Most of the American left seem to be cool with Obama’s decision to channel his inner Cheney, but not MIT superstar prof Noam Chomsky:
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged.
In fact, as Prof Chomsky sees it, in at least one respect we’re worse than the Nazis:
Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”
Hey, don’t forget the “Gay” Focke. Unfortunately for the professor, the president seems to be getting a taste for targeted assassination:
WASHINGTON — A missile strike from an American military drone in a remote region of Yemen on Thursday was aimed at killing Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric believed to be hiding in the country, American officials said Friday…
The Obama administration has taken the rare step of approving Mr. Awlaki’s killing, even though he is an American citizen.
Oh, my. All this extra-judicial killing could decimate the left-wing trial-lawyer industry.