Speaking of breaking domestic laws for personal political gain, we turn to the Obama administration for firing IGs. Where is the outcry from the Left on an immediate investigation since they are the self-appointed vanguards of upholding the rule of law?

No clearly Sean doesn’t respect “international law” if he doesn’t come to the same conclusions as you.

Ottovbvs, it is especially repugnant for you to question a veteran about “perspective.” There must be a less obnoxious way to defend your blind moral equivalence.

Perhaps had he grown up a privileged white guy with wealthy and well connected parents and billionaire friends to pave over every difficulty in life for him, that might cause him to act rashly … but I’m pretty sure Obama has shown he can do a pretty good job of keeping his cool, and keeping his eye on the ball, even when petty slights are thrown his way.

It seems pretty silly, given the news reports out of the Russia meetings:

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“Obama said Russia’s concerns would be given more consideration when discussing [missile defense plans],” said Yury Ushakov, a deputy chief of staff at the Russian government.
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Obama actually seems to be playing this one extremely well … given that his base of support in the US largely wants him to abandon the plans for building missile defense systems in Eastern Europe altogether. He’s not letting that box him in, he’s keeping the systems on the table as a bargaining chip – and at the end of the day, if he gains some significant concession from the Russians as part of a deal for not moving forward with the system it will be a win-win for him.

I know that the neocons who absolutely want deployment, come hell or high water, will not be happy with any concession that Obama might get from Russia to cancel the program. But they’re not really going to be happy with anything he ever does, and his very election represented in part a repudiation of their political philosophy by the American electorate, so I doubt he’s going to lose much sleep over that.

dragonlady: “there is actually a method to the madness with positively identifying a target and the authorization of force discussed at the highest levels of government. It is common now for many more lawyers to be in the room when discussing a CIA plan than operatives themselves. So don’t assume this is Hollywood like with agents running around, guns blazing, shooting people at random”

So which is it? Is the flaw in being too deliberate, and risking losing the target? Or is it in being too “random”, and risking violations of law?

No, there would have been few whose opinions we care about who would have been disappointed had we successfully assassinated Bin Laden. When casting a wider net for “Al Qaeda terrorists” the record becomes much more mixed as far as our intelligence services are concerned.

……..Once again you’re just wrapping up a denial of legality and American exceptionalism in a blizzard of rationalisations that are all over the board………Bottom line if it’s ok for us to go to France and murder someone we believe to be a terrorist, then it’s ok for China to come here murder someone who they deem a terrorist. Yes or no? I’d whack Bin Laden as soon as the next man but it’s nowhere near as simple as that although you want it to be……..And if it’s all so accurate how come we’ve lifted so many wrong people and shipped them off for torture……fu’s occur and have consequences……these incidents are bad enough……imagine if we gun down the wrong man in Rome or Paris