Sam Mullet and John Brennan, Warped Justice

Dear Mr. President, 
Just when we’re on the verge of a serious debate about your targeted assassinations program, Feinstein and Brennan, in a classic case of misdirection, shift the discussion to a consideration of setting up a secret court that will either 1) approve drone strikes (unlikely) or 2) approve names to go on your Kill List (most likely, just American names). Wonderful. Another secret court modeled on the secret FISA court created by Congress in 1978 when the National Security Agency and the FBI were illegally eavesdropping on Americans and the executive branch was incapable of policing itself. (Nothing changes). And how effective is the FISA court? In 2011 it approved 1,745 requests and rejected—da-dum!—zero. A rubber stamp court that gives the appearance of legality to an illegal operation. A drone court would be the same ruber stamp eyewash. But a drone court would be a whole different ball game that even judges aren’t keen on. At an ABA meeting last November, James Robertson, a retired FISA judge, rejected the idea that judges should approve “death warrants.” (Today’s NYT, p. A1) The article quotes William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University: “It’s still secret. The target wouldn’t be represented. It’s a mechanism that wouldn’t satisfy critics or advance the due process cause much.” Nor would it stop the killing of innocent civilians or hold people accountable. Nothing would be made public, no national discussion, no change in our irrational and violent foreign policies and it would not bring to a close our unending war of terrorism. But Feinstein and Brennan’s diversion was successful. They didn’t want to discuss the legal and moral issues around killing people without evidence, oversight legal recourse or accountability. That’s dangerous territory. That gets into the evil Brennan and you have done and Congress’s failure to stop it. There’s another article in this morning’s Times about the renegade Amish bishop, Samuel Mullet, who received a 15-year prison sentence for directing his followers in a reign of terror against other Amish he disagreed with. They cut off the beards of the men and the hair of women. They were convicted of hate crimes and all sentenced to prison terms of 1 to 7 years. But Samuel Mullet. 15 years for cutting off hair? While Brennan, the architect of the ultimate hate crimes against humanity, responsible for thousands of deaths remains at large and is nominated to head the CIA? Talk about warped justice!