The Danger of Precedents

The second installment of the Washington Post‘s investigation into the Obama administration’s drone war is as important as the first, Greg Miller’s piece which revealed the “disposition matrix,” and which I discussed here. But this article, written by Karen DeYoung, descends into a character piece on John Brennan, Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser who spearheads the targeting process of the drone wars. Brennan is presented towards the end as deeply concerned with transparency and the ethical and legal implications of the drone wars:

One official said that “for a guy whose reputation is focused on how tough he is on counterterrorism,” Brennan is “more focused than anybody in the government on the legal, ethical and transparency questions associated with all this.” By drawing so much decision-making directly into his own office, said another, he has “forced a much better process at the CIA and the Defense Department.”

Clearly there are some problems with this interpretation, and we know what they are. But DeYoung sets readers up for a powerful concluding thought:

Even if Obama is reelected, Brennan may not stay for another term. That means someone else is likely to be interpreting his playbook.

“Do I want this system to last forever?” a senior official said. “No. Do I think it’s the best system for now? Yes.”

“What is scary,” he concluded, “is the apparatus set up without John to run it.”

So leaving aside the characterization of team Brennan-Obama as ethically-minded warriors inclined towards transparency, it is quite easy to envision a future administration which is far less ethical, far less transparent, and far more brutal in their execution of the drone war apparatus that they set up. This has been a common question from the beginning: what kind of precedent has the Obama administration set, and how will a future Luca Brasi in a future presidential administration use these powers to kill?

2 thoughts on “The Danger of Precedents”

  2. I read the piece in the dead tree edition of the WaPo this afternoon. Wow—what a tongue job!

  3. The armed robber caught by police was especially concerned with the ethical and legal implications of the bank operation. Particularly, since a guard and a teller were dead, he was especially interested in the criminal penalties that could be exacted by a vicious, unpredictable legal system. And since he might not be in charge of the gang for a while, he was concerned that his friend who now runs the operation would make similar errors, endangering the survival of his organization.

  4. "So leaving aside the characterization of team Brennan-Obama as ethically-minded warriors inclined towards transparency"

    It's unreal, instead of rule of law we are sold how ethical and educated these guys are. But they read great philosophers, and are deeply familiar with religious traditions and … they are like college professors combined with monks.

    AS IF …. AS IF … the cumulation of the western tradition, as flawed as it is, was benign (or not so benign) dictatorship and philosopher kings, rather than the rule of law and protection of individual rights. They drop more great works names than a Great Books Club and more references to morals than Bill Bennet. Fricken Philosopher Kings. Murdering philsospher dictators.

  5. They basically ask the public to trust their words – “transparency, ethical, priest-like, with moral rectitude” – and not judge their actions – pathological secrecy, indiscriminate killers, narcissistic god complex. Even more astounding, people buy it. They buy it because the defer to the authority.

  6. Re: "So leaving aside the characterization of team Brennan-Obama as ethically-minded warriors inclined towards transparency"

    So who makes the determination that Brennan and Obama are ethically-minded and inclined towards transparency? Brennan and Obama?

    Miller and DeYoung only know what they tell them…

  8. The danger of precedents or presidents? I take it the later setting and abusing the former is accurate.

  9. The armed robber caught by police was especially concerned with the ethical and legal implications of the bank operation. Particularly, since a guard and a teller were dead, he was especially interested in the criminal penalties that could be exacted by a vicious, unpredictable legal system. And since he might not be in charge of the gang for a while, he was concerned that his friend who now runs the operation would make similar errors, endangering the survival of his organization.

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  12. The armed robber caught by police was especially concerned with the ethical and legal implications of the bank operation. Particularly, since a guard and a teller were dead, he was especially interested in the criminal penalties that could be exacted by a vicious, unpredictable legal system. And since he might not be in charge of the gang for a while, he was concerned that his friend who now runs the operation would make similar errors, endangering the survival of his organization.
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  33. Perhaps the Obama administration is trying to cover its tracks. More likely, however, is that in a similar way to how Obama was scrambling to write a legal code to govern his illegal drone wars in case Republican Mitt Romney was elected in 2012, this is an attempt to codify and institutionalize the targeted assassination of American citizens.

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