Don't Ask For Whom the Drone Flies

... because the Government will not tell us.  Body counts, both as to those targeted and those innocents merely dead by kill zone proximity are top secrets for the "Most Transparent Administration" in all of recorded history, or at least the most since the invention of drones.  Nonetheless, while we, the American people, can't be told who were killed from on-high, our elected reps are finally showing interest in the Constitutional dangers posed by any American President, by himself ordering the killing of other Americans with no legal or political constraints - other than the counsel of his own Executive Branch staff.

Drone Program Mastermind, John Brennen, now stands before the United States Senate awaiting confirmation to be the next CIA Director.  Only when the Intel Committee refused to vote on this nomination did the Administration provide to these Senators a small number of the Justice Department's highly classified legal opinions authorizing Presidential signing of death warrants for American citizens, while affording them no due process rights such as notice or trial, just silent death from above.  Reportedly, Mr. Brennen has refused to answer Senator Paul's straight-forward question - "does the President believe he has the authority to kill an American citizen located in the United States, and not in a war zone?"

Declaring this absolute power to "kill at will" too awesome, even for The One, some Democrats in Congress have advanced a proposal to create a Secret Drone Court.  This group of life-tenured Federal Judges would in secret review the Executive's factual basis for declaring an American to be an Enemy Combatant, and they would all together sign, or not, the death warrant.  Completely constitutionally unacceptable - first, all war powers are given to the Executive, so the Judicial Branch has no constitutional authority to manage the targeting of enemy soldiers, operatives or spies.  Secondly, nothing could more assault the Rule of Law - the entire underpinning of the Constitution - than for the Government to operate a "Star Chamber" in which secret evidence, examined in secret results in the secret murder of an American, either on foreign soil or here at home.  It is obvious that were life-tenured Judges to be told that a death was justified to protect them, their families, their friends and their country, and yet, should that claim turn out to be false, no career adverse consequences would occur, that death warrant will surely issue, okay only every 999 citizens out of a 1000 get Star Chambered.

Instead, we citizens must demand that Congress take this power of Life and Death away from politicians -  intrinsic conflict of interest in need to deter, not combatants, but political enemies, and the Judges - having no legal authority and no means of imposing accountability.  No, only career military officers have the intrinsic expertise and authority to accurately identify enemy combatants, and they are constrained by the Uniform Code of Military Justice to get it right - if negligent or intending to get it wrong ala Lieutenant Calley at Mai Lia in South Vietnam, these military commanders will be held accountable for breaches of lawful Rules of Engagement - careers ending immediately and jail for murders are standard fare for such transgressions in military service.

With Congressional focus on this grave Constitutional challenge now building, we citizens all need to demand Drone Killing transparency and accountability - on my watch, I refuse to be a Silent Bystander, as there is no innocence in acquiesing in either the Executive running "Murder Inc." or the Judiciary doing this dirty wet work in a Secret Star Chamber.