Monday, February 18, 2013

Obama's Legalism Versus Justice and Morality : Drone Wars & Targeted Assassinations


Today's Topics

US & West' Double standards on human rights
Drone Wars
Targeted Assassinations
President Obama's Legalism versus Justice , ethics and morality

US and President Obama's double standard regarding human rights violations by which Obama focuses on human rights violations and protests in some countries such as Syria, Libya, Iran, Pakistan but ignores such human rights violations and popular protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc.

President Obama's State of the Union address and his hypocrisy and double standards and his insisting the USA be "a beacon of freedom and justice"



So some nations which are supported by the USA get a free pass on human rights violations or war crimes and even crimes against humanity. But as pointed out numerous times Obama has defended the crimes of the Bush Regime not so much in his rhetoric but in his lack of action . Obama appears to not even take seriously the notion of bringing to justice any American official involved in criminal acts.

But Obama's view as we discuss below is that if the Whitehouse or Congress or the Pentagon and other US government agencies commit certain acts those acts by their very nature are legal and permissible and moral. So what is ethical or moral or acceptable is whatever an American president and other government agencies approve. Those outside the USA and the US government do not have the right to make judgements on any American President or governments actions. Fairly simple really . America is the good guy and so what it says or does by definition is the "Good", the Just etc.

Western media ignore Saudi unrests: Hisham Tillawi

Published on 28 Nov 2012

www.youtube.com/SupperWorldNews
A prominent political analyst believes that Western media outlets have been heavily biased towards anti-regime protests in Saudi Arabia since there is a complete lack of coverage of unfolding events in the country, Press TV reports.

Saudis have staged a protest rally in the capital, Riyadh, to demand the release of those held in Al Saud prisons without charge. Witnesses say scores of people, including women, demonstrated outside Saudi Arabia's Human Rights Commission in the capital on Tuesday, to call for the release of their jailed relatives. The protesters were dispersed by police and dozens of them, including women and children, were arrested.



President Obama often talks about the Rule Of Law but his view is far too literal and can be categorized as a form of "legalism" which simply means what is allowed by law is therefore permissible and moral. To break such a law is not merely criminal but is also considered under the umbrella of "legalism" as being immoral.

The law and justice are supposed to reflect a moral point of view and any law that is unjust and immoral can be broken and in some cases must be broken. Martin Luther King argued that the only way to rid a state of an immoral law was to consciously break such a law or one based in an immoral legal framework or legal architecture such as the Jim Crow laws in the American South.

If Obama had been around at that time he would have objected to Martin Luther King's tactics of non-violent non-cooperation and deliberately and consciously breaking the law.

Before reacting to such a statement look at Obama's track record as he has gone after with a vengeance those who deliberately break the law such as Whistleblowers . So Obama has kept Bradley Manning detained for two years or so for allegedly supplying government documents to Wikileaks. So Obama is also gunning for any one connected with Wikileaks from Julian Assange on down.

Obama has also gone after political activists as he did with the Occupy Movement but also those activists and dissidents such as the late (Hactivists) Aaron Swartz. And according to Obama's State of the Union address he is going to pass even more laws regarding the internet to supposedly to protect America's security but in part this is another way to go after American dissidents and any one outside the USA who is critical of American policies. The documents allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning it should be noted were not top secret but rather were documents which at least several hundred thousand federal employees had full access to if they so desired. So Obama's claims of National Security in the Bradley Manning case is just nonsense.

The whole notion of targeted killing in foreign countries contravenes international law and undermines the whole notion of the Rule Of Law.
We saw this with the murder of Qaddafi and Saddam and Asama Bin Laden in which rather than try to capture alive and put these people on trial it is easier and less messy to just kill them . So Bin Laden for all we know was summarily executed and that was what President Obama directed the special ops guys to do.

According to the Rule of Law even Asama Bin Laden had the right to a fair trial.
If Hitler hadn't committed suicide it would have been a test of a belief in justice to have Hitler put on trial as other German leaders were various crimes and then sentenced to be hanged or given life sentences in special prisons.

If other nations and peoples were to follow Obama's views on the Rule of Law then if they consider President Obama or any other American person or Westerners to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity there is no need to go to the International Criminal Court to prove their case but rather some foreign country could just assassinate anyone they argue is a criminal given the gravity of their crimes deserving of death.

So if the West can take down a leader such as Qaddafi what is to stop other nations from doing the same with Western leaders that they view as criminals beyond redemption.

The Rule of Law is not merely folling the details of laws international or domestic but is also based upon the spirit of the law and the ethical and moral dimensions of what a law entails. So some laws as written if they ignore these other dimensions of ethics and morality and justice they are null and void.

Just because the state creates a law doesn't mean it is right or justifie or is ethical or moral so the implementation of such a law is a breach of the contract between the government and the people. For instance we must remember that what Hitler and the NAZIs did in Germany was for the most part codified as being lawful. That doesn't mean these laws were just or moral . In NAZI Germany it was legal to round up and imprison without trial anyone who criticized the German government . They were placed in Concentration Camps. In the USA after the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor the government decided to round up all Japanese Americans and place them in America's Concentration Camps. This was legal but it is a different question to ask was it the right thing to do was it moral or ethical.

In America slavery and Jim Crow laws and the institutions of the South's Apatheid Regime was all fit into a legal framework and architecture so it was legal but it was not right . Obama is promulgating similar style of a legal framework to make what appears as being immoral or unjustified and somehow by making it legal we are supposed to accept certain laws as being moral or ethical.

According to president Obama's view of the law the USA has the right to pass legislation requiring all American Muslims to wear some form of identity patch on their outer clothes a purple crescent or what have you so everyone knows they are an American Muslim. Obama's poor regard for logic is his claim that if it is legal it is therefore justified and is moral and ethical. This might help explain why Obama has come down so hard on whistleblowers , illegal-immigrants, people who use Marijuana and other drugs because in his world view if it is against the law it is therefore immoral so just by making it legal would make it moral.
Lynchings occurred as a public spectacle for 80 years or so because Lynching was legal . So according to the Obama school of the Rule of Law because Lynching was legal it was therefore ethical and moral. So if slavery was legal it was also according to "Moral or ethical Legalism" moral and just.

As it is thousands if not tens of thousands of Muslim Americans have been without any solid justification detained for interrogation by FBI, Homeland Security , CIA, or even local police . So Muslim Americans have seen their rights breached more often in comparison to other Americans .

Who's Next on the Kill List? The Disposition Matrix
The Young Turks



and so it goes,
GORD.

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