For years, the United States has danced around the fact that it has repeatedly enter the sovereign territory of other countries with drone attacks and in some cases small unit attacks without the permission of countries like Pakistan. Such acts violate international law and would be viewed by the United States as an act of war if committed on U.S. territory. This week,Defense Secretary Leon Panetta finally responded directly to those objections and said that the attacks would continue unabated. Panetta essentially stated that we can invade other nations because we can and that countries will have to come to accept that — using the same concept as “floggings will continue on ship until morale improves.”
Panetta insisted this is really not them (other countries) but us. Speaking in India, he proclaimed “This is about our sovereignty as well.” As for Pakistan, which has repeatedly objected to attacks on its territory, Panetta said “It’s a complicated relationship, often times frustrating, often times difficult. They have provided some cooperation. There are other times when frankly that cooperation is not there.” Strangely, we would not view the relationship as complicated if Mexico sent drones into Texas to take out suspects or landed Mexican special forces in Arizona to kill enemies. We would treat it as a matter of war.
Panetta has finally made “American exceptionalism” official policy. We do these things simply because we can; because we are the United States. From torture to military tribunals to hit lists, the United States is above the legal standards that we impose on others. The greatest danger is that our hypocrisy abroad is turning into hypocrisy at home where we continue to claim to be the “land of the free” while stripping citizens of basic rights and expanding unchecked presidential and police powers.
Obama has expanded drone attacks to an unprecedented level while expanding his claimed authority to kill citizens without a charge or trial. Now the most common image of the United States abroad is not our Constitution but our drones. For many people around the world, Panetta’s speech will be viewed as adding unrestained arrogance to unrestrained power.
Source: ABC
And they will continue after morale improves, too, or if morale remains unchanged. When you do what you do just to do it, why bother with the ex post facto rationales. They mean nothing and everyone knows it.
As we used to say back in Vietnam: “we’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.”
“If the Americans come, they will just draw an arbitrary line through a temporary problem and make it permanent.” — former Sri Lankan Ambassador to France and the United States
Parkinson’s Law meets the Peter Principle — again and still.
Can we really trust the continuing bush policys ? Or do we not have a choice anymore?
Might makes right, apparently. We just told the world that we’re only accountable to our own laws, our own viewpoints. If you don’t like it, lump it. There’s never been a good historical precedent for when that succeeded. The United States surged in economic and military power because at one time we could actually stand on the moral high ground. While that may have been true only to a certain extent, what we’re doing now is simply bullying other nations, with our only justification a thin one regarding possible terror attacks. And American citizens swallow it whole with their daily dose of American Idol and Kardashanutjob. A very important point that people take for granted is that other nations don’t have to play with us if they don’t want to. All it would take for American power to nosedive is for a small percentage of developed countries, and/or a good bulk of 2/3rd world countries, to take a unified FU America stance, which would shatter our trading and fiscal advantages. Coming with the rising cost of government, a tax policy that is way out of wack, a struggling economy, and a titanic debt, our arrogance could push us into second or third rate status. I don’t even know if that would be a bad thing anymore, except in the instance that China takes over. As bad as we are, we ain’t China, and I’m frankly terrified of the idea of China determining the global and economic moral compass. We have got to learn to mind our own damn business, to meet attacks in a proportional, humanitarian manner, and to deal with other nations in good faith, or we need to go ahead and start digging our own graves. I’ve got an idea for an American epitath- “The land of the free (to ignore reality), the home of the brave (when spilling someone else’s blood), and the greatest idiots in all of human history.”
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” — Bush administration official preemptively giving the Obama administration its operating philosophy and intellectual parameters.
Michael Murry- Was that Karl Rove? And yeah, reality based community only works when spin is the only reality that America gets exposed to, usually by choice of inaction and laziness. Obama grabbed ahold of that lesson and ran with it.
CLH,
The American epitaph thing offers many creative possibilities. Take, for example, the opening stanza of “America the Dutiful.”
In the land of the fleeced and the home of the slave
Where the cowed and the buffaloed moan,
Where seldom we find and inquisitive mind
And the people pay up with a groan
Back to you …
Correction- reality based community *never* works instead of *only* works.
Does a self-critical USofA have the strength to wonder “why they hate you”?
I also love the fact that we bomb countries, and we bomb them when they’re responding to a bombing by killing the aid responders to the first bombing. Now THERE’s a great ethic. I’m just stunned by this kind of stuff. And bombing mourners gathered at a funeral? How low can this go? Not to mention, I’m trying to figure out WHY we’re bombing Pakistan?
The whole world is going to hate our guts, and who can blame them? I’m still trying to figure out what happened to this country that has made us this way, and why the people can’t have this stopped. Because you can bet the whole world will be believing that we the people would stop it if we wanted to.
“Declaration of war??? We don’t need no stinkin’ declaration of war!!!”
With apologies to B. Traven and Gold Hat.
Please, people. Calm down. A president Romney would increase drone attacks,covert operations, cyber attacks, unconstitutional surveillance, indefinite detention, warranless eavesdropping and data collection. So much worse.
Hmmm, wait a minute.
CLH
1, June 7, 2012 at 7:26 am
Might makes right, apparently. We just told the world that we’re only accountable to our own laws, our own viewpoints. If you don’t like it, lump it.
———————————————————————-
No, we just told the world that there IS no law, not even here. Like it or lump it.
Even our LAW has no law……
“O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had the chance!”
“Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”
I confess to having once harbored a ridiculous hope that Barack Obama might take up the Ring of Power with a grand gesture of magnanimity and pity, sparing the lives of many in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan who had done nothing to harm the United States. Instead, I watched in horror as Smeagol Obama rapidly decayed into Gollum Cheney. Power does that to those who have little character to begin with.
You forgot the caption to go under Panetta’s picture: “What, me worry?”
It boils down to whether you will rely on the state hosting the terrorist to do the right thing or use self-help to rid yourself of the enemy. I share Professor’s Turley’s concern that in slaying the beast you can become the beast, but if a sovereign state will harbor terrorists through sympathy with his cause or inability to rid itself of his presence what is the right of the state directly threatened? If we up the ante to include that well-grounded belief that the harbored terrorist can visit a nuclear cataclysm on those so threatened what is the alternative? A land invasion of the host state? An appeal to the UN?
Silent enim leges inter arma recognizes realism in international affairs where all states compete to survive and hold that as the highest goal. That we can do it because we can recognizes the Machiavellian reality that, “A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.” That’s not morality; it’s reality. Not pretty, ethical, nor legal but we have to decide if survival is a higher goal. History (and human nature) says it is.
Simply recall the effect on the US economy when three planes hit three buildings. Put a dirty nuclear device on Wall Street or Pennsylvania Ave and increase that reality a hundred-fold. If you have a war with no rules imposed upon you, you can fight fire with fire or live up to your principles of fair play and accept the consequences. That is the choice of terrorism.
The only one Obama canshow great magnanimity and pity towards are the like of McConnell and Boehner. He’s always there for them.
The US is an empire that operates without rules. It creates chaos in a country, invades the country (sometimes in the reverse order where the invasion creates the chaos), decimates the infrastructure, kills and terrorizes the population, chooses someone “friendly” from within the country to rule, sets up a permanent military presence, steals its resources. Some countries are “controlled” by economic/financial means through the backdoor in the software their financial institutions use, compliments of the US. It’s like someone is playing a conquer-the-world video game. We’re the bullies of the world and those who call the shots are sociopaths. In the long run, the US will go the route of all empires.
At this point, the Executive should just stop pretending and go back to the natty Hugo Boss uniforms the Bush family friends preferred in WWII.
They are at least leaving no doubt that PNAC and AEI are dictating American foreign policy no matter which party has the current illusion of holding the White House and/or Congress.
When this kind of aggressive expansionist Neocon/Neolib nonsense (probably literally) blows up in Washington’s collective face, they better not come crying to me. Quite simply, they aren’t just asking for it at this point, but begging. This path leads to certain disaster. I just hope when retribution starts that more pols die than U.S. civilians. Why? Because that would be fair for a change.
I think on that note, I’m simply going to vomit and go back to bed. If I don’t stop reading the news after reading this, I know that soon the dogs starting to bark in my head will drown out every thought and sound including the high pitched roar of Dwight Eisenhower and Smedley Butler rolling over in their graves.
Assholes.
“A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.”
——————————————–
“A fear-filled Dictator ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.”
Is the threat real? Or is our leadership making it come about by fear?
yerrorists come, terrorists go…..are we to allow inflicted terrors to define our lives, our boundaries? our internal structure?
Bush’s biggest mistake was in the way he reacted. He could have remained civil, he chose to go to war. Defense is not a dirty word…it is the only sane one when terrorism is involved. Drones are acts of surveillance and terrorism. Who’s the terrorist now?
The other reason we need leaders who don’t act like the current crop….people are following the examples;
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/crime-law/deputies-rescue-crews-called-to-reported-shooting-/nPNf3/?123
mespo,
There is a difference between asymmetric warfare and blatantly and unilaterally disregarding the sovereignty of other nations. Unless, of course, you trust them to “use their powers only for good” at this point. This is another actual war (as opposed to the “war on terrorism”) waiting to happen.
Why don’t we call the “vaginal probes” for sovereign nations?
“Drones” is so not exciting.
Pan etta should put on a female goat uniform at news conferences.
He should be addressed as Lady Pan … J. Edgar Hoover would have loved it.
@Woosty’s still a Cat “Bush’s biggest mistake was in the way he reacted.”
I think there is a lot of truth to your remark. I would never say there is no threat. On the contrary, I believe we are engage in a great war unlike any we have fought before.
Every one who has been in a real, physical fight knows that sometimes you should lay back and wait for an opening.
In a sense that is what we did in the cold war. Eventually, whole populations of nations became convinced that our system and our approach was better. Essentially, all of the eastern block overthrew their rulers. They did this in part because they were convinced our approach was best.
Today, I think it is fair to say that the radicals are winning the fight for opinion. There are many reasons why that is so. I think any fair minded person would have to conclude that we are generating much of the sentiment that supports the growth of the radical movement.
No one nation can fight the entire world. The damage we do and the arrogance with which we do it is converting much of the world to be our adversary. Our war against terrorists that has no limits is driving away those who ought to be our allies.
Where, exactly are our allies in this war. In Europe? I don’t think so. Even in the counties that have suffer terrorist attack I think you will find a large percentage of the population that believe we are the problem. Will we find allies in Africa or the middle East? I don’t think so. Again, our approach has done much to alienate those who are the natural enemies of the radicals and those who ought to support us.
We are engage in a great war unlike any we have fought before. Unfortunately our leaders thought they could solve the problem in a few months or a few years. This is a war that will go on for decades if not generations. The fact is that we cannot kill an idea. And our ham fisted approach has done much to energize the idea that we are the problem.
Here is what our quaint olden days foreign policy was like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGPqJ5hcEHY&feature=player_embedded
Mespo, what you call reality is just another point of view. Albeit it comports with the consensus drone (No pun) that 911 changed everything. I believe that your recitation, though sophisticated, justifying that slogan, indeed reflects a wide swath of public opinion. That may bolster the notion of reality, but not unequivocally.
911 changed everything only if we succumb to that fatuous slogan. “My tragedy is worse than your tragedy”, too, is only a slogan — only in this case the US has the military might to act as if it were the only point of view.
To analogize,why would I , and I don’t, want to live in a country dominated by racists, bigots, homophobes and stingy plutocrats who want to starve the masses? The militaristic, constitution-eroding fallout from the “911 changed everything” mentality is the extension and actualization of such regressive thinking in the international/foreign policy realm.
On the converse side, law wise, international law has been more about convention and politics than actual, enforceable principle. To me, that’s a shame. But it’s true. Citing that survival of the state is a principle of international law that we should look to here is, if I may respectfully say so, a red herring. No one out there is capable of accomplishing that level of “terror”.
There is always a threat. While there are those who have, and those who have not, there will be a threat. While there are those who, without empathy, compassion, or any other emotion or rationale to temper their ambition, would manipulate religion to support theocratic and tyrannical rule, there will be a threat. While there are those who care nothing for the future, but only for their own power base, there will be a threat. There will always be those who want a piece of what someone else has. There will be those who want to suppress ideas that pour sunshine on their lies. There will be those who are so blinkered by preconception that no reality will suit except that which they have created.
The issue isn’t that there is a threat. The issue is that we are our own worst threat, as no nation can conquer us, no terror can overcome us, except that which we permit. You can never eliminate risk, nor will you always protect those you care about. You can deter, keep the watch, and strike when the enemy shows itself. There are only two proven ways to win a war. By killing so many of the enemy that their identity is broken, or by showing the enemy the hollowness of their existence. Good god, the worst thing we could ever do to the muslim theocratic world is enjoy our beer, our BBQ, and our beaches with a bunch of scantily clad women, while we work to put our daughters through college, while we enjoy a life span decades longer than theirs, and while we bicker and argue and then go vote with no blood being spilled to change a government’s policy. As our nation grows, as our children are educated, as our wives and daughters add to our society, theirs will decline, and whither, till they are but angry old men muttering in a desert, no more relevant than a gnat on the shoulders of a giant.
Keeping the watch means doing things we don’t like doing. It does NOT mean doing things that turn us into the very monsters we despise.
Gene:
“There is a difference between asymmetric warfare and blatantly and unilaterally disregarding the sovereignty of other nations.”
***************************
I agree with that but there is a reason we are flying drone missions over Pakistan and not Canada (that we know of). That is because some “states” are nothing more than lines on a map with “governments” run by tribal chieftains. We make a mistake by equating Western notions of sovereignty with tribal lands governed by nothing like what we would call a modern state. In that chaos or impending chaos, we have little choice but to act for ourselves.
To avoid a “actual” war by drone strikes seems reasonable to me. I note no hue and cry from our allies in the West about this “breach of sovereignty,” nor too much criticism from Mid-Eastern states who could be destabilized by a ground war to ferret our terrorists. This is the Realpolitik of our age and it seems the middle ground approach tacitly approved of by the international community.
We have not been attacked successfully in a decade and al Qaeda’s last successful attack in Europe was 7 years ago. Can we really argue with the results?
CLH:
“Keeping the watch means doing things we don’t like doing. It does NOT mean doing things that turn us into the very monsters we despise.”
*****************************
Do you really think responding in kind to an unprovoked attack in order to prevent a even more devastating attack makes us monsters? Or simply pragmatists?
Obama Drone Strikes Are ‘Mass Murder’ – Jeremy Scahill (The Young Turks)
At this point no one should be surprised that there’s not any difference between Obama’s policies on civil liberties and war and Bush’s. If Romney were elected some people might suddenly rediscover constitutional limitations on the executive. I was foolish enough to imagine that more otherwise anti-war/pro-civil liberties people would raise their voice against the current President but they are devoted to the “lesser of two evils” mindset.
http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2012/06/president-obamas-kill-list-murder.html
DonS:
“No one out there is capable of accomplishing that level of “terror”.”
