Question of Principle: How Does Obama's Statement on Israel Square With the Drone Policy?

Which version do  you like better? I couldn't decide.

Version 1:

On November 18, 2012 President Obama said: "And there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." So how does that square with President Obama's policy of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen especially since U.S. drone strikes have killed innocent civilians in those countries alongside militant? Does the white house think that Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen should tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from the U.S.?

Version 2:

On November 18, 2012 President Obama said:"And there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians. " So how does that square with President Obama's policy of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen especially since U.S. drone strikes have killed innocent civilians in those countries alongside militant? Does the white house think that Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen should tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from the U.S.?

Snowden nominated for Nobel Peace Prize to correct 2009 mistake of nominating Obama

Via Politico:

A Swedish sociology professor has nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that awarding the former NSA employee would correct Nobel Committee’s mistake in giving the award to President Barack Obama in 2009.

According to a translation of the letter published by the Daily Mail and RT.com, Umeå University professor Stefan Svallfors wrote the committee that Snowden has made the world safer in releasing information about United States surveillance.

Edward Snowden Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

Medea Benjamin: Before Obama, Expose AIPAC 2013

Medea Benjamin protested President Obama's speech today at National Defense University. She protested AIPAC a few months ago: 

Women’s anti-war group Code Pink and its co-founder Medea Benjamin were outside the Washington Convention Center protesting the conference, along with many other protestors, ranging from 25-75 supporters. The Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta and activists of Palestinian heritage joined Code Pink as well.

“Israel is a terrorist state. Israel is a racist state,” one chant shouted by protesters went.

The bulk of their activities included protesting on a loud mic against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, against a new war with Iran, and, in their view, the dangerous policies and influence of AIPAC on the U.S. Congress. Mention of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist who was crushed by an Israeli Defense Force bulldozer in the Gaza strip in the early 2000s, was also made (whether Corrie was intentionally killed is disputed).

“You can’t even get a job in Israel if you side with peaceniks,” one male protestor said.

Benjamin also approached House Unmanned Systems Co-Chair McKeon both as he entered the conference and hours later when he exited the conference. She shouted “drone master” as he walked in the conference, and followed him (with other Code Pink members beside her) to his ride as he walked out.

Code Pink didn’t capitalize on all members of Congress walking by.

For example, Rep. Connolly stood on the lower half of the steps right in front of the where the group was protesting for almost 30 seconds. He appeared to be looking out into the street waiting for his transportation to arrive. He was surrounded by no one and visibly in plain sight to the group. The group said nothing to Connolly – a sign that the group couldn’t recognize the congressman.

At other times, the protestors were off the mark identifying government officials.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) who is a U.S. Senate hopeful seeking to fill Secretary of State John Kerry’s former seat, was mistaken as a senator.

“Senator Markey are you signing on to [the] Menendez bill?” one protestor shouted into the portable mic. “Please do not sign. We do not need another war!”

“The Democrats and the Republicans were wrong about Iraq. They were wrong about Afghanistan. They’re wrong about Iran,” he continued to shout at Markey.

When Rep. Levin left the building, a male protestor and self-identified Michigander shouted “Detroit doesn’t have housing! Detroit does not have free healthcare! Israel has free healthcare, free education. Why is Detroit suffering, Representative Levin, when you want to give three to six billion dollars every single year? Why is Detroit now being taken over?”

Levin replied: “With the health care act you’re going to have healthcare.” Levin was referring the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Later, after the shouter shared more complaints, in unison the protestors shouted at Levin “work for us, not for Israel.”

“That’s a great example of how AIPAC has bought our Congress and taken our tax dollars out of cities like Detroit that are dying,” Benjamin said, adding that there’s no money for education and healthcare in Detroit
.
“And yet, a congressmen from Detroit comes here to bow down before AIPAC and say ‘of course, we’ll give you three billion dollars. Of course what Israel wants Israel gets,” she continued.

The group had better success with Franken who at least said he would study the bill (S. Res. 65) they wanted him to vote against.

When Benjamin told Franken that “we don’t need another war,” Franken replied that “but we also don’t need a nuclear weapon,” most likely referring to Iran.

