Going Rogue

Trey Smith

The disclosure that current American drone warfare operations are directed from the presidential office in the White House, with the president himself selecting persons to be assassinated by unmanned American drone aircraft in the Muslim countries where the United States now is militarily engaged, has ignited protests on moral, legal, political and strategic grounds.

The protests concern the nature of these attacks, which disregard national sovereignties, the laws of war and the principles of American and international law, and are justified by the consideration that terrorists don’t obey the law either. The attacks must be described as assassinations because, as no state of war has been declared to exist between the United States and these persons or their states, they are unlawful killings. (emphasis added)
~ from Drone Warfare Foretells an Ever-Expanding and Illegal War by William Pfaff ~

In the ongoing Tao Bible series, I have tried to tease out the similarities and differences -- in my view -- of these two belief frameworks. One area of congruency concerns the notion that our behavior is not determinate on the behavior of others. The virtuous individual (or nation) does not utilize another's poor or bad behavior as a rationalization for our own non-virtuous behavior. When we behave meanly or unjustly to those we perceive as being mean or unjust, we are no better than they are!

And yet, when it comes both to foreign and domestic policy, that is the excuse given by our government leaders: If the terrorists and criminals are unprincipled and lawless, then this grants us the permission to be just as unprincipled and lawless. More tellingly, the majority of the people of this so-called Christian nation applaud our government for behaving in this manner.

Why venerate Jesus as the model of human comportment if our nation refuses to follow the model he set forth?