*******************
Really? I give you Somalia as just one example of a failed state caused by terrorism. Another strike by al Quaeda shortly after 9/11 would according to many experts have wrecked the US economy and that was precisely the aim of the terrorists.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/econo-jihad
You have more faith in the unflappability of our fellows that I do.
bigfatmike,
“No one nation can fight the entire world. The damage we do and the arrogance with which we do it is converting much of the world to be our adversary.”.
My point exactly.
However that does not exclude the very real and very positive likelihood that the majority of the rest of the world, despite religious difference, understand the difference between responding to terrorism and the over reaching by aggressors. And the fact that a Nation is not just comprised of those who are in power at any particular moment. Intent and the willingness to ‘do no harm’ is not the same as ‘I’ll do my best not to break what I’m stealing as I rape your Country….’
meanwhile, I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that this is apparently a dynamic that has to be LEARNED by so many people living in the USA…
Elaine M:
“Obama Drone Strikes Are ‘Mass Murder’”
***************************
So is every modern war in the loose sense of mass death. That does not mean mass murder.
I have an idea that many, if not all, the strikes are fueled by the treasure trove of intelligence gathered by the team that took out Bin Laden. We were told there was so much data on those computer drives that it would take many months, if not years, to translate and interpret all of it.
Personally, I do not see a great moral difference between these people and a criminal enterprise. We read almost daily of a standoff between police and some armed criminal who forces the police to kill him. Of course, any analogy will break down if picked apart for detail, but close enough. Recall there is a long history of kidnapping or killing fugitive war criminals on foreign soil ever since WW-II, and before. We are currently involved in an asymmetrical war, and the usual rules of engagement cannot be applied.
I agree with mespo that the “sovereign” countries are not countries in the traditional western sense of the word, but are really tribal territories with arbitrarily drawn “borders” by mapmakers that have no real significance in reality.
CLH
1, June 7, 2012 at 9:51 am
There is always a threat. While there are those who have, and those who have not, there will be a threat.
————————————–
This mayt be an arguable dynamic IF there were not the pipelines being built before the war occurred, if those who in fact prospered during the aftermath of the attacks were not so very very unscathed and currently aggressive.
Woosty:
““No one nation can fight the entire world. The damage we do and the arrogance with which we do it is converting much of the world to be our adversary.”.”
***********************
Where is the evidence of that? As I said, I see no outrage from our allies and the only ones really peeved seem to be the so-called sovereign states of Pakistan and Yemen, and even they aren’t pounding shoes at the UN. Saudia Arabia hasn’t called for a meeting of the Security Council nor even our rivals Russia and China. Where is the criticism?
You won’t see it, because most states reserve unto themselves the power to do just what we are doing to avoid total war. No one wants terrorists to prevail and the only way to stop them in these tribal areas is to surgically strike them across borders. It’s the only tactic that works against guerrillas enjoying safe haven in a host country lacking the will to expel them.
mespo727272
1, June 7, 2012 at 10:24 am
CLH:
“Keeping the watch means doing things we don’t like doing. It does NOT mean doing things that turn us into the very monsters we despise.”
*****************************
Do you really think responding in kind to an unprovoked attack in order to prevent a even more devastating attack makes us monsters? Or simply pragmatists?
————————————————————-
Mespo, how monstrous do YOU think the attacks were?
And how do the numbers stack up now?
http://mit.edu/humancostiraq/
“Do you really think responding in kind to an unprovoked attack in order to prevent a even more devastating attack makes us monsters?”
and really Mespo, is tit-4-tat really the best we can do? No wonder we are falling so rapidly behind in the world wide humanitarian statistics.
War is not healthy competition any more than terrorism is a display of excellence….
There is no way to know if this continuation of Bush2 was the reason behind no more attacks here (yet).
We have lost our way, the news does not report it, they are complicit in their silence, (and where is our Woodward and Bernstein, and would news give them a spot anyway?) The populace, for the most part, doesn’t care. These posts and threads are wonderful and thought provoking but the folks who read, and comment, and really think it through say so, for the most part only here, (and is so small a number that when they bring it outside of here it still gets only small, if any, notice), so the truth of what this administration has done stays within the confines of some good blogs.
Woosty:
“War is not healthy competition any more than terrorism is a display of excellence….”
**************************
You’re right. War is not healthy competition; it’s necessary competition. Terrorism isn’t a display of excellence; it’s a display of criminality with tacit or explicit state sanction. It always has been. That’s why war is necessary … and the means? I think that is up to the victim.
Woosty:
“Mespo, how monstrous do YOU think the attacks were?”
************************
To kill 3000 innocent civilians out of some notion of spreading jihad is about as monstrous as it gets. Don’t you agree?
“I think on that note, I’m simply going to vomit and go back to bed.” Gene H.
———————-
me too….. (but I’m taking my foreign emigration pamphlets with me….)
@Mespo: “Really? I give you Somalia as just one example of a failed state caused by terrorism. Another strike by al Quaeda shortly after 9/11 would according to many experts have wrecked the US economy and that was precisely the aim of the terrorists.”
Somalia is not the US, of course. My point related to the US, of course.
What another strike may or may not have caused is theoretical, according to the experts. Our engorged “anti-terror” machine is all too real. We are back to square one in the debate; what level of actual anti-democratic behavior is justified to save a democracy from theoretical destruction? And what, besides “we can” establishes that right or, if it’s a scale, how do we know when we have crossed the line?
Mespo,
You are wrong about facts, the law and ethics. First you completely accept the lie that terrorism should be dealt with by acts of war instead of a matter of criminal law. The US dealt successfully with terrorism as a criminal matter up to and even after 9/11. The US chose to go to war with Afghanistan, a people who did not attack our nation. Even the Taliban offered to turn over OBL with some proof of his guilt to a neutral third party FOR A TRIAL. The US refused this offer.
From the lie that the US needed to respond to terrorism with war, all other lies, including the need to dismantle the rule of law have flowed. It should be obvious, as Harold Koh himself stated, that the reason we strike Pakistan and not Canada is that attacking Canada would create a large stir in Western nations. It creates a stir that doesn’t exist much in the US largely because of a ethically challenged population- one who just doesn’t really give a damn about what happens to third world nations.
If you want to just go practical and not worry about other people’s lives, let me count a couple ways this is a really bad idea. 1. Obama has defined anyone who is male of a certain age who is in the vicinity of a drone strike as a combatant. (See G. Greenwald for details about this.) That’s a lot of dead civilians being counted as militants. As was also mentioned above, the US is killing civilians by the scores. This is not opinion, it is a fact. Far from making us “safer”, this is causing people to join groups in resistance to the US. 2. Disregarding the rule of law has brought ruin to our nation. Our society is little more than a banana republic. It is shot through with corruption on a scale that I have never seen before. The rule of law would protect the safety of Americans from the predator corporate/military/govt. complex which is now tearing down our society and wreaking havoc throughout the world.
You used to quote Franklin about fear and safety. What happened to that?
“….To kill 3000 innocent civilians out of some notion of spreading jihad is about as monstrous as it gets. Don’t you agree?”
————————–
and yet we managed to top it….plus, I don’t subscribe that there was no collusion from internal sources…..in fact, that, to me, BEST explains the responant ‘overkill’ (sorry….)
respondant
mespo7272721,
To kill 3000 innocent civilians out of some notion of spreading jihad is about as monstrous as it gets. Don’t you agree?
And how many notches do we need on our belt before we are called equally (or more ) monstrous then the other guy. .
If those countries really were upset about drones, they could simply shoot them down. All you need is a couple of million and you can buy an air force good enough to support one old fighter and a few missiles or guns. The only people who are objecting to the dromes are the ones being hit, who are dedicated to killing us in any case, so no loss there. Another good thing for them is that they realize that it is Allah’s will that they be taken if they are hit. So Pakistan and Yemen don’t have major objections to all this, plus we pay them enough to keep silent since they cannot do anything about some of their remote areas in any case.
Mespo,
I think it behooves us to consider what our country’s actions/drone strikes/killing of innocent civilians may have on terrorist organizations’ ability to recruit more people to their cause.
*****
Jeremy Scahill Says Obama Strikes In Yemen Constitute ‘Murder’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/jeremy-scahill-says-drone-strikes-murders_n_1565441.html
Excerpt:
Weighing in on President Obama’s targeted drone strikes in the Middle East, journalist Jeremy Scahill did not mince words.
During his appearance on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes” Saturday morning, Scahill repeatedly said that such attacks, when they killed innocent civilians, amounted to “murder.”
Asked by Hayes why he would use such a “loaded” word to describe the strikes, Scahill responded at length.
“If someone goes into a shopping mall in pursuit of one of their enemies and opens fire on a crowd of people and guns down a bunch of innocent people in a shopping mall, they’ve murdered those people. When the Obama administration sets a policy where patterns of life are enough of a green light to drop missiles on people or to send in AC130s to spray them down…”
“But that wasn’t the case here,” interrupted retired colonel Jack Jacobs. “You’re talking about a targeted person here.” Scahill continued:
“If you go to the village of Al-Majalah in Yemen, where I was, and you see the unexploded clusterbombs and you have the list and photographic evidence, as I do–the women and children that represented the vast majority of the deaths in this first strike that Obama authorized on Yemen–those people were murdered by President Obama, on his orders, because there was believed to be someone from Al Qaeda in that area. There’s only one person that’s been identified that had any connection to Al Qaeda there. And 21 women and 14 children were killed in that strike and the U.S. tried to cover it up, and say it was a Yemeni strike, and we know from the Wikileaks cables that David Petraeus conspired with the president of Yemen to lie to the world about who did that bombing. It’s murder–it’s mass murder–when you say, ‘We are going to bomb this area’ because we believe a terrorist is there, and you know that women and children are in the area. The United States has an obligation to not bomb that area if they believe that women and children are there. I’m sorry, that’s murder.”
*****
Jeremy Scahill on MSNBC talking about US drones strike in Yemen
Most people don’t care….so long as they are told that the number 2 man in the Al Qaeda org chart has been “taken out.” Along with who else?…. I ask,
But I am the only one in my circle of acquaintances who worries about violation of the our founding principles, “collateral damage” or the fact that there may be retribution in the form of a dirty bomb or other low tech threat. These drone strikes are creating more terrorists. He who sows the wind, will reap the whirlwind.
http://www.juancole.com/2012/06/dissecting-obamas-standard-on-drone-strike-deaths-elliott.html While the use of drones is preferable to marching 300,000 troops into a country, the drones are clearly being overused.
“While the use of drones is preferable to marching 300,000 troops into a country, the drones are clearly being overused.”
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are they the last best offensive defense in our artillary against an opponent that we have so alienated that war is the only possible outcome?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/06/pawlenty-obamas-drone-strikes-dont-go-far-enough/ Romney spokesman Tim Pawlenty said that Romney would further the practice of using unmanned drones and indicated that Obama is underusing them….
Mespo- It’s not the use of the drones, by themselves. It’s not the use of drones in a country that doesn’t want them there, not by itself. It’s not going after the Taliban. It’s not going after terrorists. It’s the totality that has become too much. It’s the overall arrogance and hubris of the United States that is the issue. Measured response to casus belli is the only sane policy. Alienating the entire world is foolish in the extreme. Going overboard simply creates more enemies, in the end. So what, nuke em? Go door to door and execute people in a Holocaust style purge? That is the natural conclusion to “pragmatism”. Even after WWII, we rebuilt Germany, we rebuilt Japan, and they caused the death of far more Americans than any terrorist ever has or ever will.
We’ve gotten our pound of flesh, and then some. So pragmatism is your guiding deity, Mespo? The Romans were the kings of pragmatism. So were the Nazis. So were the English, during the days of the Empire. Do we respond to the murder of innocent by murdering innocent? You would turn the US into a conqueror. . There are always inevitable civilian casualties in any conflict, but at what point does pursuing revenge, does causing even more damage, of collecting ever more “collateral damage” turn us into another Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Hitler? We’re not there yet, or even close, but we are still on that path.
I’m a combat vet, for those of you who haven’t read my ramblings before. I spent four years total in country between Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve been shot, blown up, stabbed in the face. I’ve shot at others, and killed. I’ve called in air strikes that have blown all living hell out of people. And I’ve been part of clean up operations where children and women were in unrecognizable pieces, who’s only crime was statistical in nature, and others who had the sheer audacity and gall to go to school. I really, really, really hate muslim extremists. But in the end, the price isn’t worth it, when the objective has gone beyond prevention and into coercion, into occupation, into alienating everything and everyone.
Jeremy Scahill: A Short History of Drone Warfare
Indeed, how about neither troops nor drones! None of these wars are necessary except to those who profit from them.
I also wanted to add that Harold Koh was perfectly clear that the US has every right to send a drone into Germany or Canada. The reason he gave for not doing so was because it wasn’t prudential. It’s “legal”, just not prudential. So the next time anyone says this is because there isn’t a “real” govt. here or there, that’s not what the administration claims as its own rational. It’s what supporters of the administration say.
Like torture, drones are about who we are not who the other guy is.
Woosty, We are supposedly targeting terrorists in Yemen and Pakistan not going to war with those countries. You are right that too many drone strikes will make things worse.
and????
Jeremy Scahill US Intervention in Yemen Fueling Islamists Extremists
mespo,
“Can we really argue with the results?”
Yes we can when all the data indicates the probability of dying by lightening strike is four times greater than the probability of dying in a terrorist attack. I’ve posted this link to a reason.com article about such statistics before, but it merits re-posting.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/06/how-scared-of-terrorism-should
feemeister 1, June 7, 2012 at 7:44 am
…
I’m still trying to figure out what happened to this country that has made us this way, and why the people can’t have this stopped. Because you can bet the whole world will be believing that we the people would stop it if we wanted to.
===============================
Two public figures whom you know say There Was A Coup you know when.
pbh 1, April 28, 2012 at 5:27 pm
“I never said Mespo does not have a right to speak on the subject of 9/11, I said that I “detested” what he had to say. That is me exercising my free speech in response to his.
And, I further gave my reason, which I will reiterate, that I believe he was making an unjustifiable and ultimately crass appeal to emotion in order to advance his argument for suspending civil rights.”
Wootsy,
I may be a dog person, German Shepherds particularly, but this re post is for you and for everyone else that’s tired of the shameless fear mongering as well.
Bob, Esq. 1, June 5, 2012 at 9:26 am
Gene,
When I make a comment like “people like Mespo would have you believe that the state has the power to make ANY law simply because of an expressed good intention” it’s only because I’ve witnessed it first hand in my arguments with him.
