When Drone Strikes Become the "New Normal" for the Shining City on a Hill.

Can you imagine if one American citizen was killed by a foreign drone strike in the United States? Let alone, 2...3...103 Americans? The foreign country responsible would be labeled a terrorist state faster than the Department of Homeland Security scream "Red Alert!" Yet, when the U.S. is behind foreign drone strikes that strike civilians or even American citizens, it's called collateral damage.  Why?  Because we're supposedly locked in a struggle with primitive, barbaric terrorists determined to destroy the “American way of life,” which is, of course, exceptional.  This state of exception and/or exceptional state mythology is used to defend and justify this "shining city on a hill's" legal transgressions by appealing to what is believed to be a higher standard of justice.

Since 9/11, the U.S. has been/is allegedly waging battle in this epic "War on Terror" with "no discernible end," against this nameless, faceless, and all encompassing enemy. Never mind that most "Al Qaeda" operatives have been recruited, trained, and funded by US and NATO intelligence agencies from the very beginning almost 30 years ago. Pre-emptive wars directed against “Islamic terrorists” everywhere is required to defend the Homeland. That's what we've been told, not only from the never-ending "news" stories that litter the 24-hours news networks, but also from the constantly reinforced narratives of countless TV shows and movies as "television [and I would add  movies] is the ideal medium for disseminating and encouraging a perspective on the “war on terror”. However, almost twelve years after 9/11, it appears that this nameless, faceless, all encompassing "enemy" could very well include we-the-American-terrorists.

In the "terrorist," as opposed to the communist, or foreign state, we have a nearly perfect, ubiquitous and enduring enemy. A terrorist can conveniently be anyone, anywhere at any time for the greedy, heartless self-serving imperialists, who create and control the vague definition, which can be changed or modified as needed. It includes an extraordinarily broad spectrum of people from the evil warlord to anyone who expresses discontent with the current state of the union.

On Sept. 30, 2011, missiles fired from an unmanned drone killed U.S. citizens Anwar al Awlaki and Samir Khan, along with at least two other people in Yemen. Two weeks later, another drone strike at an open-air restaurant in Yemen killed seven people including Abdul Rahman Anwar Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of al Awlaki.

In the case of Al Awlaki’s son, nothing has been published to suggest that he had been involved in any acts against the US, yet the Executive Branch’s rules for authorizing the murder of US Citizens using drones in non-combat areas and defining them as collateral damage supposedly gives the state, our state, total immunity from the law, from the Constitution. In other words, American courts cannot second-guess drone strikes that kill American citizens overseas.

What about killing American citizens here? So far, aside from the all out attack on the non-violent Occupy Wall Street movement, the massive surveillance of American citizens, and what appears to be random cases government sanctioned murder of American citizens, the ever-growing national security apparatus has focused on foreign as opposed to domestic "threats"...domestic threats to the plutocracy, that is. The scary part is that the oligarchy is becoming so confident of success that they're allowing the illusion of civil society to disappear, revealing the plutocrat's contempt for the "We the People".  It is becoming more evident every day and their true intent more clear. Don't for one second think anything the ruling class does is about keeping us safe. It's about keeping them "safe" from us.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." - Albert Einstein