Mark, I'm pretty much with you when it comes to drone strikes. We live in a world where the perceived threats to our nation hide within states that have little or no desire to help us pursue our enemies and, in many cases, harbor them willingly. Hence, striking these enemies without the consent of these nations seems like a legitimate tactic to me.

Having said that, I recognize the argument of those who view drone strikes as lacking any semblance of due process. It's assassination from the sky, many times in nations that we have not declared war against (which violates the Geneva Convention).

Again, I understand the argument. That said, I don't agree with it. Terrorism does not subscribe to the conventions of standard warfare and, as a result, non-standard tactics must be employed to combat it. That is my view. If we were using drone strikes to take out foreign leaders or dignitaries, then I'd have a serious problem with it.

I'm curious. What are you going to have to say when drones are used against the US and our leaders and their families?

Shooter, as I stated, if we were using them against foreign leaders and their families, I'd have an issue with it. However, we are not using drone strikes against foreign leaders and their families (unless, of course, you view Al'Qaeda members as foreign leaders). Again, as I said, when the Obama Administration kills a foreign head of state, dignitary, political leader, etc. with a drone strike, I'll be the first to question their motives. Until then, I'm not changing my position.

This is a genie and bottle kind of thing. At some point every terrorist is going to have armed drones. Then what?

So that I'm understanding clearly: We should base our policies off of what terrorists EVENTUALLY WILL do to us? Curious reasoning. I guess we should strongly reconsider our use of crashing civilian airliners into civilian buildings before terrorists do it to us.

Oh wait...

I thought you were MSNBC but watching you tonight concerning drone stricks, I would say you worked for FOX, I was in the military, drones serve the best way to deal with the bad guys Ameican or not that are a threat to us. no life except theirs is lost. how wonderful....

If only that were true. There is nothing intrinsically wrong or dangerous about drone strikes in warfare in comparison to any other developments but what's to be concerned about here is the way it is being done ie that there is no oversight on this from anyone other han the president. War powers need to be in the hands of congress and the military not the CIA.

This power needs to be constitutionalized, restricted by rules so we have assurances that the oval office recognizes cerain actions that involve them are wrong. The killing of foreign nationals is not so easy to argue against however killing americans without due process is very dangerous as precident. There should be rules as to how that is done and right now there are not. The killing of americans by the US government anywhere in the world needs to be as tightly regulated as possible.

This is a power tailor made for future abuse and leaving it unchecked will only increase that problem. Imagine if in say 50 years Dick Cheney raises from the grave and manages to become president do you trust him to use the power to kill americans around the world without any legal process? Would you trust him? Now I know that's a fantastical "what if" scenario but the point is that a corrupt Nixonian future leader could use this power for very negative ends.

Then there's the fact that it's not just terrorists being killed, plenty of civilians die in these strikes too. That doesn't help our cause, it has the potential to raise many more demons than it will put down.

Since people seem to want to go down the never ending road of hypotheticals...How about if the terrorists are Domestic? You know those incredibly heavily armed Militia types like the ones who killed all those people in Oklahoma City (including 19 children under the age of 6)?

Drones are a reality and unfortunately so are American Terrorists the question is how we deal with them and considering the Republicans recent history of willingness to sacrifice the lives of Americans for what they surely thought was going to be easy political gain I don't think there is any credibility from anyone on this.

I'm with Cynical on this one...we need laws to define and cover what is considered acceptable and justified and what is restricted and prohibited. We can't get this horror back in Pandora's box we are going to have to decide how to deal with it.

Shooter, as I stated, if we were using them against foreign leaders and their families, I'd have an issue with it. However, we are not using drone strikes against foreign leaders and their families (unless, of course, you view Al'Qaeda members as foreign leaders).

No you're right we have not done that....not yet atleast. The point is not the current administration policy which we can trust will not abuse this power for personal gain. I believe we don't have to worry about that from this administration and several of the ones that will follow but we don't know what kind of person is going to be in the oval office in the future.

The issue is that these policies and lack of laws means that legally there would be nothing stopping a president from doing that. Once a president gains a new executive power those presidents that follow are not going to give that up. A POTUS never takes away power from his or herself, it just doesn't happen. When the executive gets a power all future administrations also get that power.

Again would anybody trust someone like Dick Cheney to use these drone policies responsibly? Would you trust Nixon with this? A Sarah Palin....lmfao....how about Louis Gohmert

But where was the "Due Process"?

Still in the Bill of Rights where we get to "pick and choose" which ones we "believe in" from day to day.

No one thinks otherwise, no one believes people like that should not be dealt with. What people are concerned about is the fact that this memo is so vague that an administration could just arbitrarily label a group or person any enemy. There's no specific criteria so basically you can declare someone an enemy of the state because you said so and no one would be able to legally stop you.

There are no rules other than the ones that administration makes up.