The man has absolutely no regard for the doctrine of specifically enumerated powers and bases his arguments for the exercise of power not granted by the constitution solely on his intentions of the end justifying the means. He’ll have you believe that the survival of the nation is perpetually in question and will quote you Lincoln in the context of the Civil War to justify dismantling the constitution to achieve his aims.
Look at his arguments regarding the executive’s overreaching of power in the name of a war on “terror.” Look at the way he juices his rhetoric with fear and the remembrance of fear, i.e. invoking 9/11, as justification for decimating civil liberties. About the only thing missing from his arguments is the “Smoking Gun/In The Form of a Mushroom Cloud” metaphor used by the Bush Administration to defraud the country into war.
…
In his unfettered support of policies that attack our civil liberties, Mark has consistently demonstrated that he does not believe in freedom or the rule of law. He believes first and foremost in assuaging his own anxieties and insecurities; he believes in total control.
Oh, my bad. I’m supposed to qualify that as “in all his arguments with me” so as to avoid even the appearance of a fallacy of composition.
Gene H. 1, June 7, 2012 at 8:32 am
At this point, the Executive should just stop pretending and go back to the natty Hugo Boss uniforms the Bush family friends preferred in WWII.
They are at least leaving no doubt that PNAC and AEI are dictating American foreign policy no matter which party has the current illusion of holding the White House and/or Congress.
=======================
Well said indeed.
Bob,
I still love you even when you get cranky with me.
mespo727272 1, June 7, 2012 at 10:49 am
Woosty:
“Mespo, how monstrous do YOU think the attacks were?”
************************
To kill 3000 innocent civilians out of some notion of spreading jihad is about as monstrous as it gets. Don’t you agree?
=========================================
And that brings up equity, as well as balanced, well-placed justice.
The testimony of Bob Graham in several lawsuits against The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia says that The Kingdom financed 79% (15 of 19) of the 9/11 hijackers. Iraq financed 0%, which leaves Afghanistan with a maximum involvement of 21%.
We have done the most devastation to the nation that did 0%, the second most destruction to the nation that did 21%, and NONE to the nation that did 79%.
That supports a general and an economist who say that is because a coup took place that changed our nation forever.
mespo:
In my view your arguments in support of the drone attacks have a number of flaws, including the following:
1. Justification by resort to “reality” constitutes a de facto denial that moral principles should have a role in evaluating government action. I strongly reject the Machiavellian notion that states are not moral actors.
2. The suggestion that drone warfare is justified by the fact that we have suffered no attacks on our soil in ten years assumes a causal relationship which is unproven and intuitively questionable.
3. You completely ignore the concept of proportionality. Am I justified in killing 15 civilians in order to kill 1 terrorist? How about a ratio of 10-1, or 5-1?
4. Your definition of “sovereignty” is sufficiently liquid to permit Mexico to invade U.S. border towns in hot pursuit of drug smugglers or, for that matter, to use drones to strike American citizens known to be engaged in drug trafficking.
The essence of your argument is that power provides legitimacy. History is littered with the victims of that doctrine.
The testimony of Bob Graham in several lawsuits against The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia says that The Kingdom financed 79% (15 of 19) of the 9/11 hijackers. Iraq financed 0%, which leaves Afghanistan with a maximum involvement of 21%.
We have done the most devastation to the nation that did 0%, the second most destruction to the nation that did 21%, and NONE to the nation that did 79%.
That supports a general and an economist who say that is because a coup took place that changed our nation forever.
————————–
How long Dredd, do you think, before that truth can be voiced in the public square and recognized as truth by the public?
After all, a problem unrecognized can never be dealt with let alone solved. Who is benefitting by this current state of affairs?
US drone attacks in Pakistan: UN backs probe into civilian casualties
By AFP
Published: June 7, 2012
http://tribune.com.pk/story/390225/us-drone-attacks-in-pakistan-un-backs-probe-into-civilian-casualties/
Excerpt:
ISLAMABAD: The UN human rights chief on Thursday called for a UN investigation into US drone strikes in Pakistan, questioning their legality and saying they kill innocent civilians.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay made the remarks at the end of a four-day visit to the country, where US drone strikes have on average targeted militants once every four days under US President Barack Obama.
Islamabad is understood to have approved the strikes on al Qaeda and Taliban targets in the past. But the government has become increasingly energetic in its public opposition as relations with Washington have nosedived.
“Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law,” Pillay told a news conference in Islamabad.
“The principle of distinction and proportionality and ensuring accountability for any failure to comply with international law is also difficult when drone attacks are conducted outside the military chain of command and beyond effective and transparent mechanisms of civilian or military control,” she said.
She said the attacks violate human rights.
“I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations.”
The UN human rights chief provided no statistics but called for an investigation into civilian casualties, which she said were difficult to track.
“Because these attacks are indiscriminate it is very, very difficult to track the numbers of people who have been killed,” she said.
“I suggested to the government that they invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Summary or Arbitrary Executions and he will be able to investigate some of the incidents.”
She said UN chief Ban Ki-moon had urged states to be “more transparent” about circumstances in which drones are used and take necessary precautions to ensure that the attacks involving drones comply with applicable international law.
“So therefore I stress the importance of investigating such cases and ensuring compensation and redress to the victims.”
Washington releases few details about its covert drone programme in Pakistan but on Wednesday US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described them as self-defence and promised that they would continue to target al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Again Absolute power corrups absolutely.
I would like to see a published data base that shows how many people were killed or murdered or assinated under each President.
The only way we will get back to our position in the world is for the US people to stop the madness. In order to do that they must be confronted with the facts in an in your face manner.
Second we need the international court to have criteria for and post “Wanted for Prosecution” notices and list names.
Third the Nobel Committee in an unprecedented action should remove the prize award given to Obama for Peace.
Public opinion is the only remedy. Force will not do it. Silence will not do it.
Sporatic expose’s will not do it. Major worldwide public opinion will.
BFM,
Oddly I thought that i’d seen the same What me worry grin on Rumsfeld’ face.
I definitely did hear a thaater CIA head (South American during Guatemoal time) say that We do what we like and they can lump it. Only he was more snotty. He’s probably making his millions as a CIA contractor now.
Makaainana,
Let me use you as a launch pad to others here.
The world does not vote in the USA elections. And we are in the hands of our leaders. Do we all agree on that.
After reading the comments, skimming, it looks like there is no consensus.
It is a domestic affair, Sweden put a few heads in Afghan (token battalion) and got ourselves a bomb as a Christmas present.
The odd thing is that NOT a one here is a false-flagger on 9/11.
Since we put the bomb on the table in ’45, the aymetrical
war began, with a little help from money-hungry Pakistani scientists.
But no fear, we’ve probably got satellites which can track radioactivity moving in a container or a ship. So sleep well, your CIA is guarding you well. The ones who delivered the wrong maps of Granada.
Woosty’s still a Cat 1, June 7, 2012 at 1:04 pm
The testimony of Bob Graham in several lawsuits against The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia says that The Kingdom financed 79% (15 of 19) of the 9/11 hijackers. Iraq financed 0%, which leaves Afghanistan with a maximum involvement of 21%.
We have done the most devastation to the nation that did 0%, the second most destruction to the nation that did 21%, and NONE to the nation that did 79%.
That supports a general and an economist who say that is because a coup took place that changed our nation forever.
————————–
How long Dredd, do you think, before that truth can be voiced in the public square and recognized as truth by the public?
After all, a problem unrecognized can never be dealt with let alone solved. Who is benefitting by this current state of affairs?
========================================
Only The Private Empire knows.
DonS:
“What another strike may or may not have caused is theoretical, according to the experts.”
*************************
Do we really have to experience another attack before we move from the theoretical to highly likely?
mespo,
It sounds a lot like you’re making the Gambler’s fallacy in looking at the probabilities, mespo – an incorrect belief that separate, independent events can affect the likelihood of another random event. Due to the very nature of terrorism operating in cells and having multiple players on the field, the acts themselves can indeed be characterized is separate, independent and random. This is part of the problem with declaring war on a noun instead of specific quantifiable targets.
Gene, I agree with the ‘noun’ observation. The so called war on terror would be more accurately named if it were identified as a campaign for eradicating terrorists. That is why I said earlier that it ought to be dealt with the same way we deal with any criminal enterprise. Whole countries are not responsible for the Mafia or drug cartels. Some of our activities make as much tactical sense as if we invaded Columbia or Mexico because of the actions of drug cartels located there. When it comes to targeting somebody who is out to kill me, my family or my neighbors, I don’t have a squeamish bone in my body. But I see no real need for eliminating the infrastructure of a country, even if it is a tribal territory.
Mike A:
“The essence of your argument is that power provides legitimacy. History is littered with the victims of that doctrine.”
***********************
And it’s beneficiaries including the US, the UK, France, Spain, an on and on.
I am a moral relativist in international matters. I don’t think states consider morality unless their survival is assured. I also think affording Western notions of morality to peoples without the slightest inclination to adopt or abide by them is foolishness of the highest order. The simple fact — so eloquently stated by Machiavelli — is that power (and not morals) does control world affairs. Or as he timelessly put it, “Politics have no relation to morals.” To believe otherwise ignores history, as you say.
We live in the garden that is the US. We carved out that garden precisely by revolution, internal conflict, aiding our allies in military campaigns that threatened their survival, and repulsing attacks from those who would do us in. That, in one sentence, is a pretty fair summary of US foreign policy from 1776 to today.
Our internal morality bears little resemblance to the rules we adopted to create or maintainthe garden. We didn’t negotiate with the British, nor sign a treaty to end the Civil War. Likewise we went to the aid of our allies in both WW1 & 2, first under guise of neutrality and then as full combatants. Only in the latter case did we have the slightest justification of self-defense.
Morality, like law, only works if most all the parties so constrained agree to it. A few malcontents won’t upset the apple cart but enough polarization and both law and morality break down. That applies to societies, too. That is the great flaw of our political system. We are now so polarized at the extremes that we can’t even agree that it is “moral” to protect ourselves from criminals who would gladly and bloodily dispense with any niceties of the “morality” we may subscribe to here in the garden.
We can argue causation if you care to do so, but can we just agree that our current policy of drone attacks make an attack on our soil less likely? If so, I see no downside in the absence of international criticism — of which there has been precious little.
As to your other point about the proportionality of our response, I ask you: if you are engaged in a life or death struggle with persons so utterly deranged by their concepts of religion or politics that they form an endless line of people willing to sacrifice themselves and their children, have you any choice except to utterly and completely destroy them? We faced that challenge with kamikaze attacks in the Pacific and the dropping of the hydrogen bombs was the inevitable result. As Truman knew, proportionality presumes rationality. Do we consider the terrorists rational actors or deluded religious robots willing to kill themselves and their children in their cause? As with the kamikazes,I think the answer is clear.
You may reject Machiavelli, but his observation that, “Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared” seems awfully viable to me today.
I take no pleasure in outlining the very real issues facing us, nor the realistic and pragmatic ways that we must adopt to address the issues. As the maestro of politics said, “Politics have no relation to morals.” The quicker we accept that truism the better off we will be, our tender sensibilities in dealing with our adversaries be damned.
As someone said earlier, “The Romans were the kings of pragmatism.” And so they were, protecting their citizens for a thousand years in an environment full of ferocious tribes and ceaseless war. It was called Pax Romana for a reason, and as Gibbons notes it’s decline can be directly traced to its loss of martial vigor.
You can learn a lot from the ancient Romans about how to run a nation internally, but even more instructive is how they protected a nation from barbarians at the gate. I believe that lesson instructive and apposite today.
Gene H:
I don’t think terrorists are random or isolated if that treasure trove of info taken from OBL’s porn room is any indication.
mepso,
Are you saying that there is coordination between groups? I’m not talking about intra-group organization. I’m talking about inter-group organization. These groups often have competing agendas and vastly differentiated tactics and criteria for target selection.
This is more from Panetta and why. It’s a bit ot but I need to share
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20120607
June 7-8, 2012 — The real reason for America’s Southeast Asian projection
WMR’s Asian intelligence sources report another, morfe ominous, aspect to the decision of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to move 60 percent of U.S. naval forces to the Pacific region. Panetta announced in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense conference in Singapore that most of the Navy’s littoral combat ships, submarines, cruisers, and destroyers will be deployed in the Pacific. In addition, new U.S. Marine bases are being established in Australia. Panetta, according to our sources, has also been negotiating with leaders of Singapore, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand the establishment of new U.S. military bases or the re-opening of former bases from the Cold War era. The latter include Subic Bay in the Philippines, U-Tapao airbase in Thailand, and Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
The United States has plans to build new bases in Darwin, Perth, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Sihanoukville in Cambodia. The United States’ “Compact of Free Association” with the Republic of Palau gives Washington the right to establish military bases in that southern Pacific nation, an option that the Pentagon appears to be close to invoking.
WMR has learned that with the continued high radiation affecting the northern hemisphere as a result of life-threatening radiation continuing to be dispersed into the atmosphere from the meltdown of reactor 4 at the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear plant in Japan, the Pentagon wants to preserve most of its military forces and to ensure the protection for American elites who have plans to move to the southern hemisphere, particularly the Southeast Asian region, to escape the effects of the radiation circulating around the northern climes.
Currently under wraps are plans to shift a bulk of the U.S. Air Force to the southern portion of the Asia-Pacific region.
Now that Myanmar is opening to the West, the United States is also eyeing new bases in that country, particularly in Naypyidaw, the new capital city that is said to be relatively safe from the northern hemisphere radiation.
On January 2, 2006, WMR reported: “Southeast Asian intelligence sources report that Burma’s (Myanmar’s) recent abrupt decision to move its capital from Rangoon (Yangon) to remote Pyinmana, 200 miles to the north, is a result of Chinese intelligence warnings to its Burmese allies about the effects of radiation resulting from a U.S. conventional or tactical nuclear attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. There is concern that a series of attacks on Iranian nuclear installations will create a Chernobyl-like radioactive cloud that would be caught up in monsoon weather in the Indian Ocean.
Low-lying Rangoon lies in the path of monsoon rains that would continue to carry radioactive fallout from Iran over South and Southeast Asia between May and October. Coastal Indian Ocean cities like Rangoon, Dhaka, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, and Colombo would be affected by the radioactive fallout more than higher elevation cities since humidity intensifies the effects of the fallout. Thousands of government workers were given only two days’ notice to pack up and leave Rangoon for the higher (and dryer) mountainous Pyinmana.
New housing planned for some of the new U.S. military bases, said to be for rotating military personnel, will be sufficient to accommodate America’s political, financial, and military leadership.
No less affected by the radiation from Fukushima, Canada has also announced plans to shift a large portion of its naval, air, and ground forces to the Southeast Asia region with Singapore being the “hub” for the Canadian military. Canadian Defense Minister Peter McKay toured a potential site for the Canadian military during his visit to Singapore to attend the Shangri-La meeting.
