Tagged: drones

  We are launching a new format for the first hour of The Roundtable today and will have a panel discussion featuring Alan Chartock, Capital Correspondent, Karen Dewitt, WAMC News staff Ian Pickus and Ray Graf. The panel will be moderated by Joe Donahue.

Today's topics are:
Guns and legislating them, Paul Ryan's desire to appeal ObamaCare, drones and last week's filibuster, and sugar in New York City.

In prior commentaries I have spoken about the moral and constitutional issues in targeting people for assassination, by drones or otherwise. Today I’d like to look at the problem coldly, and try to assess whether and when those moral arguments have consequences on our effort to end terrorism. In particular, what should we make of the Obama Administration’s use of drones abroad to kill those it labels enemies. Plainly al-Qaeda has few scruples; why should we? Should we “fight fire with fire” or “sink to their level” to use two common expressions?

David McCraw, vice-president of the New York Times and a graduate of Albany Law, has been involved in a lawsuit for documents showing how the Administration decided which Americans to assassinate who were on foreign soil but not in war zones. United States District Judge Colleen MacMahon decided that the government did not have “to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and laws of the United States.”