Rand Paul (Page 2)

Your republican friends are dumb, get new friends.

I'm not saying it's our official policy to do this, but there's no question many women and children have been killed as a result of drone strikes overseas.

Obama’s administration neither documents nor acknowledges the civilian casualties of the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan. But a report by the law schools at Stanford and New York universities suggests that during the first three years of his time in office, the 259 strikes for which he is ultimately responsible killed between 297 and 569 civilians, of whom at least 64 were children.
taken from http://dawn.com/2012/12/19/no-obama-tears-for-children-killed-by-drones-in-pakistan/

Yes, you did.  If it's not what you meant, then please be more careful with your words.

Multiply those numbers by at least 10.  That's how much collateral damage you'd have had using conventional missiles.  Now, if you want to eliminate civilian casualties, send in special ops...one catch...you will lose some special ops' lives.  Catch-22.  I'm extremely happy with the job President Obama's done picking off Al-Qaeda militants around the world.  We've minimized American casualties, minimized civilian casualties, and maximized Al Qaeda fatalities.  btw, if an Al Qaeda militant is an American citizen or not is inconsequential to me and most Americans.  

...and, if Jack Bauer can't get to the terrorists on our soil plotting death and destruction, I sure as heck don't want red tape hamstringing law enforcement.  If drones can take out the terrorists in the most efficient manner with the least amount of collateral damage, so be it in my opinion.

The president of the United States raises his right hand and states that he is going to protect us from all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC.  He doesn’t say he’s going to do it with one hand tied behind his back.  I swore a similar oath; I was trained to use all means of supporting arms to out gun my adversaries.  Drones are the modern evolution of warfare.  If Abraham Lincoln could have called in close air support to suppress Johnny Reb, I think he would have done it.

We have had domestic terrorist in the past.   While I’m not debating if these were terrorist, the government chose to treat Ruby Ridge, the Branch Dividians in Waco, and Timmothy McVeigh as such.  In the first two, law enforcement and government agents were used and several were killed in the action.  If the president had used a drone to take out Tim McViegh’s little bomb manufacturing hide out, I’d be OK with it.

As mentioned above referring directly to the drone strike memo, there are few restrictions because of the definition of imminent.

Unfortunately, neither party has done much to stop the erosion of civil liberties.

And stray bullets from federal agents would be better?  Or law enforcement raiding the wrong house...

I know you're still in the military and I'm not trying to accuse the military of being blood thirsty murderers or anything.  I'm a disabled veteran myself.

I was simply stating that we kill women and children overseas with collateral damage from drone strikes.  It's not our policy to kill women and children of course, but as a result of "what we are doing with drones overseas" women and children are dying.

If (and it's a big if) our country started to use drones to kill people in the US, the same thing would happen.

Would you also agree that the use of drones has decreased the collateral damage?  With every drone strike that occurs, you've got about three other options as I see it:

1:  send in special ops or standard forces risking American lives.

2:  send in missiles and/or bombs which increase collateral damage (more civilian deaths)

3:  sit on our hands, allow Al Qaeda operatives to live, plot, and eventually kill Americans.

I think we're getting out in the weeds as to the topic of this thread.  First off, I am not necessarily a fan of drone strikes overseas, but I am not against them entirely either because of the complexities of the war on terror.  Bush did things I agreed with and things I didn't agree with, same with Obama.  When the US citizen was killed overseas via a drone strike I thought it raised an interesting legal question but I wasn't outraged by any means.

The topic of this thread, however, is about Rand Paul who is standing up against the potential assassination of American citizens through the use of drone strikes IN AMERICA.  It's also about the irony of the party who claims to be for civil rights appearing to be very much against civil rights in the context of drone strikes in the US.

In America we absolutely should do #1 with law enforcement, or #3 if it risks violating someones civil rights.  We should NEVER do #2 under any circumstance period.

At least he stood up and demanded answers from someone in DC.  That is becoming increasingly rare of late.

Good for him.  I hope he does run and that the GOP doesn't blackball him like they always did Ron Paul

I'm going to break my own rule here for a second and get involved:

If I understand correctly, Sen. Paul didn't ask if the executive branch could use the same justification that allows for lethal finish options (not carried out solely by RPA, by the way) against Americans overseas to justify lethal finish options against Americans in CONUS.

He limited his question to whether RPA technology could be used against Americans on American soil.  In that sense, his question is a useless one.

RPA don't bring any new technology for surveillance or finish that don't already exist, and the Executive (and any level of government from municipal on up that has an armed force under its authority) already has an existing legal framework that allows for lethal action against American citizens on American soil.  To my knowledge, no one that matters is suggesting any changes to that framework.  Certainly the weapons that our RPA currently operate with are a little heavier than what the domestic security agencies currently carry.  But, it won't always be that way.  Someday, we'll likely mount rifle-equivalent weapons.  At that point, painting FBI on the side of an MQ-X (because I don't know what we'll be calling it then) will give you something that is functionally no different than an FBI helicopter with an EO/IR sensor and a sniper team on board (and probably more accurate).

Of course, that's the future.  As far as the now, do I see many scenarios that justify lobbing AGM-114s around inside America?  No.  Then again, there aren't many scenarios that would justify shooting down a 747 inside America either.  Yet, 9/11 happened and Operation NOBLE EAGLE is real.  The Civil War happened.  That's why no Executive will ever just rule out future options, and nor should they. 

After all, won't zombies still be citizens?