Although there is tension between the United States and China, our sources have indicated that confronting China’s growing military presence in the region is merely a cover story designed to mask the abandonment of the northern hemisphere by the Pentagon. In fact, Chinese defense officials participated in the Shangri-La Dialogue.
WMR has learned that the recent agreement between the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Thailand to establish an atmospheric testing facility at U-Tapao Airport in Rayong is part of the Pentagon’s evacuation plans. NASA is being used as a civilian “cover” by the Pentagon.
NASA’s SEAC4RS program or Southeast Asia Composition, Cloud, Climate Coupling Regional Study will use aircraft to sample air samples over Southeast Asia for radiation levels from weather patterns that could bring radioactive particles from the northern to southern hemisphere. Aircraft are due to be deployed from U-Tapao beginning in August. A senior Pentagon official met with Thai military Supreme Commander General Thanasak Patimapakorn on June 4 to hammer out final details on the atmospheric testing to be carried out from U-Tapao. Responding to concerns by some Thai members of Parliament that the U-Tapao base has a military aspect, Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaiku may have revealed the actual reason for the base when he stated that it’s major purpose was to deal with “natural disasters.”
In what amounts to an “On the Beach” scenario — a reference to the 1960s movie that saw Australia as a temporary safe haven as a result of a nuclear war that killed off all life in the northerrn hemisphere — the United States, Canada, and other countries are making preparations to re-locate their political and military elites and ample military forces to protect them to the safest zone from the Fukushima radiation — Southeast Asia.
Israel is reportedly buying up property in India and Uganda to shelter millions of Jews from Israel, North America, and Europe to escape the effects of the life-threatening radiation in the northern hemisphere.
At the Atomic Age II Symposium at the University of Chicago, Professor Hiroake Koide of the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University, displayed a world map showing the “hot zones” for cesium-127 resulting from the Fukushima meltdown. Unsafe zones extend throughout the northern hemisphere from “ground zero” in Fukushima province to deep within the United States’ and Canada’s prairie state and province food-producing “bread baskets.” Koide showed one PowerPoint slide that pointed to a “collapse of life through evacuation.”
Gene H:
No intra-group organization was what I was referring to in my comment. Inter-group is another matter as you say.
Bob,Esq.:
Thank you for your daily ad hominem attack proving once again that they with the least to say say it the loudest and with the most conviction. Read any good Kant lately?
@Mespo- “Do we really have to experience another attack before we move from the theoretical to highly likely?”
Without cynicism, any probability is theoretical. In this situation, one could take your underlying premise to say it is reasonable that there be no limits or constraints that should be placed on efforts to thwart such probability. That’s ridiculous.
Also, I refuse to accept the notion of guilt and responsibility that underlies such a premise, which is basically a zero sum equation and unquestioning blank check to the “authorities”.
These threats and implied causal linkage with the fact that there has been no large followup attack are not very far from the phoney flag weaving and jingoism that discourage honest debate, and I can’t imagine you intend that.
BettyKath,
Quoted:
“WMR has learned that the recent agreement between the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Thailand to establish an atmospheric testing facility at U-Tapao Airport in Rayong is part of the Pentagon’s evacuation plans. NASA is being used as a civilian “cover” by the Pentagon.”
That is the air base that I and the chief electrical engineer designed in 65-66. They won’t show it on Gmaps, pinked out.
Just doing my duty, ma’am. It was used for tourist evac when the reds and yellows were fighing at the Bangkok airport.
U Tapao was designed for B-52′s and still probably functions for such function.
As for expansion which Madsen reports in the Souther Pacific area, it is logical from a world strategy point of view.
Mobility is our strength, and air power is our first weapon to be used. Denying air reconnaisance to the enemy has been key to many conflicts, where the enemy could have othewise have done so.
Now this is just the next step in total world dominance in achieving Pax America for the foreseeable future.
Concern for the infrastructure? What irony. Womens’s education went to hell in the ten years we were in Iraq.
Iraq had the best university system in the whole of the arab world before the war. That the post-war casualties exceeded one million dead is also something to consider. Who believes they were all or in greater part enemies fighting us? It was slaughter to keep us and our troops there and the profits rolling in. That’s all it was.
As for the infrastrucure in the NW tribal Pakistani area—
-they don’t have any.
You may reject Machiavelli, but his observation that, “Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared” seems awfully viable to me today.
—————————————————
Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.~ Machiavelli
*
One day Alice came to a fork in the road
and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
His responses was a question: “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
- Lewis Carroll
*
I did not wish to take a cabin passage,
but rather to go before the mast
and on the deck of the world,
for there I could best see
the moonlight amid the mountains.
I do not wish to go below now.
- Henry David Thoreau
Machiayucky was ruled by and in love with fear itself. You couldn’t have a better manual for monsters
Alice was much more courageous.
The enlightened give thanks
for what most people take for granted.
- Michael Beckwith
and if you really want to feed your inner beastie http://www.nucleardarkness.org/index2.php
…but there is no place to hide if some fool goes all nucular…..the radaiation will not stay in 1 hemisphere….our water patterns cover the entire planet and will outlast any of your grndchildren…..so if any of our iron assed generals think it is a viable option with a safe denouement they are quite mistaken…(though the generals, having seen the corpses up close and personal, are usually not so careless…)…and if the ever so padded corporate regime thinks it can escape its own mess….well haven’t people figured out yet that the world is just too small?
interesting statement mespo,
“We live in the garden that is the US. We carved out that garden precisely by revolution, internal conflict, aiding our allies in military campaigns that threatened their survival, and repulsing attacks from those who would do us in.”
Pakistan is our ally. Hmmm…..
We were attacked after 9/11, by someone in this govt., the only place possible to weaponize anthrax to the extent it was. WOW, why isn’t Obama drone bombing every suspect right now? We might get hit again by these same govt. actors, right? Well, let’s get killing!
You are advocating genocide. I have no idea why you are concerned with other people’s rationality when you advocate genocide as a wise course of action against other people.
I am amazed at how ready you are to believe a govt. which has lied about its actions, time and time again. If the govt. tells you genocide is the way to protect your nation from this threat, (coincidentally along with extremely profitable endless war), normally that should arouse suspicion. Yet it only arouses your willingness to abandon human decency and the highest values of our society– that we follow the rule of law, not of men. These values we should hold, even when we face a crisis. It is our safety. It is the world’s safety. What you advocate is not safety or justice but cruelty and fascism. It is why we are being destroyed from within.
mespo,
Then given your response, I have to go with the Gambler’s fallacy. You are trying to rationalize violating national sovereignty based on an incorrect understanding of the true level of threat global terrorism presents (which if you’d read the reason.com article is really quite low). That seems like bad statesmanship based on scare tactics to me given that sovereignty and the recognition thereof is critical to international diplomacy.
Mespo: “Bob,Esq.:
Thank you for your daily ad hominem attack proving once again that they with the least to say say it the loudest and with the most conviction. Read any good Kant lately?”
Mark,
You really need to brush up on your informal fallacies. You see, I didn’t try to negate your arguments by pointing out an irrelevant negative characteristic or belief you may have. For instance, I didn’t say you can’t believe a word Mespo says because he’s a neocon.
I merely summarized the arguments you make, the type of rhetoric and exploitation you use while making those arguments and thence drew a fair conclusion from it. (see comment at June 7, 2012 at 11:48 am)
That you may resemble a neocon upon closer examination of your arguments and rhetorical techniques is not my concern.
Now had I simply called you intellectually dishonest and a liar without anything further like referencing the way you intentionally misrepresented my argument on the Blooberg Cola thread…
Witness for the prosecution:
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/03/the-freedom-to-harm-ourselves-mayor-bloomberg-and-the-case-against-cola/#comment-379455
(see also comment on same thread at , June 5, 2012 at 10:28 am)
that would be ad hominem. But I didn’t do that.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin
Gene H:
“true level of threat global terrorism presents (which if you’d read the reason.com article is really quite low).”
***********************
Despite the low incidence of the attacks (likely so low because of the decade long assault on the most virulent terrorist strains) the effects of just one well-placed dirty nuke raises the consequence so high you simply can’t treat is as low risk. It’s the consequence of the event that matters not the rate of incidence or the perception of it’s likely occurrence. That lightning is not likely to strike you does not mean you should parade around in a storm carrying a metal flagpole.
And undermining a cornerstone principle of international diplomacy like sovereignty isn’t inviting disasters of that scale as well?
I don’t think I buy that, mespo.
Consider the current situation in Pakistan. Officials have said in the press that they are “nearing the limits of their patience with Pakistan”. Can you think of a better way to get a nuclear weapon or materials to people willing to use them – either with or without official state sanction – than to threaten the sovereignty of a nuclear state? I sure can’t. I’d say it invites such outcomes.
anonymously:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin”
********************
Everyone agrees with that, No one I see here is arguing for more restrictions on the rights of US citizens. We’re arguing foreign policy and the effect of our sense of morality thereon. Drone strikes against our enemies across “sovereign” borders is the topic.
Gene H:
You’re right that is bad foreign policy. But the point is that Islamabad can’t even control it’s own territory in the tribal regions. If a state can’t control land within its own borders is it a state at all?
As I’ve mentioned before, I once had the privilege of taking some graduate classes in Buddhism from a former Sri Lankan ambassador to France and the United States. Once he told me of a phone call from the American trade representative complaining about Sri Lanka’s embargoing of petroleum based fertilizers. When he explained that his country had an ongoing insurrection by the Tamils and that Sri Lankan scientists had said that the fertilizer could be made into bombs, the American trade rep replied: “Well, if you had real scientists like we have in America, you wouldn’t believe such nonsense.” As bad luck would have it, a a few weeks later, Timothy McVeigh — not a Muslim or a Tamil — blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a bomb he had made out of a truckload of fertilizer. Not without a shade of schadenfreude, the Ambassador called up the American trade rep and solicitously inquired: “What do you think of our scientists now?”
The arrogance and short-sighted stupidity of American officials, both political and military, has become so uncontroversial throughout the world as to scarcely require mention. I only mention it here for the benefit of the few who still harbor fantasies about impending American “victories” (one of these decades) over what Gene H calls “a noun” — a notion I would expand to cover the traditional bogeyman noun phrases: Reactionary Panic, Mystic Dread, Abstract Angst, and just plain Fear Itself.
As CNN pundit Fareed Zacharia finally got around to noticing recently, Americans “look like a bunch of scared frightened losers.” That about covers it.
mespo,
You take a state how you find them, this includes internally unstable and nuclear capable. Violating their sovereignty isn’t going to encourage any kind of stability and doing so where regional instability of a nuclear power with known terrorists within its borders is a known issue, it is counter-productive.
Bob,Esq:
Keep talking Bob, Esq., I enjoy your clown show. An attempt to negate an argument (cross border drone strikes aren’t immoral) by pointing out a characteristic of the speaker (” I simply called you intellectually dishonest and a liar”) is an ad hominem attack in most worlds. What does Kant tell us since you’re unlikely to tell us much without reference to him? Thinking for yourself seems too difficult a chore. I’m anxiously awaiting yet another venomous reply from the 18th Century.
Gene H:
Do I have to take Somalia as I find it? Or Yemen? or Afghanistan? Can’t I destroy the criminals they harbor without destabilizing the “state”? Isn’t that exactly what surgical drone strikes do? Do we disagree with Queen Victoria that a state is what borders it can defend ?
anonymously:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin”
********************
“Everyone agrees with that, No one I see here is arguing for more restrictions on the rights of US citizens. We’re arguing foreign policy and the effect of our sense of morality thereon. Drone strikes against our enemies across “sovereign” borders is the topic.” mespo727272
American citizens have been killed and continue to be targeted. And as I understand it, there’s nothing to prevent a strike on American soil.
Jill:
“We were attacked after 9/11, by someone in this govt.,”
*************************
We were attacked by Bruce Ivins who worked for the government but there is no proof he was aided or abetted by our government. Sirhan Sirhan worked as a stable boy at the Santa Anita Racetrack. Did the Santa Anita Racetrack attack Bobby Kennedy?
.@mespo727272
You seem to prefer to discuss issues in terms of justification or morality.
I agree that is interesting but in this case a tangent.
Ultimately the only real test will be efficacy.
During the cold war neither side could afford to make things hot due to mutually assured destruction. Eventually we the west and the US came out on top because we convinced more people that we had better answers.
That is not happening today. Our policies that claim we have a right to cross any border, take any action, disappear any person, use any technique are not convincing many that we have the right answers.
On the contrary the Madrassas are doing as well, probably better, as ever. Do you really believe that Bush or Rumsfeld or Gonzales cold travel freely in Europe. I doubt it. The governments might protect them but I am sure there would be mass movements to arrest and try them.
The point is that we are loosing the battle for believe, for legitimacy. Our policies do much to discredit us in the eyes of populations all across the world. In a sense, I personally could care less what they think about us.
But ultimately if we cannot convince people that we are better than the extremist we loose. I cannot tell you how it will play out. It won’t happen tomorrow or next year. But eventually we convince people that we are better than the extremist or we fail.
These policies that you claim are justified convince people that we are little different and no better than the extremist.
The policies may be justified but ultimately they will loose this war for us
anonymously:
“American citizens have been killed and continue to be targeted. And as I understand it, there’s nothing to prevent a strike on American soil.”
*************************
Tell me who has been targeted besides Anwar al-Awlaki the radical cleric who led external operations of al-Quaeda on the Arab Penisula and who advocated violent jihad against Americans and who ultimately played “the lead role in planning and directing the efforts to murder innocent Americans, ” according to the Chmn of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If you want to argue the morality of that strike, I’m all ears. Traitors give up citizenship by their act of treason.
bfm:
You raise an interesting point and one that I agree with. Linking morality with foreign policy doesn’t work and justification is hard to come by without resort to international law. Efficacy, on the third hand, is a valuable test. Like I asked Mike A: Can’t we agree that drone strikes against our enemies makes an attack against us less likely? At least in the short run?
methinks the . . . doth protest too much . . . .
mespo,
“Do I have to take Somalia as I find it? Or Yemen? or Afghanistan? Can’t I destroy the criminals they harbor without destabilizing the “state”? Isn’t that exactly what surgical drone strikes do?”
You most certainly do have to take them as you find them in situations where the state is not cooperative and/or hostile as well. Unless you are willing to pay the price of perpetually ignoring sovereignty by going to war when that state has decided they’ve simply had enough. The way to avoid getting bitten by a bear is not to poke it repeatedly. There are other ways to encourage cooperation in tracking down criminals, but doing things this way simply encourages either war or state sponsored terrorism (which should rightfully lead to war) in response – especially given that drones indiscriminately kill civilians as well as terrorists. That’s hardly a way to win the hearts and minds of a people.
