High Flying Circus

--Obama's Red Tails,
David Fay/Hruska

The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day;
the sharpest sight cannot discern them.
God has so many different unsearchable ways
of taking wicked men out of the world
--Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,
Jonathan Edwards

We breed wars.
We carry it like syphilis inside.
Dead bodies rot in field and stream
because the living ones are rotten
--The Lion in Winter (1968)

Much casual death had
drained away their souls
--More Light, More Light,
Hannah Arendt and
Heinrich Blucher

Bend them trucks
We do it for fun
Stack them bucks
We do it for fun
--Shake Ya Tail Feather,
Nelly
________________

The recent New York Times' mephitic paean to President Obama's death-dealing drone program notes the president's recourse to the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine.

We understand Obama is being painted as an intellectual, but he is also supposedly a Constitutional law scholar, so why would he not seek precedence in the current legal thought and treaties? Why is our secular Chief Executive being presented as someone seeking guidance from ancient and medieval Catholic Church theologians? It could not be the result of any realpolitik, could it?

Augustine's Just War theory does not vindicate preemptive war anyway -- only defensive; it should not be the standard of current war behavior, anyway. It does not address the killing of civilians. Augustine and St. Thomas have been superseded by the U.S. Constitution, the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions and many other legal precedents (including the Nuremberg Principles and the U.N.Human Rights Declaration, which celebrated its 64th anniversary today.)

By what authority does a United States President authorize the Central Intelligence Agency -- a civilian agency -- to kill citizens under the false rubric of war?

Thomas Aquinas twisted the teachings of Jesus to justify the Church's support of monarchs which then send Christians off crusading for mortal causes benefiting both institutions . The Church's apotheosis of the monarchs strengthened the Church's cause, as both could then rule over the interests of man via God's investiture. This nod to St. Thomas and Aquinas as directing doctrine for Obama's drone policy violates the principle of separation of Church and State.

Obama is not even the least of prelates, possessing no divine right to rule or to arbitrarily advocate for the killing of someone he deems a fit target. As a nation, the U.S. has left God and the Church out of our national planning process Wars of aggression are criminal ventures.

If the President must seek recourse to religious thought, why not turn to the 20th century's Martin Luther King, Jr., a minister who turned against war as an expression of American philosophy? King saw that killing was not the way to weave the fabric of a just American power.

Speaking of realpolitik, perhaps Obama's team does not see use in borrowing the ideas of a black reverend -- Obama already has that race card punched, and incendiary reverends like his own mentor Rev. Wright have not done well for securing Obama's legacy.

Mr. Obama is staring down even younger potential Republican opponents, like Florida's junior Senator Marco Rubio. Talking demographics: Obama can never be younger, Latino or Catholic. He may have New School music on his iPod, but how to cast the re-election net wide enough to win? He has Eva Longoria and Ricky Martin; maybe his handlers feel that appealing to Catholi
theologians provides him another foot in the door.

--by Lisa and Jim