This is a survey to gauge public opinion on the use of drones to make strikes on American citizens on American soil.
Survey - Can the president drone strike an American in USA who poses a threat?
Last week’s controversy on Capitol Hill made a remarkable stir as Senator Rand Paul took the podium in the Senate for an actual filibuster of Obama’s nomination for CIA Director. He did this because Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, the man who instigated Operation Fast and Furious to sell weapons to Mexican drug lords, stated that the president had the right to order a drone strike on Americans in American if they posed a threat. Sen. Paul stood and spoke for almost thirteen hours before being told that Holder finally answered the question, “Does the president have the authority to use a drone attack on an American citizen on American soil," with an unqualified, “no.” This was the ninth longest filibuster in congressional history.
Relieved, Sen. Paul remarked in an interview the next day that the Administration took six weeks to agree that the law forbids the CIA from operating inside the United States, but may only conduct intelligence ops outside the U.S. The CIA is in charge of launching drone strikes on Al-Qaeda terrorist leaders in foreign countries. (The FBI has legal authority to conduct counter-insurgency inside the USA.) One of those strikes killed American born Anwar Al-Awlaki, igniting a controversy with the Obama Administration which maintained the he strictly obeyed Constitutional Law, is against enhanced interrogation techniques of foreign combatants which he calls torture, yet is perfectly okay with using drones to kill terrorists and violating the sovereign rights of foreign countries, some of whom are American allies.
Liberals have maintained that the president has the right to kill citizens who pose an “imminent threat.” They do not differentiate whether that threat is to the country or to the president. The Left contends that the president is the United States and that hoping he failed as Rush Limbaugh said at Obama’s inauguration was hoping for America to fail. Rush Limbaugh has been the leading voice criticizing President Obama and his policies for four years and has expressed exasperation that the president is not held responsible for his economic policies.
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