Gene H:
I’m with you that drone strikes are not an initial response but the ultimate response except when the stakes are high. What do we do when the sovereign host state ignores us? As to acting when the stakes are high: Do we really believe that if we asked Pakistan for help in capturing OBL while he was in that hideout in Abbottabad, that someone in that government wouldn’t have tipped him off?
mespo727272
1, June 7, 2012 at 8:01 pm
anonymously:
“American citizens have been killed and continue to be targeted. And as I understand it, there’s nothing to prevent a strike on American soil.”
*************************
Tell me who has been targeted besides Anwar al-Awlaki the radical cleric who led external operations of al-Quaeda on the Arab Penisula and who advocated violent jihad against Americans and who ultimately played “the lead role in planning and directing the efforts to murder innocent Americans, ” according to the Chmn of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If you want to argue the morality of that strike, I’m all ears. Traitors give up citizenship by their act of treason.
****************
****************
Who decides if an American citizen is a traitor? Was al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old, American-born son a traitor? (He, too, was killed by a drone strike, as you probably know, as was his 17-year-old cousin.)
anonymously:
“Who decides if an American citizen is a traitor?
***********************
Do you contend that the person who said this was not a traitor:
“In many of al-Awlaki’s videos, he called on Muslims around the world to kill Americans. In a video released on November 8, 2010, titled “Make it known and clear to mankind,” al-Awlaki said, “Don’t consult with anybody in killing the Americans, fighting the devil doesn’t require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance,” he said.
Al-Awlaki also warns of future attacks against American interests both in the U.S. and abroad. In a video interview released in its entirety on May 23, 2010, he said, “Oh America, if you attack us, we will attack you, and if you kill us, we will kill you… These American soldiers heading to Afghanistan and Iraq will be killed. We will kill them if we can, there in Fort Hood, or we will kill them in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
In another video released on March 17, 2010, al-Awlaki spoke about the duty incumbent on all Muslims to fight against the U.S. and proclaimed that “jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other able Muslim.” Al-Awlaki further threatened that “America cannot and will not win… there is no rolling back of the worldwide jihad movement.”
(…)
“All Western interests, according to al-Awlaki, are therefore permissible targets. “This would make the attacking of any Western target legal from an Islamic viewpoint,” al-Awlaki argues. “Assassinations, bombings, and acts of arson are all legitimate forms of revenge against a system that relishes the sacrilege of Islam in the name of freedom.”
~Anti-Defamation League-Nov. 2011
“As CNN pundit Fareed Zacharia finally got around to noticing recently, Americans “look like a bunch of scared frightened losers.” That about covers it.” Michael Murry
—————————————
what a delightfully pubescent response to a globally destructive precipace…..
do you know of anyone who is sane and not scared???? I would sincerely recommend avoiding them and NOT giving them
a) car keys
b) power
c) cute fuzzy balls of fur….
mespo:
I understand your position, but we disagree fundamentally. Terrorist organizations should be treated as criminal conspiracies and handled as police matters. In addition, I do not believe that the moral principles upon which law is based are determined with reference to the actions of our enemies. Were that the case, belief in the rule of law would have no meaning. Machiavelli is to political theory what Randianism is to economic theory: anarchy with a cheap mask.
And to think all of this hassle originated with domestic traitors and war criminals refusing to attack the parties that actually attack us on 9/11 because they were in business with them. Who’d have thunk such a thing would lead to more chaos and potential disaster? Aside from anyone paying attention that is.
And what Mike A. said.
Mike A:
I’d agree with you about criminal conspiracies if the hosting nations would agree to cooperate. We’re talking about when they don’t or won’t. What is your position on that?
In that regard, what is your position on the President Wilson’s decision to send Black Jack Pershing across the Mexican border without permission to capture Pancho Villa in 1916 in response to the Columbus , New Mexico raid?
mespo,
The U.S. bought the southwestern part of the United states at the point of a gun. Think we can’t do it again? Mexico was thinking about being allied with Germany during WWII. Then they thought again. Good choice.
mespo,
“I also think affording Western notions of morality to peoples without the slightest inclination to adopt or abide by them is foolishness of the highest order.”
What are our Western notions of morality that are so far superior to the notions of morality held by those who do not share ours if we are willing to kill innocent children, women, and men in order to protect ourselves from those who are willing to kill innocent people? Approximately 3,000 people were killed on 9/11. How many members of the American military and people who lived in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen have died in order to protect us from another terrorist attack?
Mespo:
A little airport security in the United States can certainly thwart the occasional plane hijacking. Refusing to train airline hijacker-pilots at American flight simulator schools can help, too, as can planeloads of American passengers refusing to allow four unarmed men to take over their aircraft. Common sense behavior like that can reduce — but never entirely eliminate — the risk of another airline hijacking. But what connection any of this has with America bombing impoverished villagers in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan neither you, nor anyone else, has adequately demonstrated. Because you can’t.
The world — and even America (mostly) — knows that America has gotten its ass handed to it again by a bunch of barely armed Afghan poppy farmers, criminal drug lords, and corrupt quisling puppets — far less formidable foes than the NVA and NLF in Vietnam. The dreary body counts and pointless free-fire-zone bombings have only one cosmetic purpose, just as they had when I served in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent forty years ago. As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich explains:
Again, with the Iraq and Afhan “wars” already lost, the killing of Afghans and Pakistanis has no purpose other than making Americans feel all-patriotic-and-stuff about their SACRED SYMBOL SOLDIER and COMMANDER-IN-BRIEF while our corporate/mercenary “military” scuttles out of an untenable trap in hopes of not losing its lucrative funding due to complete failure to obtain anything of national value from its decades of bloody bungling abroad. I remember how uncounted numbers of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians perished for this same ignoble and cowardly saving of American face (for Americans). Countless Iraqis have suffered for the same indefensible reasons. I want no part of seeing innocent foreigners die to save the faces — i.e, the exposed political genitals — of another American political/military cohort that belongs on the slag heap of history.
Once more, we lost the day we started and we win the day we stop. Killing more impoverished Muslims for a few more years, just so our President and Generals can pretend that they have some purpose in life, won’t alter the truth of our defeat. It will only make us look more venal and vicious for allowing our “leaders” to think that they have any face left to lose.
U.S. again bombs mourners
The Obama policy of attacking rescuers and grieving rituals continues this weekend in Pakistan
BY GLENN GREENWALD
June 4, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/04/obama_again_bombs_mourners/singleton/
Excerpt:
In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that after the U.S. kills people with drones in Pakistan, it then targets for death those who show up at the scene to rescue the survivors and retrieve the bodies, as well as those who gather to mourn the dead at funerals: “the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.” As The New York Times summarized those findings: “at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile” while “the bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals.”
This repellent practice continues. Over the last three days, the U.S. has launched three separate drone strikes in Pakistan: one on each day. As The Guardian reports, the U.S. has killed between 20 and 30 people in these strikes, the last of which, early this morning, killed between 8 and 15. It was the second strike, on Sunday, that targeted mourners gathered to grieve those killed in the first strike:
At the time of the attack, suspected militants had gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another US unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning attack. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners and the rest were Pakistani.
Note that there is no suggestion, even from the “officials” on which these media reports (as usual) rely, that the dead man was a Terrorist or even a “militant.” He was simply receiving condolences for his dead brother. But pursuant to the standards embraced by President Obama, the brother — without knowing anything about him — is inherently deemed a “combatant” and therefore a legitimate target for death solely by virtue of being a “military-age male in a strike zone.” Of course, killing family members of bombing targets is nothing new for this President: let’s recall the still-unresolved question of why Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone attack in Yemen two weeks after his father was killed.
I ask this sincerely: what kind of country targets rescuers, funeral attendees, and people gathered to mourn? If a Hollywood film featured a villainous King ordering lethal attacks on rescuers, funerals and mourners — those medically attending to or grieving his initial victims — any decent audience member would, by design, seethe with contempt for such an inhumane tyrant. But this is the standard policy and practice under President Obama and it continues through today. Recall the outrage that was sparked when WikiLeaks released its Collateral Murder video showing a U.S. Apache helicopter during the Bush era firing on unarmed rescuers, who had arrived to retrieve the initial victims who had been shot and were laying wounded on the ground. That tactic continues under President Obama, although it is now expanded to include the targeting of grieving rituals.
mespo727272,
“Tell me who has been targeted besides Anwar al-Awlaki…”
I did. His 16-year-old son who was born in Denver and a 17-year-old nephew. (Would you like “to argue the morality of that strike?”)
http://www.thenation.com/article/168271/obamas-kill-list
Obama’s Kill List: Silence Is Not an Option
The Editors
June 6, 2012 | This article appeared in the June 25, 2012 edition of The Nation.
The “war on terror” has its own corrupting logic, leading otherwise morally responsible leaders to do unspeakable things. Such is the case with the Obama administration’s descent into the world of kill lists and drone assassinations.
The image of President Obama poring over baseball-card profiles of terror suspects in Jo Becker and Scott Shane’s now famous New York Times “kill list” exposé probably pleased the administration officials whose cooperation made the story possible, wrapping the president in glinting “warrior in chief” election year packaging. For those concerned about the constitutional protection of civil liberties and the rule of law, however, that image, and the extraordinary practices it represents, was profoundly disturbing. The drone policy the president has developed not only infringes on the sovereignty of other nations, but the assassinations violate laws put in place in the 1970s after scandals enveloped an earlier era of CIA criminality. The new details about Obama’s assassination program also remind us how the 2001 Congressional Authorization of the Use of Military Force established a disastrous policy of “borderless and open-ended war that threatens to indefinitely extend US military engagement around the world,” in the words of the only member of the House to vote against it, Barbara Lee.
The kill list makes a mockery of due process by circumventing judicial review, and turning the executive into judge, jury and executioner. Even worse, the “signature” strikes described in the Times article, in which nameless individuals are assassinated based merely on patterns of behavior, dispense with any semblance of habeas corpus altogether. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, signature strikes account for most of the attacks in Pakistan today, and they were recently approved for use in Yemen.
One of the darkest aspects of this story involves the administration’s method of counting civilian casualties: The CIA simply assumes that any military-age male in the vicinity of a terror suspect must be a militant too. Thus, counterterrorism chief John Brennan was able to state with a straight face in August 2011 that not one civilian had perished from US strikes outside Afghanistan and Iraq in more than a year—a declaration that was greeted with incredulity and outrage in Pakistan, where witnesses have attested to hundreds of civilian deaths.
The drone strikes are inciting even more anti-American hatred in troubled places like Yemen as well as Pakistan (see Jeremy Scahill, “Target: Yemen,” March 5/12). It is hard to argue that they are making us safer when, for every suspect killed, one or more newly embittered militants emerge to take his place. This is not a prescription for American security but for an endless war that will sap our moral core and put in jeopardy our most cherished freedoms at home.
The new revelations also highlight the dangers of official secrecy, as we now glimpse some of what the administration was hiding through its invocation of the state secrets privilege in court proceedings. But as urgent as the demand for transparency remains, we know more than enough to conclude that President Obama’s continuation and expansion of George W. Bush’s “war on terror” has further eroded legal barriers built over decades to limit executive power. For those who believed Obama would restore the rule of law after Bush’s imperial overreach, learning the details of these operations has been troubling. Liberals raised a ruckus about Bush’s abuses. Silence now is not an option.
The United States spends more money on the military than all other nations on the planet combined. What do you think happens if that gets turned loose? I wouldn’t be kissing Princes or Princesses on the cheek. Do you know what neutron bombs are for? I don’t think Europe would disagree.
An excerpt from the article in “The Nation”, which bears repeating:
“The drone strikes are inciting even more anti-American hatred in troubled places like Yemen as well as Pakistan (see Jeremy Scahill, “Target: Yemen,” March 5/12). It is hard to argue that they are making us safer when, for every suspect killed, one or more newly embittered militants emerge to take his place. This is not a prescription for American security but for an endless war that will sap our moral core and put in jeopardy our most cherished freedoms at home.”
anonymously:
“I did. His 16-year-old son who was born in Denver and a 17-year-old nephew. (Would you like “to argue the morality of that strike?”
************************
He wasn’t targeted. His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip. Who is then the greater “devil”? The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it and whose son got caught in the crossfire, or the father who put him there as a shield and probably insured his demise. These radical folks have no compunction about sacrificing their children. And you, it seems, have no compunction about falling for their propaganda ploys.
The death of innocents in war is always regrettable, but to accept the propaganda that somehow we intended his death by targeting a child is an outrageous slur against your Country, its intelligence service, and the young men and women who defend us everyday — both in an out of uniform.
Ask the British and Russians what happened in Afghanistan. Just leave. There isn’t any oil in Afghanistan. And there isn’t any in Pakistan either.
mespo,
Speak with specificity. You’re too much of a lawyer.
He wasn’t targeted. His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip. Who is then the greater “devil”? The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it and whose son got caught in the crossfire, or the father who put him there as a shield and probably insured his demise.
You say that his “…son got caught in the crossfire” and “his father put him there as a shield.” Anwar al-Awlaki died two weeks before his son. What in the hell are you talking about?
Elaine:
You raise good points in relation to the identifiable costs and “benefits” of America’s militaristic foreign policy — whether one wishes to date this from 9/11/2001 or far earlier, as many of us do. Not wishing in any way to minimize the horrendous costs to innocent foreign populations, as you say, far more Americans have died “avenging” the events of 9/11/2001 than died on that particular day. The decision not to fund the so-called “war on terror” has had ruinous effects on the country’s finances The refusal of most Americans to serve in the military has exhausted and nearly wrecked the regular Army and Marine Corps and Reserves. The unconscionable assault on the civil rights of Americans at home has got to rank as a totally unacceptable cost of “preventing another attack,” which no one can prove that they’ve done if no attacks have happened, any more than Saddam Hussein could prove that he didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction by not having any. Against the continuation of this ludicrous policy, one can cite unaffordable, identifiable costs to America and foreign countries alike. In defense of this policy, one can offer only the putative “benefits” of speculative sophistry and other forms of arguing from ignorance. We know what this has cost us. We know that we have gained nothing from it. Thus the public verdict: Not Worth It.
Continuing a bankrupt policy after its bankruptcy has become visible to the entire world leads only to public cynicism and then to revolt. Hence the current sprint for the exits in Afghanistan while loudly threatening the future with hollow imprecations of “implacable resolve” for decades to come. “Leaving by Staying.” The new euphemistic slogan for “Vietnamization.” The Taliban know that they have come close to winning back their country’s independence.The Afghan “government” knows it. The American President knows it, too, but cannot admit this publicly or suffer that most intolerable of affronts to his manhood: namely, having the equally discredited opposition call him unmanly names like “wimp.” Can’t have that. So more Afghans and Pakistanis have to die for awhile longer. How many and how much longer our government cannot tell us because it doesn’t know itself. Good enough reason to sweep every member of it from office.
