The Daily Banter

There’s Evidently No Room for Nuance on Drones

My Thursday column:

They say if you move far enough to the left, you end up on the right. As such, throughout the last four or five years I’ve witnessed this phenomenon on way too many occasions, the most recent one being yesterday’s reactions to the article I wrote about the Justice Department’s white paper regarding the targeted killing of American citizens suspected of being high level al-Qaida operatives.

I discovered quite quickly that one of the common traits among the far-right and the far-left is a total inability to accept compromise — or even concessions to their point of view.

To recap, I essentially called for one or both of the following actions. 1) The elimination of drone missions against U.S. citizens who happen to be enemy combatants via ending the war on terror and rescinding the disgusting Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). And, 2) the strict regulation of drones and how they’re used by establishing law enforcement-style rules and oversight.

Not good enough. [continue reading here]