My Tuesday column. Once more into the fray:
Glenn Greenwald’s ongoing crusade against anyone who dares to see nuance in the debate over targeted killings and the war on terrorism has risen to a not-so-surprising new level. Namely, Americans who oppose targeted killings of American citizens on American soil, but who also support the targeted killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki are racists. Furthermore, Greenwald made it perfectly clear yesterday that if anyone sees civil liberties and war powers as dual priorities in this area, and drone hysteria as a secondary distraction, they’re simply drone apologists.
Now, if you’ve read any of my articles over the years, you’d know that I have a fairly well-tuned racism radar. I’m not afraid to point it out when I see it, and I think I have the education and expertise to recognize it, even when it’s insidiously covert. But it’s a huge stretch to call the disparity between support for the killing of Al-Awlaki in 2011 and the less enthusiastic support for domestic drone strikes in 2013 as racism. Greenwald is over-reaching times a thousand — taking an extreme posture (again) as a means of scolding and shaming anyone who doesn’t exist within his conspiratorial neo-left/libertarian clique. I’ll get into the ultimate in Greenwald shaming at the end of this post.
First, let’s look at the polling he cited. Greenwald began by citing a new Gallup poll showing that Americans by a margin of 52-41 oppose the targeted killing of U.S. citizens who are suspected terrorists. [continue reading here]