Michael Murry:
“A little airport security in the United States can certainly thwart the occasional plane hijacking. Refusing to train airline hijacker-pilots at American flight simulator schools can help, too, as can planeloads of American passengers refusing to allow four unarmed men to take over their aircraft. Common sense behavior like that can reduce — but never entirely eliminate — the risk of another airline hijacking. But what connection any of this has with America bombing impoverished villagers in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan neither you, nor anyone else, has adequately demonstrated. Because you can’t.”
************************
Well, you either accept the view of the intelligence community both here and abroad that drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan have crippled al-Quaeda or you don’t. Your assertion that the American presence in the breeding, training, and recruiting ground of terrorism has no connection to our decade-long security from attacks on our homeland is contrary to US policy, the assessment of our intelligence agencies, and that of our allies. It also defies common sense.
if you won’t accept the words of your own countrymen and our allies maybe you’re more impressed (for whatever reason) by the words of our enemy:
But while the Al Qaida leader plotted the downfall of the US, he was forced to acknowledge that American drone attacks were taking a toll on his followers in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Waziristan region, and contemplated withdrawing his forces.
Bin Laden said the air attacks made it necessary to keep reserves back from the “front line”.
“The reserves will not, for the most part, be effective in such conflicts. Basically, we could lose the reserves to enemy’s air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives!” The Guardian quoted him, as writing in the documents.
http://www.sify.com/news/us-drone-strikes-crippled-bin-laden-s-plans-cache-of-new-al-qaida-documents-reveal-news-international-mferajijhhi.html
You need more than vitriol against your country to persuade me. How about a fact or two to go with those wild assertions. And how about some a little more current that Khe Sahn and sans the bitterness for a war four decades ago.
By the way, our a** looks in pretty good shape compared to our adversaries by my assessment.
anonymously:
I thought he died in the attack. I stand corrected if that is not the case. My point remains that we have no greater duty to his son’s safety that he does.
Mespo727272 ” Can’t we agree that drone strikes against our enemies makes an attack against us less likely? At least in the short run?”
I would agree that military action, drone or other, might forestall an attack in the short run.
I think we would have far fewer problems if drones were only used short term to stop immanent or near term attacks.
But our drone strategy is not a short run tactic. There is nothing to suggest that the drone policy is short term strategy or designed to inhibit a near term attack. This is a decapitation strategy that aims to destroy their top level leadership and most talented personnel. The specific intention of the strategy is to allow decapitation attacks to continue for as long as necessary – for the foreseeable future.
It is hard to imagine how a decapitation strategy can work against an idea and a distributed, non-hierarchical enemy. One problem with the drone strategy is that it plays a large role in convincing the radicals home population that we are no more legitimate then the radicals and perhaps much more dangerous to them.
The policy also convinces western populations, our natural allies, that we are no more just than the radicals. That reduces cooperation that we need and conceivably could increase support for radicals. When I say support for radicals I am speaking broadly. I can’t imagine that radicals would get direct support. But it is not hard to dream up situations where western government might support governments where radicals are given broad freedom of action.
Just consider some numbers. At the risk of being called a bigot I will assume that the most dangerous and energized radicals are drawn from Muslim populations. Suppose there are 2 billion Muslims in the world. Half are women. Just for talking purposes suppose 50% are of the men are between 15 and 65. Suppose that of those military age males radicals can recruit one tenth of 1 percent.
2,000,000,000 * .5/men * .5/mil age * .0001/effect recruit at one tenth of one percent = 50,000 dedicated troopers ready to die for the cause. These 50,000 undoubtedly have a support population that must number in the hundreds of thousands.
I make no claim that these numbers are accurate – that is not the point. The point is to get some idea of the magnitude of the problem we are dealing with and begin to understand what factors might influence the situation. For example this ‘back of the envelop model’ can give us some understanding of what we are up against. It suggest that younger population or higher fertility rate may mean a much larger population to recruit from in a few years or a few decades. Recruitment rates are key. Effective recruiting means more soldiers ready to die. Any technique that can reduce recruiting is important.
This is asymmetrical warfare. So these 50,000 troops can tie down, say, 10 times as many conventional forces. But the 10 to one ratio is based on a military model of armed insurrection – that is small armed parties ambushing conventional military units.
But this asymmetrical war is primarily one of small logistical units planning bombing missions. I would argue when the battle is primarily one of logistic units planning bombing attacks then the number of police, intelligence, and military personnel tied down is much greater. I would argue that our experience with home land security is that the mere threat of a handful of attackers, less than 100, can tie up hundreds of thousands of conventional defenders. The only reasonable conclusion is the 50,000 soldiers ready to die can tie up the resources of 10′s of millions of defenders.
I agree we may have to use military force in the short run. But that can only be a stopgap measure to allow us to build strength. Our real strength lies in our ability to convince large populations that we have a better alternative. Our real strength lies in gaining allies by being good neighbors and convincing others to support our cause. A policy that does not convince large populations that we have the right answers has to fail in the long run.
Michael Murry:
“The refusal of most Americans to serve in the military has exhausted and nearly wrecked the regular Army and Marine Corps and Reserves.”
********************
Really/ Somebody should tell them that then. Not only did the Army meet its recruitment goals for Fiscal Year 2012, in its analysis of FY2010 accessions to the U.S. Army, National Priorities Project (NPP) finds great gains in terms of recruit quality, particularly with respect to the educational attainment of recruits.
The Army reported a goal for FY2010 of 74,500 active Army recruits and maintained that goal throughout the year. In October 2010, they said that the goal was met with 74,577 recruits
The Marines met all recruiting goals in Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. The years we have data for so far.
All six reserve components met or exceeded their numerical accession goals for fiscal year-to-date 2011 through October.
Army National Guard –4,973 accessions, with a goal of 4,504; 110 percent
Army Reserve –2,774 accessions, with a goal of 2,557; 108 percent
Navy Reserve –665 accessions, with a goal of 665; 100 percent
Marine Corps Reserve –1,154 accessions, with a goal of 889; 130 percent
Air National Guard –729 accessions, with a goal of 541; 135 percent
Air Force Reserve – 769 accessions, with a goal of 760; 101 percent
The American President knows it, too, but cannot admit this publicly or suffer that most intolerable of affronts to his manhood: namely, having the equally discredited opposition call him unmanly names like “wimp.” Can’t have that.
++++++++++++
I would take the “wimp” designation. My name is Johnson, but it isn’t Lyndon Baines. And I’m not from Texas.
bfm:
True enough but how do you buy time for your long term strategy if you can’t protect your population in the near term? That is the dilemma for policy makers.
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/
“(1) It is unknown whether the U.S. targeted the teenager or whether he was merely “collateral damage.” The reason that’s unknown is because the Obama administration refuses to tell us. Said the Post: “The officials would not discuss the attack in any detail, including who the target was.” So here we have yet again one of the most consequential acts a government can take — killing one of its own citizens, in this case a teenage boy — and the government refuses even to talk about what it did, why it did it, what its justification is, what evidence it possesses, or what principles it has embraced in general for such actions. Indeed, it refuses even to admit it did this, since it refuses even to admit that it has a drone program at all and that it is engaged in military action in Yemen. It’s just all shrouded in total secrecy.”
“Yesterday, Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen wrote about the Awlaki killings: “Many Yemenis can understand (if disagree) killing the father, few can understand killing the son,”…”
=======================
“The death of innocents in war is always regrettable, but to accept the propaganda that somehow we intended his death by targeting a child is an outrageous slur against your Country, its intelligence service, and the young men and women who defend us everyday — both in an out of uniform.” mespo727272
I’d say that you’re the one who is buying the propaganda.
“An outrageous slur against your country, its intelligence service, and the young men and women who defend us everyday?”
You don’t say. Well, I guess you’d better send in the drones.
anonymously:
Well, that writer for the Nation needs to read the latest Pew Poll released in May of this year even after those drone strikes you hate:
Poll: Little Muslim support for bin Laden’s group
WASHINGTON — Muslim majorities in an arc of five countries from Egypt to Pakistan have little good to say about al-Qaida one year after American commandos killed the Muslim terror group’s leader, a poll shows.
Here’s the rest of the article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57424715/poll-little-muslim-support-for-bin-ladens-group/
anonymously:
You’re certainly free to hate your country and its government but don’t think that is the view of most Americans or even most readers to this blog.
By the way, anonymously, it was later reported that the strike that killed the 16-year-old son of Al-Awlaki had as its intended target, AQAP’s media chief, Egyptian Ibrahim al Bana.
mespo,
Buy some spectacles.
“My point remains that we have no greater duty to his son’s safety that he does.” mespo727272
His son was 16. He was an American citizen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/anwar-al-awlakis-family-speaks-out-against-his-sons-deaths/2011/10/17/gIQA8kFssL_story_1.html
“If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous and unbroken front, whether of white Americans or black ones or purple or blue or green. If we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.”
—-Faulkner, William
Mespo,
You are correct that the Marines are alive and well. The Army is in better shape now they have almost completely left Iraq.
mespo727272
1, June 7, 2012 at 10:23 pm
anonymously:
You’re certainly free to hate your country and its government but don’t think that is the view of most Americans or even most readers to this blog.
=========
How in the world did you make that leap?
I certainly don’t hate my county. It’s possible, even likely, that I care about this country more than you do, given your views on this thread.
By the way, anonymously, it was later reported that the strike that killed the 16-year-old son of Al-Awlaki had as its intended target, AQAP’s media chief, Egyptian Ibrahim al Bana. -mespo727272
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we killed a kid and scrambled to make the story palatable.
Surely you don’t take everything at face value? Did you also buy the line about WMD in Iraq?
anonymously
1, June 7, 2012 at 10:00 pm
He wasn’t targeted. His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip. Who is then the greater “devil”? The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it and whose son got caught in the crossfire, or the father who put him there as a shield and probably insured his demise.
You say that his “…son got caught in the crossfire” and “his father put him there as a shield.” Anwar al-Awlaki died two weeks before his son. What in the hell are you talking about?
==============
To correct a previous comment of mine:
The first paragraph is an excerpt from a comment of mespo727272. Those words are his, not mine.
My response was as follows:
You say that his “…son got caught in the crossfire” and “his father put him there as a shield.” Anwar al-Awlaki died two weeks before his son. What in the hell are you talking about?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/07/mueller-grilled-on-fbis-release-al-awlaki-in-2002/
Mueller grilled on FBI’s release of al-Awlaki in 2002
By Catherine Herridge
Published March 08, 2012
FoxNews.com
Several congressional committees want the FBI director to explain why one of his agents ordered the release of Anwar al-Awlaki from federal custody on Oct. 10, 2002, when there was an outstanding warrant for the American Muslim cleric’s arrest.
“There are a number of committees interested in the facts of what happened early on with al-Awlaki, and we’d be happy to give you a briefing of what we know. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again,” FBI Director Robert Mueller told Republican Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia.
Wolf first wrote to Mueller in spring 2010, based on the Fox News’ ongoing investigation of al-Awlaki, who was killed last year in a CIA-led drone strike in Yemen, on Sept. 30. Fox News was told that the congressman, whose district once included the cleric’s Virginia mosque, was not satisfied by the FBI’s earlier briefings.
Now that the cleric is dead, Wolf urged Mueller to be more transparent about the bureau’s interactions with al-Awlaki.
“I believe the bureau could, hopefully, be more forthcoming with regard to the 2002 incident. It is important that we look at how past incidents were handled so we’re better prepared for the future,” Wolf said. “And I can’t help but think how history could’ve been different, especially at Fort Hood, if al-Awlaki had been arrested and prosecuted back in October 2002.”
Thirteen peole were killed at Fort Hood and more than 30 injured. Mueller said he was “painfully aware” of the facts. The alleged Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, was in contact, via email, with al-Awlaki, who may have inspired the massacre.
“Our sympathy to the victims’ families, it’s, you know, very painful and every one of us feels badly that it occurred and that we could not stop it,” Mueller explained.
Fox News’ Specials Unit reported that the cleric was held by customs agents at JFK International Airport in New York City in early morning of Oct. 10, 2002, until FBI Agent Wade Ammerman ordered his release – even though a warrant for the cleric’s arrest on passport fraud was still active.
The warrant was generated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, which considered the cleric a “tier one” target because of his connections to at least three of the 9/11 hijackers. The passport fraud warrant was described to Fox News as a holding charge that would allow federal investigators to pressure al-Awlaki over his 9/11 contacts.
The warrant was pulled by a judge in Colorado, after the cleric entered the U.S. A U.S. attorney in Colorado who oversaw the warrant and the Justice Department claimed the cleric’s earlier lies to the Social Security Administration, the basis of the charge, had been corrected. But new documents obtained by Fox News through the Freedom of Information Act show otherwise.
After al-Awlaki re-entered the U.S. in the fall of 2002 with the FBI’s help, the cleric then appeared in a high-profile investigation, in which Agent Ammerman was a lead investigator. The FBI has not made the agent available to Fox News to interview, nor has the Department of Justice made the U.S. attorney on the case available. Former FBI agents say Ammerman would have needed permission from higher up in the bureau to let al-Awlaki go.
The House Homeland Security Committee launched an official investigation into the cleric and his 9/11 connections last year, but sources tell Fox News that committee staffers have been frustrated by the FBI’s resistance to providing documents and witnesses, citing “ongoing investigations.”
Wolf urged the FBI director to brief other lawmakers, including the head of the house intelligence committee, so that a similar scenario “never happens again.”
Fox News confirmed that the October 2002 incident and the arrest warrant for al-Awlaki was never disclosed to the 9/11 Commission or to Congress.
Former FBI agents, familiar with al-Awlaki’s re-entry in October 2002, say only two scenarios seem to explain what happened. The FBI was tracking the cleric for intelligence or the FBI was working with the cleric and saw him as a “friendly contact.”
After reviewing the hand-wringing, preaching, pearl-clutching and moralizing on the subject of al-Awlaki’s son, I realized this story has a moral. The moral of this story is:
IF YOU LIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, DO NOT RIDE IN CARS WITH–OR STAND NEXT TO–KNOWN TERRORISTS!
Doing so has been proven to shorten one’s life expectancy.
Military Suicide Rate Surges To Nearly One Per Day This Year
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/military-suicide-surges-_n_1578821.html
“He wasn’t targeted.” — Mespo:
Mespo knows this because he has access to super secret “intelligence” (American English for “stupidity”) that the general public does not. Or,
Mespo takes at face value the official pronouncements of known prevaricators who justify their every action by claiming that the public has no right to know about it. But Mespo believes anyway.
“His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip.” — Mespo
Mespo knows this because even though the United States Government had never charged Mr Awlaki with a crime, the U.S. government told Mespo (privately) the “real reasons” for murdering Mr Awlaki without a shred of due process. These secret reasons Mespo believed without demanding an ounce of evidence to back up the accusations.
