Imagine, if you would, a dystopian world where your government thought it could assassinate you or your fellow citizens at will according to some unknown set of circumstances that it refused to (or could not) define. A world where, if you are about to be “imminently” or have been “recently” involved in “particular” terrorist “activities,” you will soon be at the business end of a missile launched from an unmanned drone. Just for kicks, imagine that your national leader, the leader of the free world in fact, had made many comments decrying these very kinds of loose and legally indefinable standards in the past.

Such standards, even I will admit, would make former Vice President Cheney proud. It was these attitudes President Obama decried in his first inaugural address when he declared “power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.” Surely then, Obama should be strongly condemning the internal memo out of the Justice Department this past week (produced for President Obama) prescribing such standards for the use of drones in assassinating American citizens. Four years ago, “Hope and Change” told us that Gitmo needed to be closed to maintain America’s moral integrity, and the liberal intelligentsia was calling for Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo to be sent to the Hague. Now, they are all too happy to rain death from the skies.

The president and his liberal cronies must be called what they are: brash, bold-faced hypocrites. Not but four years ago, they impugned President Bush as the worst president in history, responsible for nothing less than destroying our international reputation which their beloved savior Obama would rebuild. Gitmo would be closed (it’s still open), all its inmates would be speedily put on trial to ensure that “justice” would be served (they haven’t) and the president’s interpretation of what our values are would guide our foreign policy, thereby restoring our reputation among the mullahs of the Middle East (which is neither desirable nor forthcoming).

Now, do not misunderstand me — I have no problem with how the president’s policies have proceeded. Terrorists are as close to the embodiment of evil in the modern world as is possible, entirely responsible for their own actions and deserving of an untimely death by drone missile. To say that those who believe there is any justification for mindlessly murdering thousands of people deserve courtroom justice is incredibly inane and naïve. Frankly, I’d be far more concerned about a government which was afraid to make a few evil men uncomfortable to save untold numbers of innocent people than one that randomly blew jihadists away in some village in Somalia.

What I cannot ignore — and what you should not either — is the fact that your national leader is willing to lie to you for his own political advantage and then promptly do the opposite of what he says, all the while lying to make it appear as though he has fulfilled his promises. At every turn, on every issue, his conscience seems to have no bounds and no limitations. Cut wasteful spending? I’m still waiting to hear what he thinks is wasteful. Health care reform without government coercion? Er, whoops. Stop foreign interventions? At last count, he’s ordered at least four.

War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. Big Brother watches you, my friends, and if you are consorting with questionable characters in foreign lands, it may just be your face being crushed by the boot … or they may just turn you to dust.

If there’s one thing Jeffrey Robin hates more than liberal cronies, it’s having to make concessions to the left about former V.P. Dick Cheney.

 

Views expressed on the Opinion page do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Nexus or UCSB. Opinions are submitted primarily by students.

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