a mess” and is “doing the best he can with what he was given.” Almost like forces out of his control or the momentum of the war on terrorism (which I will grant him must be incredible) have forced him to continue these programs against his will.

    I can appreciate how impossible it must be to stand up in front of a camera and say “this thing has gotten too big for me, I can’t just shut it down in one fell swoop” even if that is how you feel. And voicing displeasure with the war on terror while doing little to nothing about it makes you look weak and ineffectual as a Commander-in-Chief.

  9. I think you are unintentionally conflating “progressives” with “Democrats.” Only about a fifth of Americans self-identify as “liberal” in most polls, and assuming that transposes to the electorate that means that less than 40% of Obama’s coalition was made of self-identified liberals. Most Americans don’t even seem to know what “progressive” means.

    If you go to a lot of left-leaning blogs, you will find a lot of anger about the drone program. Firedoglake is a sterling example of that, but there are many others. However, a strong majority of Americans support the drone program, and in terms of salience left-leaning Americans are more focused on defending the institutions of the welfare state.

    Increased salience of security issues tends to expose divisions in the Democratic coalition. This was true re: Vietnam (and to some extent throughout the Cold War), it was true re: Iraq, and it’s true re: drones and counter-terrorism. If in some alternate universe unemployment plummeted and the GOP folded on most issues of taxes and spending and there was a renewed focus on security issues I think you’d see progressive anger about drones (as well as other related issues, like detention) become much more visible and politically salient.

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