Furthermore after Anwar al-Awlaki died in a drone strike for a crime never charged against him or proven, his ghost continued to ride around in Yemen with his 16-year-old son until President Obama could have the son murdered for “collateral proximity of a military age male” to a known “terrorist” ghost.
But Mespo believes stuff.
Mespo sounds a lot like an apologist for a Sicilian mafia don who claims he has to kill the son of the man he has killed because, as everyone knows, any son worth his manhood will seek revenge on his father’s murderer when he grows up. So President Obama just did what any self-respecting mafia don would do: namely, prevent his own future death at the hands of the son of the man he had murdered without a shred of due process. Actually, this mafia don “preventive revenge” thing pretty much sums up the foreign policy principles of the United States Government over the past thirteen years.
“… [something about] The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it.” — Mespo
Mespo does not know of any conviction for treason on the part of Anwar al-Awlaki. No one else does, either. But Mespo glibly speaks of such a “traitor” anyway. Mespo doesn’t actually know the meaning of the words he uses.
As far as I have read and understand, Mr Awlaki spoke and wrote decent English in defense of Muslim countries and their right not to have the United States invade and occupy them in the interests of Exxon-Mobil, Goldman Sachs, and the Apartheid Zionist Entity. I don’t see anything treasonous about expressing that opinion in English, as I do it regularly myself, and I’ve got an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy to prove my “patriotism.” All Americans — including Mr Awlaki and his son — have the right to “petition their government for a redress of grievances,” which does not mean the “destruction” of America, only the necessity of a change in policy. I do not see anything treasonous about any American exercising his constitutional rights in that manner. Mespo and I disagree on this, but then Mespo believes stuff that I don’t.
Finally, Mespo waves the bloody shirt and invokes the SACRED SYMBOL SOLDIER (“hiding behind the troops”) and the “intelligence services” (widely ridiculed by late night comedians as Can’t Identify Anything) in a pathetic resort to the irrelevant emotional appeal when he has no factual or logical support for his jingoistic claptrap.
I don’t think much of what Mespo writes about “wars” that America has never declared but that presidentss love to wage on a whim anyway. I served in the Nixon-Kissiinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72) and I can say categorically that nothing any of us fought or died for there had any legal basis or did anything to advance the security of the United States. Not. One. Thing. Ditto for Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops die in vain in war for our sorry ass corporations all the time and they continue doing so to this day. Best to face up to that and stop pretending that the country gives a shit about THE SACRED SYMBOL SOLDIER. It doesn’t. I hope I have made that clear.
Moral Philosophy according to Otteray Scribe:
IF YOU LIVE IN AMERICA, DO NOT GO TO WORK IN A HUGE BUILDING THAT SYMBOLIZES AMERICA’S MILITARY OR CORPORATE DOMINATION OF THE PLANET.
“Doing so has been proven to shorten one’s life expectancy.”
As well, one can hardly help associating with “known terrorists” when any “military age male” qualifies as a “terrorist” — or at least as someone “up to no good” (same thing) — to an American drone gamer who claims to “know” stuff about what he doesn’t..
Out of the mouths of moral midgets, and that sort of thing.
MM, I have no idea what you are talking about, and my reading comprehension is just fine. Moreover, don’t bother clarifying because 1) I don’t really care; and, 2) it is past midnight here and I am turning in. Probably will not even check in tomorrow because I actually have a life outside messing with blogs and am very busy. Have a nice life.
It’s enlightening to read the thought process of someone who argues for the blatant disregard of international law, the US Constitution, and basic human empathy in their culturally protective stance that justifies their eschewing of international law, the US Constitution, and basic human empathy.
Thanks, Mespo
OS, unfortunately, if you live in the Middle East, riding in cars with or standing next to ANYONE can shorten your life expectancy.
Beautiful scenery, though.
Emperor Obama ordered the deaths of two (actually, three) of my fellow citizens without a shred of due process. He took a solemn oath to defend and uphold the Constitution which he has manifestly, aggressively, and exultantly has refused to do. America’s vicarious armchair “warriors” can drool and masturbate over their dreary Muslim body counts all they desire, but I will remember the name of Anwar al-Awlaki with respect thanks to Emperor Obama’s lack of respect for him and his rights as an American citizen. I think that someone once said: “What you do to the least of these, you do to me.”
I’ve actually served in one of these mindless American military crusades. They always end badly, just as this one will. And those who started them and championed their continuation will wind up in the trashcan of history, where they belong. You can’t do a wrong thing the right way, as more than one deluded and vainglorious American president has discovered to his sorrow.
OS,
I have a great life. One that you cannot soil with yours. Now run off and hide like a good little bushwhacker.
Malisha,
Years ago, President Bill Clinton would order cruise missile attacks on Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan — the ones we and the Saudis and the Pakistanis built for Osama bin Laden to use against the Soviets. Frequently, news reports from Pakistan would show outraged villagers — whose homes and relatives had just disappeared in a blast — complaining because our cruise missile had overshot its target in Afghanistan and hit Pakistan, instead. I remember thinking: It looks pretty bad when we can’t hit the training camp we aim at, but when we can’t even hit the country we aim at, well, that ought to disqualify us from shooting at anyone.
Two presidents later and the United States Government still can’t seem to hit enough of the same Muslim people or their training camps to make them stop wanting to run their own countries and live as they please. Somehow, shooting people to kill their ideas never seems to do much except make the idea stronger.
MM,
“Moral Philosophy according to Otteray Scribe:
IF YOU LIVE IN AMERICA, DO NOT GO TO WORK IN A HUGE BUILDING THAT SYMBOLIZES AMERICA’S MILITARY OR CORPORATE DOMINATION OF THE PLANET.”
Really, I know you are a professionally military trained propagandist, but your constant reliance upon straw men for argumentation simply will not work in this forum. What you say above is a complete misrepresentation of what OS said and it accomplished nothing but to illustrate your personal biases and that you are perhaps incapable of a good faith argument on the merits and instead repeatedly rely upon a logical fallacy that is a time worn tool of propagandists and/or those who don’t know you to argue without using fallacies. Since you’re demonstrably not stupid and have the background to know that what I am saying about straw men as a propaganda technique involving misrepresentation (a form of deception) is true, then I must assume that either 1) you’re doing it on purpose or 2) it is such an ingrained habit from your past life you simply can’t help yourself. It serves only to undermine any credibility which you might build in posts where you don’t resort to that pitiful tactic. As long as you engage in that tactic, I and others will continue to point it out.
Game, set, match to Michael Murry. That is a terrific last paragraph, sir.
“You’re certainly free to hate your country and its government but don’t think that is the view of most Americans or EVEN MOST READERS OF THIS BLOG.”
Uhmmm… Mespo, how long have you actually read this blog? Most people here I would agree don’t hate the country, but they DO hate the government, of both the R. and D. imperialist variety. Just a little trend I’ve noticed.
And thanks a bunch for making my arguments for me. You know, the ones about the Romans. Sure, they were the kings of pragmatism. The cause of their collapse was the internal rot, a combined threat from disparate groups who wanted nothing to do with the Romans, and the religious zealots of a few countries from… where? Hmm, can’t seem to remember. Oh yeah, THE MIDDLE EAST!. While the final collapse was brought on by the germanic tribes, it was the constant pressures from too large an Empire, too much corruption from within, that was the root cause. Where they succeeded most was in blending and adapting countries they conquered into their own cutlures. Machiavelli himself made arguments that the best approach was to blend an enemy’s culture into your own. When the Romans failed, they had lost their greatest strengths as an Empire- they didn’t permit the slow adaptation of other people into their own country. They stopped a great deal of local autonomy, creating resentment. They stopped freeing slaves, leading to more and more slave rebellions. In other words, they turned away from what made them successful, just as we are doing now. The collapse of America can be watched as an accelerated process of exactly what collapsed the Romans- expediency and greed and narrow minded pursuit of political power leading to poor policy decisions abroad.
I absolutley reject your theory that governments are not moral actors. The longest lasting governments have always been comprised of people with the blend of the conqueror and statesman- carrot and stick approaches, rather than all carrot and all sticks. And no one on this blog, not even my dear eternally pacifist friend MM, argues that there should be NO response to attacks. It’s the scale, and motivation for, and actual results of how we respond that has become abhorrent. And before you accuse me of being one who doesn’t support our troops, you’d better read a few of my posts. I do believe MM called me a chest thumping rambo at one point =b.
I am 70 years old and have seen a lot of bullies. Never in my life have a seen a bully who did not eventually get the shit beaten out of him.
Gene H,
Calling me “a professionally military trained propagandist” makes a great way to start off an argument with ad hominem abuse. But then to continue by lecturing me as to what constitutes acceptable argumentation in this forum, well, that borders on sheer chutzpah. Don’t do as you do, eh? But only as you say? Not a good start, Gene.
If you will kindly revisit Otteray Scribe’s opening slur aimed at those of us — like Professor Turley, I might add — who protest against the murdering of American citizens and foreigners without a shred of due process, you will read the following:
Now, when someone starts out by calling others “hand-wringers,” “preachers,” “pearl-clutchers,” and “moralizers,” you may consider that logical argumentation and not rank ad hominem abuse, but if you do so consider it, then you don’t know the first damn thing about logical argumentation or known fallacies and should forthwith stop trying to lecture me or anyone else on the niceties of refined discourse. Otteray Scribe began with unwarranted abuse, just as you did, and he got the response he deserved, as you will. All I did was take his so-called “moral,” to wit:
and turn it back upon itself with:
MM,
“Calling me “a professionally military trained propagandist” makes a great way to start off an argument with ad hominem abuse.”
Actually, it’s accurate considering you yourself said before (more than once) that you were trained in Psy-Ops by the military. That would make you “a professionally military trained propagandist” by definition. So either it is an accurate description of you or you were lying when you claimed that training. Which is it? I’ll accept either answer at this point. If I had wanted to start of with ad hominem abuse I’d have said something along the lines of, “Hey, you pompous condescending ex-pat asshole, you totally misrepresented OS’s statement.” See the difference?
I also have forgotten more about argumentation than you’ve ever known, but if you want to labor under the impression you’re all that while you use such a crude tool as straw men on such a regular basis hay fleas are flying out of your ass, you go right ahead. Speaking of which, what I offered was technically criticism, not argument, and I don’t give a damn whether you liked the way it started or not.
I’m funny that way.
And while we are talking about starting off on the wrong foot, I’ll mention that your first two interactions with me directly involved you completely and totally misrepresenting my positions and being quite hostile about it. How’d that work out for you again? Just about as well as the tactic is working for you this time, which is to say not at all.
As to reductio ad absurdum? You should really work on your presentation because reductio ad absurdum isn’t the same thing as misrepresenting someone’s position. It can look similar because it involves disproving a proposition by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence, but first the proposition being extended into absurdity must be accurately represented. “IF YOU LIVE IN AMERICA, DO NOT GO TO WORK IN A HUGE BUILDING THAT SYMBOLIZES AMERICA’S MILITARY OR CORPORATE DOMINATION OF THE PLANET” as an extension of “IF YOU LIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, DO NOT RIDE IN CARS WITH–OR STAND NEXT TO–KNOWN TERRORISTS!” is a false equivalence. Being a target incidental to going to work in what may be a perfectly innocuous job – even if you personally don’t like the employer – is not the equivalent of hanging around with known criminals like terrorists. One statement says “don’t hang around with criminals”, the other “don’t be a target of criminals”. Straw men are inherently irrational. Maybe that’s why you like them so much? (That was a rhetorical question.)
A proper reductio ad absurdum would be to say “IF YOU LIVE IN AMERICA, DON’T RIDE IN CARS WITH – OR STAND NEXT TO – JUGGALOS.” In case you don’t get the reference through the rarefied air you’re breathing with your head up your ass, Juggalos are fans of the band Insane Clown Posse and they were recently identified by the FBI as “threats to national security”. The reality of the matter is they are mostly drunk and drugged out heavy metal rap fans who like to party way too much but they like terrorists are allegedly criminal threats to our security. That would have been a proper use of the form of reductio ad absurdum because both objects of the sentence are of debatable value as an actual threat to national security and one of them absurdly so. See, despite what you may think, I understand subtleties of argumentation far better than you which is why I picked up on your straw man in the first place. To be clear, you are far more impressed with your skills than I am, but please, try to tell us how you weren’t using a straw man when you were manifestly making misrepresentations by using false equivalences, MM.
As to the rest of it, if you want to rationalize away your straw man instead of own it, that is your decision too, but the bottom line is you misrepresented what he said. It’ll be pointed out every time you do it too. Why? Because it is what it is: a logical fallacy and a tool of propagandists. Use it all you like as long you don’t mind someone pointing it out when you do it.
Was that coherent enough for you?
Or do you need another explanation?
MM:
On your blog, you describe your self as an “ex-patriot.” Now I see why. Enjoy your life in Southern Taiwan carping at this government. We’ll deal with the issues here even as you enjoy our protection there. By the way, your attempts at propaganda fool no one except maybe yourself.
CLH:
You’ve got a small part of it right. The Romans did suffer from internal rot primarily from attitudes of the intelligentsia that martial vigor was a bad trait. It caused the legions to be manned by mercenaries instead of loyal Roman citizens. The Romans began to question their right to defend themselves and were more concerned with their pleasures. They also became consumed by religion. Rome was strongest when it understood the world was dangerous and had to act accordingly. That wasn’t fear; it was reality. Something not so much in abundance with many of the comments here advocating either we do nothing to protect ourselves or we do too little.
gbk:
“It’s enlightening to read the thought process of someone who argues for the blatant disregard of international law, the US Constitution, and basic human empathy in their culturally protective stance that justifies their eschewing of international law, the US Constitution, and basic human empathy.
Thanks, Mespo”
*************************
I’m arguing to protect your life from a group of madman who have no regard for anything you cited and who are willing to martyr themselves in the process.
I find the thought process of the masochistic enlightening as well. Thanks.
anonymously:
“How in the world did you make that leap?
I certainly don’t hate my county. It’s possible, even likely, that I care about this country more than you do, given your views on this thread.”
********************
I suppose then you are from the “I’ll destroy the village to save it” camp of American patriotism.
mespo:
I am sort of curious how you can think it OK to not sell big gulps but are perfectly fine with targeting American citizens abroad?
I find that to be something of a dichotomy. I am in your corner on this one [I think], you make war against the people of a country whether citizen or not and you had better be prepared to suffer the consequences.
John Locke said kill a person who wants to kill you as you would kill a beast in the forest.
What fascinates me though is my perception that these 2 ways of thinking are opposed. But maybe I am wrong on the drone strikes and you are the one who is being consistent?
