Campaign Finance Reform Deferred

A year ago, President Barack Obama was considering an executive order to require all corporations with a government contract to disclose political spending. Campaign finance reformers were all aglow because it looked like a defacto Disclose Act, which would require disclosure of political spending of over $1,000.

In February 2012, Obama's re-election campaign announced that it would support Priorities USA and other Democratic Super PACs and it pledged to work on campaign finance work in the meantime. Obama supports House and Senate versions of the Disclose Act, which has no chance of passing.

President Obama could try to force nominees onto the Federal Election Commission or call for the Securities Exchange Commission to issue rules requiring political spending disclosure. He is not likely to do either.

War on Drones: An Aerial Outside Agitator Coming to Your Neighborhood

I have previously blogged on the dangers of U.S. drone attacks but the recent writings of Jeff Morley, who writes for Salon Magazine, have given updated context in terms of frequency of drone attacks, number of victims, the fear and intimidation they cause, and their use in the United States.

Jeff Morley's estimate that Barack Obama has launched three to four times the number of drone strikes as George W. Bush did, over a comparable period, is in line with other informed estimates. Morley's number of 174 children killed by drones is probably taken from the U.K.-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which puts the number of Pakistanis killed by drones in the range of 2,500 to 3,000, with between 479 and 831 being civilians.

According to polls Morley has see, opposition to drones is almost universal in Pakistan, fueled not only by the strikes themselves, but by the fact that in some areas of Pakistan, seeing a drone is almost a daily occurrence. it has got to be frightening to realize that anyone of those drones could be targeting you, your family, or friends and associates.

The accuracy of identifying legitimate targets is certainly a problem. During the war in Iraq, the International Red Cross found that most of the thousands of Iraqis being held in captivity by U.S. forces had not been charged with a crime. The fact that U.S. intelligence did not have good information on suspected insurgents meant that family members and close friends were held, because they might supply incriminating evidence or clues to suspect's locations.

During the early stages of the war in Afghanistan, some suspects were detained on the basis that they had the same or similar name of a suspected insurgent/terrorist. Others were turned in by someone who had a score to settle or wanted to get rid of an inconvenient rival.

Jeff Morley raises the issue that as the top terrorist leaders are being killed off, the bar might be lowered to attack lower echelon terrorist suspects. It wasn't long ago that reports surfaced of an argument raging in the Obama administration of targeting the "soldiers" who carry out terrorist plots. Thus, those seen unloading what looks like explosives could be hit, along with those frequenting a terrorist hangout.

Besides the real possibility that U.S. drone strikes might be creating more terrorists than they eliminate, Americans should be concerned about aerial outside agitators coming into their communities. Miami-Dade County and a county in Texas already have certification to use drones in law enforcement and ten more counties have applied for certification. We have already given up much of our privacy to government surveillance.

An Uninformative Afghan Speech and a Highly Questionable Agreement

President Barack Obama made his speech from Afghanistan very recently, with the podium parked in front of two U.S. armored vehicles with U.S. flags attached to them. This display of armored might is hardly comforting to those many viewers who don't associate war-making power with a nation intent on peacekeeping.

The Obama speech on the future conduct of the war was very short on content and was far more optimistic than the last six-month report by the Pentagon. Whereas Obama sees significant progress in reducing Taliban strength, the Pentagon report revealed a mixed picture of some reduction in violence and some territorial gains over the Taliban; however, the Taliban were described as resilient and capable of making gains in the spring and summer fighting season. General John Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has been described as wanting to slow the pace of U.S. troop withdrawals, especially in areas where gains have been made against the Taliban.

There was no mention in Obama's speech of how many U.S. troops will be left in Afghanistan after December 2014, the date by which the U.S. is scheduled to have no further combat role in Afghanistan. The speech was also devoid of any estimate of how much the U.S. involvement with assisting the Afghans in the future will cost.

The rationale for the Obama speech was to announce the completion of a 10-year agreement, which would be the template for U.S. interaction with Afghanistan through 2024. Although in the agreement there is a provision stating that the agreement meet U.S. legal requirements, there has been no announced intent to submit it to the U.S. Congress for consideration as a treaty, yet the agreement contains many of the elements that would be found in a treaty. When George W. Bush concluded an agreement with Iraq, setting forth as a prime component that U.S. troops would depart from Iraq -- at least the great bulk of them -- no later than December 31, 2011, some Democratic legislators in Congress demanded the agreement be submitted for consideration as a treaty. Although it is still very early for reaction to fully form on the agreement, no member of Congress has yet requested the agreement's submission as a treaty.