 Read the whole story here: Medea Benjamin at Occupy AIPAC/Expose AIPAC 2013 

Carter: Obama Drone Policies “Do More Harm Than Good” By Targeting “Potential Terrorists”

Former President Jimmy Carter (D) said that he thinks the United States in its foreign policy has “overcorrected” since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, and that President Obama’s drone policy does “more harm than good” by targeting “potential terrorists” but also accidentally hitting civilians

During a recent trip to Haiti the former president was asked: “what are the main factors playing a role in this deterioration of human rights and the rule of law and how can we restore it?” The question, asked by a reporter at Russia Today, was prompted by an op-ed Carter wrote for the New York Times back in June where he argued that the “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.”

“Well the main violations to which I referred in that op-ed piece have been brought about by overcorrecting the 9/11 disaster when terrorists came in and destroyed as you know more than 3,000 American lives and two of our buildings and also even attacked the Defense Department,” he said.

Carter said that “we have overreacted” to the September 11, 2001 attacks and called himself “a lonely voice” because he doesn’t believe in “drone assassinations of people.”

“I personally think that we do more harm than good by having our drones attack some potential terrorists who have not been tried or proven that they are guilty,” Carter said.

“But in the meantime, the drone attacks also kill women and children, sometimes at weddings, and I think this arises more new terrorists than it possibly corrects in maybe killing a few other terrorists leaders so that’s the kind of thing that I think we should correct.”

Carter didn’t mention a specific act, but he also said that “we have now violated a longstanding policy” in the United States “of preserving the privacy of American citizens.”

“We now have passed laws that permit eavesdropping on private telephone calls and private communications. In the past when I was president we passed a law that that could not be done in a single case unless you got a judge to decide in advance that this was a national security question which was very rare. Now it's done all over America,” he said.

"So I think we need to back off from the overcorrection of the problem with the terrorists in 9/11 and restore basic human rights as spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he continued. “There are 30 paragraphs in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and my estimation is that at the present time the United States is violating ten out of thirty. Other countries are doing the same, but I was just referring to my own country.”

BookTV: Medea Benjamin, "Drone Warfare"

Friedersdorf: 'Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis'

I agree with this:

I find Obama likable when I see him on TV. He is a caring husband and father, a thoughtful speaker, and possessed of an inspirational biography. On stage, as he smiles into the camera, using words to evoke some of the best sentiments within us, it's hard to believe certain facts about him:    

1. Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn't "precise" or "surgical" as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels. People are always afraid. Women cower in their homes. Children are kept out of school. The stress they endure gives them psychiatric disorders. Men are driven crazy by an inability to sleep as drones buzz overhead 24 hours a day, a deadly strike possible at any moment. At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists. It is a cowardly, immoral, and illegal policy, deliberately cloaked in opportunistic secrecy. And Democrats who believe that it is the most moral of all responsible policy alternatives are as misinformed and blinded by partisanship as any conservative ideologue. 
2. Obama established one of the most reckless precedents imaginable: that any president can secretly order and oversee the extrajudicial killing of American citizens. Obama's kill list transgresses against the Constitution as egregiously as anything George W. Bush ever did. It is as radical an invocation of executive power as anything Dick Cheney championed. The fact that the Democrats rebelled against those men before enthusiastically supporting Obama is hackery every bit as blatant and shameful as anything any talk radio host has done.  
3. Contrary to his own previously stated understanding of what the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution demand, President Obama committed U.S. forces to war in Libya without Congressional approval, despite the lack of anything like an imminent threat to national security.

Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama || Conor Friedersdorf

The President’s Private War by Andrew P. Napolitano -- Antiwar.com

Against citizens of a country that we are not at war with, President Obama has done the following:

In his three-plus years in office, Obama has launched 254 drones toward persons in Pakistan, and they collectively have killed 1,277 persons there. The New America Foundation, a Washington think tank that monitors the presidential use of drones in Pakistan, estimates that between 11 and 17 percent of the drone victims are innocent Pakistani civilians. So much for Brennan’s surgical strikes. So much for Holder’s due process.

The President’s Private War by Andrew P. Napolitano -- Antiwar.com