Saturday, December 24, 2011

Are You a "Terrorist"? Are You Sure? Part 2

Powerline posts an essay from an ex-spook who has doubts about the President's license to summarily execute US citizens who are deemed 'terrorists.'

...Mistakes are frightfully easy to make, especially in gathering the numbers used to identify location, address, or telephones of suspected terrorists. Every number needs to be checked and re-checked. If one number in a grid coordinate is incorrect, it can mean a missile will strike a completely unintended location. During my CIA career I saw so many incorrect numbers that I was suspicious of any number until it had been double-checked. If someone handed me a telephone number and the number did not work, I learned to try changing a 3 to an 8 or a 1 to a 7, and to switch the numbers most commonly transposed.

Of course, "mistakes" are made in areas which are not 'hot battlefields,' too.  And we all know that "terrorist" has a very flexible definition.  Ask anyone who spent time in the Gulag about the definition of "mentally ill."

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