Really?

Phil Bronstein debriefed the Navy SEAL who shot bin Laden at length. Part of the anonymous shooter's narrative:

The group discussed what would happen if they were surrounded by Pakistani troops. We would surrender. The original plan was to have Vice-President Biden fly to Islamabad and negotiate our release with Pakistan's president.

This is hearsay, but I understand Obama said, Hell no. My guys are not surrendering. What do we need to rain hell on the Pakistani military? That was the one time in my life I was thinking, I am fucking voting for this guy. I had a picture of him lying in bed at night, thinking, You're not fucking with my guys. Like, he's thinking about us.

We got word that we'd be scrambling jets on the border to back us up.

Well yes, hearsay. But was Obama really ready to start lethal firefight with Pakistan after invading its airspace and landing a combat team unannounced, thereby, at a minimum, completely destroying the chance of even a minimal level of cooperation with regard to Afghanistan or terrorist and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan's tribal regions?

Some thoughts about drone strikes and detention

It is high time I sorted out my thinking (and feeling) about U.S. drone killings and other targeted killings of those deemed to be terrorists. It's a duty to myself if no one else. The charge that liberals who were up in arms about Bush's torture and detention policies are unjustifiably silent about Obama's secret and unaccountable killings has some merit in my case, though I have on occasion expressed unease or disapproval of various aspects of Obama's conduct of the ongoing covert war. This will be an essay in the original sense, in that I am figuring out what I think (and recalling what I have thought at various stages) as I go along. The questions: what policies are effective (or likely to cause blowback), what policies are legal (or pose a lasting danger to our civil liberties), what policies are ethical (or likely to save more lives than they take).