Ron Paul: My topic for this evening is “now, it’s assassinations”. What have we allowed ourselves to become? Are we no longer a nation of laws? Have we become instead a nation of men who make secret arrests? Are secret prisons now simply another tool of the federal government law enforcement? Is secret rendition of individuals now permitted out of misplaced fear? Have we decided that the writ of habeas corpus is not worth defending? Is torture now an acceptable tool for making us safe? The latest outrage is the Obama administration’s acknowledgement that we now have a policy that permits assassination not only of foreign suspects but of American citizens as well. Of course, the CIA has used secret assassinations in a limited fashion for decades despite international, domestic, and moral law. When done secretly as in the past, our government at least recognized that assassination was illegal and wrong. Frighteningly and astonishingly, however, the policy is now explicit. added by: congoboy
