> I honestly have no idea how Obama's reputation survived this. Taking executive action that completely undermines an individual's constitutional rights is monstrous. It's really sad that it was a total non-issue.

I'm "conservative" (although I abhor Trump) but I will say in defense of Obama that there clearly are exceptions from constitutional rights. For example, police are clearly allowed to use lethal force to stop an armed and dangerous person.

I cannot speak on the finer parts of US law, but it seems obvious to me that it isn't as clear cut at some people portray it.

> For example, police are clearly allowed to use lethal force to stop an armed and dangerous person.

But in this case it's more like if a policeman stalked and sniped someone that they had an arrest warrant for. They defined a US citizen as a target and drone striked him when they were able.

> But in this case it's more like if a policeman stalked and sniped someone that they had an arrest warrant for.

Disclaimers:

- I am no specialist on US constitution or laws but generally,

- I don't know this case kn particular except from what I have read from media, especially sites like HN

With that out of the way, from a common sense perspective, stalking and sniping a criminal who is a persistent threat to the public cannot possibly be unquestionably wrong, can it?

I mean, lets just go all out in a thought experiment that goes to the extreme end to prove my point: an American citizen sits in a known location and we know he is about to press the trigger that will release a highly contagious deadly pathogen inside 10 large cities, including at least one in US.

A police sniper has a steady aim on him from 100m and through a bug at the scene he hears him say: "this broadcast is coming to an end, I'll now press the button".

Will it not be correct for the police sniper to fire?

If it is, then the only question left is if it was legal for him to do it according to American law or not, and not something that should be an unrecoverable stain on someone's history.

Of course in real life, things are much messier.

It would depend on what that officer knew to be his 'rules of engagement', but also he a police officer and so it would be legal. They murder people regularly for far less reason than this without legal consequences. And, because of qualified immunity, even when what they do crosses into illegality, they still face no consequences. The POTUS need not be involved, police can and do violate constitutional rights all on their own.

  > But in this case it's more like if a policeman stalked and sniped someone that they had an arrest warrant for. 

It's worse than that, Anwar Al-Awlaki never had a warrant for his arrest, he was never charged with any crimes. In fact, after finding out about the "Disposition Matrix" (read: Kill List) that his son was on, Al-Awlaki's father publicly pleaded with the Obama Administration to actually charge his son with a crime so that he could be afforded Due Process. The Obama Administration refused to charge him with a crime, instead they just took him out a few months later with a targeted drone strike.

They essentially said they didn't want to have to explain things in court, so killing him was easier. Despite his scary name, Anwar Al-Awlaki was an American kid born in New Mexico. He may have been a bad guy, but we'll never know because the government decided it didn't need to prove it in court.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-i...

I'm more confused at how Biden became president after that, and how most of the cabinet from the Obama era is now Bidens cabinet. At least in all the warmongering positions. He was after all the instrument of the Iraq war before Bush. At this point I have to wonder if Biden has Obama's warmonger cabinet, or if Obama was actually trying to do the things he promised and couldn't because Biden placed all those warmongers there(I'm talking about, Nuland, Blinken, Sullivan, Kirby, Austin etc. leaving one person specifically out in fear of the HN crowd).

Well, the good news is that Biden (like trump before him) has not started any new wars or invaded any new countries. So far.

But Biden throws a lit of wood into the fire.

Biden's predecessor launched more drone strikes than Obama, and shit-talked world leaders on Twitter to a frightening degree. Remember when "war with Iran" became a Twitter meme for a solid week because Trump drone-striked an Iranian commander?

None of these people are actually peacemakers. Not Biden, not Obama, none of them. All of them support American imperialism and hegemony.

What would have been the optimal and ideal move?

He has only funded a hopeless proxy war with Russia (the country with the most nuclear weapons in the world) … no big deal.

Appeasing dictators is not a winning move. Trump sucking Putin's dick dry did not work after all. (Well it did wonders for old Vladimir.)

And Ukrainians want to (and wanted to) fight. It's not like US psyops campaigns made them. Since 2014 they spent a lot of resources on fortifications, training, arms manufacture, etc.

Characterizing diplomatic conversation as a sex act is not exactly a winning move either.

Ukrainians are welcome to fight if they want to, but you are seriously misinformed if you believe they have mounted even a small fraction of their firepower, training, analysis, and logistics without the aid of the US and other NATO countries. Ukraine never had a remote chance to resist the Russian army, and they are now paying a terrible price for allowing themselves to become the lackeys of the US and NATO.

The Biden administration is responsible for elevating the Ukrainians into this role as an extension of the US onto the direct border with Russia. Russia will never tolerate it no matter what it takes, and we all know what that entails. The US would do no differently if Russia did the same on its border, which makes the Biden administration’s actions hypocritical as well.

Listen to yourself:

Americans are welcome to fight if they want to, but you are seriously misinformed if you believe they have mounted even a small fraction of their firepower, training, analysis, and logistics without the aid of the France and Spain. America never had a remote chance to resist the British army and navy, and they are now paying a terrible price for allowing themselves to become the lackeys of France and Spain.

Substitute Britain/free France/exiled poland/Nazi Germany too if you like.

OK, fed.

I mean not to be callous towards the Ukrainians (who are incredibly heroic), but:

- NATO is a stronger alliance, so the US will not have to spend as much defending Europe in the long run

- us has spent ~1-2k/citizen to dismantle one of its biggest existential threats

- china has tons of egg on face

If nukes don't happen, I'll be entertaining the idea Biden the greatest stable genius Chad president we've had. And I started out disliking Biden. Definitely hated him when he was veep.

Even from the pure realpolitik perspective, I don’t understand how the cold warriors came to the conclusion that massive destabilization of a nuclear superpower was a desirable outcome.

Didn’t we learn our lesson from humiliating post-Soviet Russia in the 90s? (Or Versailles-ing Germany?) Economic desperation yields aggressive strongmen and violent populations.

> I'm more confused at how Biden became president after that

> He was after all the instrument of the Iraq war before Bush

You'll be less confused when you understand that the American electorate generally has no issues with invading other countries.

And even when it does have an issue with it, it holds its nose, and votes anyways. Both parties are generally ran by people who have similar opinions on this question.

We live in a war-happy world. Russia steamrolling into Georgia. China aiming Taiwan.

I'm from a post-Soviet country, that might explain why I have this less than pacifist view.

It shouldn't be all that confusing. Biden was elected because the only actual alternative was worse.

> most of the cabinet from the Obama era is now Bidens cabinet

In case anyone is curious, there is exactly one person in Biden's cabinet (16 people total) that previously served in Obama's cabinet: the Secretary of Agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Vilsack

If you further consider "cabinet-level" positions (25 people total), two more people are included: the current Secretary of Veterans Affairs was previously the White House chief of staff and the current White House chief of staff was previously the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_McDonough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Zients

Of the 5 people mentioned by name in the parent comment, 3 have never been in the Cabinet and none were in both Obama's and Biden's Cabinets.

My best guess for the unnamed person is the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency (previously a cabinet-level position!) and who was Acting Secretary of State under Obama? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Burns_(diplomat)

Obama's reputation did suffer, although it probably improved among the right. It wasn't a "total non-issue," it was extremely controversial at the time.

Although, the US being what it is, more people probably celebrated than held a strong opinion either way.