The Obama administration this week released a 2010 memo providing its “legal” justification for using drone strikes to kill American citizens without even charging them with a crime, much less conducting a trial resulting in a conviction. This release came only after a 3-year lawsuit demanding the release of the document, and even then the government only released the document rather than appealing the court decision because the Senate was threatening to block the judicial confirmation of the man who wrote the memo. And of course even when released, large portions of the decision were redacted, i.e., kept hidden from the public.
The New York Times criticized the document in an editorial entitled “A Thin Rationale for Drone Killings,” and many people were excited to see the respected paper lambasting the memo’s content as “a slapdash pastiche of legal theories — some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law.” That such harsh language could be found in a ruling-class organ like the Times, and not just out of the mouths of Republican politicians and FOX News commentators, demonstrates how truly outrageous the U.S. justification for extra-judicial murder really is.
But a close reading of the editorial shows that the Times still hews closely to the ruling class line that the U.S. government should be permitted to trample on human rights and the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of (alleged) “terrorists.” All they ask is that an “outside party” like the FISA court provide an “independent” review. The FISA court operates in total secrecy and is not an adversarial court; only government attorneys appear before it. It is rightfully known as a rubber-stamp court; in its 33-year existence, it has granted 33,942 warrants, with only 11 denials!
And, it almost goes without saying, the Times has not a word of criticism for the extra-judicial murder of people who are NOT Americans; this memo and this editorial apply only to the murder of American citizens.
But to see a textbook demonstration of how the New York Times, like all major media, reflects the ruling class perspective, you have to read this laughable paragraph:
“The sheer power of drone strikes, several of which have killed many innocent bystanders, is in no way comparable to the kind of police shootings that the memo cites as precedent. (And, in most cities, police shootings are carefully investigated afterward, and officers face punishment if they exceed their authority.)”
Of course the reality is that many drone strikes, not just “several,” have killed many innocent civilians, and in many cases those civilians weren’t just “bystanders,” but the target themselves. And the reality is also that the number of police shootings that are “carefully” investigated is vanishingly small, and the number of officers who have ever faced punishment even smaller.
If you want an “outside party” who can provide an “independent” view of what is happening in the world, you’ll need to turn to sources like Liberation News, not The New York Times.
Eli Stephens has been blogging as “Left I on the News” (lefti.blogspot.com) since August, 2003, and now also tweets @leftiblog. He is an activist with the ANSWER Coalition.
