Killing by PowerPoint

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Killing by PowerPoint
Posted By Philip Giraldi On June 5, 2012
The New York Times has revealed ^[1] that President Barack Obama hosts a “Terror Tuesday” secure PowerPoint-style teleconference attended weekly by his top 100 intelligence and security officials. After the meeting he goes through a “nominating process” by viewing the “baseball cards” showing suspected terrorists, before personally deciding who is to be assassinated by drones; he also, in some cases, explicitly approves killing the suspect’s family if it should be in the vicinity of the strike. No one should be surprised by what the article reveals.  The journalists describe a president “quite comfortable with the use of force on behalf of the United States” whose drone wars have increased in number and lethality since he ascended to the Oval Office. As a result, it has been plausibly suggested that killing by machine will become the low-intensity warfare option of the future for every nation that can afford the technology, following the lead of the United States.