krebscycle

Using this precedent [the bombing of Cambodia – root] to justify the current covert war across the globe is truly astonishing. That it’s being done by the president who most people see as the most liberal since FDR is just sad.- Digby

Tsk tsk.This is a variant of a favorite Greenwald complaint about how liberal Obots have zombie trampled muddy boots over their most heart-felt principles under the spell of that guy. You know, The One.  Only the True Progressives have Held To Their Principles and stood with Rand and so on.  But, as usual, it’s a bunch of crap. The Obama administration has not claimed that the traitorous Nixon’s genocidal attack on Cambodia was a precedent for anything [1].

The Department of Justice memo that supposedly “uses this precedent” has nothing to do with the kind of large scale slaughter that the traitor Nixon secretly brought to Cambodia.  The memo outlines the legal rationalization for killing US citizens who are engaged in war with the US. One of the issues they consider is whether such a person can be protected by moving from one country in which the US is conducting military operations to another. Suppose, for example, Anwal al Alwaki had moved from Yemen to Sudan and set up military camp there. The DOJ authors then say the rules of war allow a nation at war to take military action against hostile forces operating from a supposedly neutral nation that cannot or will not take action itself. They then cite a state department legal argument on Cambodia from 1970 in which historical support for that theory is laid out. Do they support the other rationales in that legal argument? No. Do they defend the legality, morality, or strategic value of Nixon’s war in Cambodia? No.

The invocation of this nitwit rhetorical ploy from people who idolize Glenn Greenwald, the former lawyer for Matt Hale, is really beyond satire. And it’s even worse from a group of people who have been consistently implying that the targeted killings of drone war are somehow morally more repugnant than the kind of devastating air raids that were common with older technology.  But the real point of the argument, is the usual point of the True Progressive Left – their insistence that they can define what  “liberals” or “progressives” are supposed to think.

I assumed that Dick Cheney would have no problem citing the illegal bombing of Cambodia as a precedent since he presumably thought it was a good idea in the first place. But I would have thought that most liberals would have a problem with this:

 Tears of concern, alert! People who think of themselves as liberal or progressive because maybe they care about civil rights and the environment and economic opportunity, but who won’t fall into line and denounce Obama and stand with Rand and so on,  are BAD LIBERALS. Take away their Liberal Cards until they repent!

[1] Nixon won election in 1968 by treasonably  sabotaging peace talks being held by the US government.