I have a little thought experiment to put the issue of sovereignty and international relations into perspective:
What would happen if the Federales launched drone attacks into Arizona to kill drug cartel members? What if those drone strikes killed a bunch of civilians in the process? What if they did this all without cooperation or permission of the United States government let alone the State of Arizona?
I’m getting all verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.
Ignoring sovereignty starts wars.
Ask Poland.
Bron:
I distinguish between internal affairs and external affairs. I once thought Anwar al-Awlaki was an internal matter, but after reading he was an operational chief of al-Quaeda and had called for the killing of innocent Americans including children and servicemen and women, I placed him squarely in the “external” camp of traitors and enemies. Traitors, as you know give up citizenship, by their actions. I feel these people regardless of their place of birth, hell-bent on our destruction by their own manifest words and deeds, are entitled to no due process. Now if there is some doubt as to their role in the war against us then I do believe that is an issue of some limited due process. After all, the Constitution applies to people living in the US and to a limited extent to those Americans living abroad. Basically, it is a territorial document.
This view is not unique to me. It is a classic approach stretching back to the Greco-Roman world. We need not accord our external enemies anything approaching due process, in my view.
Gene H:
That’s a legitimate point but I feel it would be unwarranted since we do act in cooperation with Mexico to stop drug dealers. My point is limited to “states” who will do nothing to stop terrorists.
mespo:
what about the soft drink/drone dichotomy?
From a Lockean perspective I think you are right on the drones. From a Jeffersonian perspective I think you are wrong on the big gulp. How do you reconcile the 2, in my mind, contradictory views?
Maybe I’m a hand-wringer–but I think we Americans should question the use of drone strikes in other countries, seek to find out if the strikes are as “surgical” as claimed, try to ascertain if innocent civilians are being killed, and if the drone strikes are being used to recruit people to the terrorists’ anti-American cause.
*****
Dissecting Obama’s Standard on Drone Strike Deaths
by Justin Elliott
ProPublica, June 5, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/dissecting-obamas-standard-on-drone-strike-deaths
Excerpt:
Asked last week about the Times report, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters the president “goes to extraordinary measures” to avoid civilian casualties.
“We have at our disposal tools that make avoidance of civilian casualties much easier, and tools that make precision targeting possible in ways that have never existed in the past,” Carney argued.
But analysts point out strikes can go awry even if a missile hits its programmed target.
“Any military official will tell you your precision is only as good as your intelligence sources and your intelligence analysis,” said Naureen Shah, associate director of the Counterterrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School. “How much do we really know about Somalia and Yemen and Pakistan? We have errors in targeting in Afghanistan and we’ve been there for a decade.”
Shah, who is working on a study on civilian harm from covert drone strikes, said she was not surprised by the Obama administration’s reported standard for counting civilians given the extremely low estimates of civilian casualties leaked by administration officials over the years.
The Times story last week, for example, quotes a “senior administration official” claiming that the number of civilians killed by drone strikes under Obama in Pakistan is in the “single digits.”
That’s in stark contrast to outside estimates. Independent organizations analyzing news reports and other sources have put civilian deaths from drone strikes from the high double digits in Pakistan alone to the high triple digits including countries like Yemen and Somalia.
Drone strikes: playing God in Pakistan
When is a last resort truly a last resort, particularly in areas well back from recognised battlefields?
Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 June 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/05/drone-strikes-pakistan
Excerpt:
There are at least two concerns about the gathering pace of drone strikes, Mr Obama’s weapon of choice against militants sheltering in remote parts of the world – Waziristan, Yemen, or Somalia. The first is that at a crucial juncture of an election campaign – when a clear Republican opponent has emerged from the swamp of the party’s selection process – this administration is highlighting the fact that its president is a killer. In this new age of secrecy, three dozen current and former advisers are allowed to talk to the New York Times about the president’s role of personally overseeing the shadow war with al-Qaida. Mr Obama has not been shy about the role he personally played in Osama bin Laden’s death. His counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan makes speeches defending drone strikes as legal, ethical and wise. This administration is not on the defensive about its summary executions. It positively seeks to advertise them.
The second is that words are swiftly followed by actions. Drone strikes, which were in abeyance before the failure of Nato’s Chicago summit to break the deadlock with Pakistan over reopening military supply lines to Afghanistan, have returned with a vengeance – three attacks in as many days, and 29 people dead. Are they justified if, as the US claimed on Tuesday, al-Qaida’s second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, is among the victims? Or do inhabitants of North Waziristan have a point when they say the strikes are pulling their province apart. Many people have moved to escape the drones, and anyone who stays lives in terror of being killed. Indeed being a male of fighting age has become a posthumous criterion for being regarded as a terrorist. All this poses questions for a pragmatist like Mr Obama. When and where does this stop? Libi will be surely be replaced. Or have drones become a permanent feature of US power?
Elaine, I linked that Elliott article yesterday morning. I don’t think anyone paid attention to it. lol
Elaine, targeting of missiles is highly accurate. They hit what aimed at within a three meter circle. Strikes have been carried out in populated areas when unavoidable, with no collateral civilian damage. To be able to hit a target the size of a moving Volkswagen Beetle with a small missile traveling at three times the speed of sound is an amazing technological achievement. Remember, these are not giant missiles. These are small missiles with just a few pounds of explosive in them–some with only about two pounds. They are not giant two thousand pound bombs. The drones are about the size of a Cessna trainer you can see at your local airport. They cannot carry big ordnance.
In WW-II, bomber targets were often missed by as much as five miles. These missiles are rather like the statistics I saw from the Vietnam war. About 50,000 rounds of rifle ammunition were expended per enemy soldier killed. Highly trained snipers used 1.3 bullets per kill. The drone strikes are more like the sniper than the soldier firing wildly into the brush.
mespo,
Define “cooperate”. Mexico and many other South and Central American countries are begging – literally – for us to change our domestic drug laws so as to undercut the revenue streams of drug cartels threatening their stability in a very real way. And we say “mind your own business”.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/what-we-misunderstand-about-drones/257778/ “The problem with drones is not the drones themselves but the trend of killing first and asking questions later.”
“I’m arguing to protect your life from a group of madman who have no regard for anything you cited and who are willing to martyr themselves in the process.” mespo727272 to gbk
And in the process, you’re creating god-only-knows how many others with a vehement hatred of anything and everything American. If you want to keep this despicable “war on terror” going, just “keep on keeping on” with drone strikes by O’Godma and it will never end. If Romney is elected, he’ll probably follow suit, and on and on and on it will go. And in the meantime, things on the home front will change to such a degree that you very well may no longer recognize this little “garden” of yours.
Otteray,
We are sleepwalking into the Drone Age, unaware of the consequences
Obama’s policy of killing ‘militants’ in Pakistan may go down well in the US, but it is provoking an extremist backlash abroad
Clive Stafford Smith
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 2 June 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/02/drone-age-obama-pakistan
Excerpt:
Last October I was at a jirga in Islamabad where 80 people from Waziristan had assembled to talk about the US Predator drones that buzz around overhead, periodically delivering death by Hellfire missile. A jirga is the traditional forum for discussing and resolving disputes, part parliament, part court of law. The turbaned tribal elders were joined by their young sons on a rare foray out of their region to meet outsiders and discuss the killing. The isolation of the Waziris is almost total – no western journalist has been to Miranshah for several years.
At our meeting I spoke as the representative westerner. I reported the CIA claim that not one single innocent civilian had been killed in over a year. I did not need to understand Pashtu to translate the snorts of derision when this claim was translated.
During the day I shook the hand of a 16-year-old kid from Waziristan named Tariq Aziz. One of his cousins had died in a missile strike, and he wanted to know what he could do to bring the truth to the west. At the Reprieve charity, we have a transparency project: importing cameras to the region to try to export the truth back out. Tariq wanted to take part, but I thought him too young.
Then, three days later, the CIA announced that it had eliminated “four militants”. In truth there were only two victims: Tariq had been driving his 12-year-old cousin to their aunt’s house when the Hellfire missile killed them both. This came just 24 hours after the CIA boasted of eliminating six other “militants” – actually, four chromite workers driving home from work. In both cases a local informant apparently tagged the car with a GPS monitor and lied to earn his fee.
Last week officials in the Obama administration talked to the New York Times about the “Secret Kill List” drawn up for drone assassinations. Democratic strategists in an election year calculate that the article will prove a vote-winner, dispelling any notion that Barack Obama is soft on terror. The administration voices wanted to leave the impression of an involved and committed president who reads Thomas Aquinas’s theory of the “just war” in between personally vetting the kill list.
Mitt Romney dubbed Obama “Dr Strangelove” back in 2007. It may have been a rare, perceptive insight. A decision by the smartest man in the room is only as good as the information that he receives, and no matter how accurate the shiny new missile, if it’s aimed at the wrong person it will hit the wrong target.
It is easy to understand how the CIA slaughtered Tariq and many other innocent victims. Those who press the Hellfire buttons are 8,000 miles away in Nevada and are dependent on local “intelligence”. Just as with Guantánamo Bay, the CIA is paying bounties to those who will identify “terrorists”. Five thousand dollars is an enormous sum for a Waziri informant, translating to perhaps £250,000 in London terms. The informant has a calculation to make: is it safer to place a GPS tag on the car of a truly dangerous terrorist, or to call down death on a Nobody (with the beginnings of a beard), reporting that he is a militant? Too many “militants” are just young men with stubble. At least 174 have been children.
The New York Times reports that Obama first embraced a policy of taking no prisoners in order to avoid the embarrassing sore of Guantánamo. Then he accepted a method for assessing casualties that “counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants” unless there is explicit posthumous proof of their innocence – because they are probably “up to no good”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/05/al-qaida-drone-attacks-too-broad
“Drone attacks create terrorist safe havens, warns former CIA official
Indiscriminate use of drones in Middle East causes too many civilian casualties, warns former CIA counterterrorism head.
A former top terrorism official at the CIA has warned that President Barack Obama’s controversial drone programme is far too indiscriminate in hitting targets and could lead to such political instability that it creates terrorist safe havens.
Obama’s increased use of drones to attack suspected Islamic militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen has become one of the most controversial aspects of his national security policy. He has launched at least 275 strikes in Pakistan alone; a rate of attack that is far higher than his predecessor George W Bush.
Defenders of the policy say it provides a way of hitting high-profile targets, such as al-Qaida number two, Abu Yahya al-Libi. But critics say the definition of militant is used far too broadly and there are too many civilian casualties. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates up to 830 civilians, including many women and children, might have been killed by drone attacks in Pakistan, 138 in Yemen and 57 in Somalia. Hundreds more have been injured.
Now Robert Grenier, who headed the CIA’s counter-terrorism center from 2004 to 2006 and was previously a CIA station chief in Pakistan, has told the Guardian that the drone programme is targeted too broadly. “It [the drone program] needs to be targeted much more finely. We have been seduced by them and the unintended consequences of our actions are going to outweigh the intended consequences,” Grenier said in an interview.
Grenier emphasised that the use of drones was a valuable tool in tackling terrorism but only when used against specific identified targets, who have been tracked and monitored to a place where a strike is feasible. However, recent media revelations about Obama’s programme have revealed a more widespread use of the strike capability, including the categorising of all military-age males in a strike zone of a target as militants. That sort of broad definition and the greater use of drones has outraged human rights organisations.
The BIJ has reported that drone strikes in Pakistan over the weekend hit a funeral gathering for a militant slain in a previous strike and also may have accidentally hit a mosque. That sort of action adds credence to the claims that the drone campaign is likely to cause more damage by creating anger at the US than it does in eliminating terrorist threats.
“We have gone a long way down the road of creating a situation where we are creating more enemies than we are removing from the battlefield. We are already there with regards to Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he said.
Grenier said he had particular concerns about Yemen, where al-Qaida linked groups have launched an insurgency and captured swathes of territory from the over-stretched local army. US drones have been active in the country, striking at targets that have included killing US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son.
The BIJ estimates that there have been up to 41 confirmed US drone strikes in Yemen since 2002 and possibly up a 55 unconfirmed ones. Grenier said the strikes were too indiscriminate and causing outrage among the civilian population in the country, lending support to Islamists and seeing a growth in anti-US sentiment.
“That brings you to a place where young men, who are typically armed, are in the same area and may hold these militants in a certain form of high regard. If you strike them indiscriminately you are running the risk of creating a terrific amount of popular anger. They have tribes and clans and large families. Now all of a sudden you have a big problem … I am very concerned about the creation of a larger terrorist safe haven in Yemen,” Grenier said.
Grenier was the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad when terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York and attacked the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. He played a key role in co-ordinating covert operations that led up to the downfall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He later headed up the CIA’s CTC where he led the CIA’s global operations in the War on Terror as its top counter-terrorism official. He left the agency in 2006.”
@Mike Appleton ” Terrorist organizations should be treated as criminal conspiracies and handled as police matters. ”
I would agree with you that the police and especially intelligence units have role to play in defeating terrorist organizations.
But how they should be treated depends on what it takes to defeat them.
Reasonable belief regarding strategies, tactics, choice of tools and weapons depends on understanding the fundamental nature of terrorist organizations.
These people are not in any essential way criminals. Even when they commit crimes there nature is not fundamentally criminal.
Terrorists are soldiers in the service of a cause. Whether we give them POW status is a very different question. There motivations are different from criminals. If they were criminal we might suppose that the prospect of long prison terms would be a deterrent. That does not seem to be the case. On the contrary, when a radical signs up for terrorist work, his most reasonable belief is that he will die. In that context the best possible outcome is that he will die instantly. It is more likely he will die in excruciating pain while he bleeds out.
The strategies and tactics or terrors are different from criminals. Even when terrorists commit crimes there motives are entirely different. For example there have been incidents where terrorists organizations robbed banks or kidnapped citizens. Criminals typically commit such crimes for personal enrichment. Terrorists do not. When they commit crimes to gather funds the purpose is to finance activities of the organization.
There is overlap in the weapons used by terrorists and criminals. But criminals rarely use weapons of the military or operate as military units (drug cartels might be an exception). From nuclear weapons to nerve gas to anthrax, the terrorists organizations we face today specifically target the most sophisticated military weapons for acquisition and use.
Criminals rarely have much support in the general population. Bonnie and Clyde might be an exception. Terrorist have huge support among some national populations. The fact is that terrorists organizations have the capability, much like nation states, to acquire and use resources, organize and deploy military forces, plan and implement military campaigns.
When we fail to understand that terrorist organizations are social movements with the capability to raise armies and apply military force we reduce the likelihood that we will defeat them.
Years ago a CIA analyst foolishly stated that terrorism was not really an important problem because worldwide only a few thousand people were killed each year. That kind of analysis would have completely misunderstood the threat of Stalin prior to 1917, Hitler prior to the ’30′s, or Pol Pot prior to the 70′s. The reasonable evaluation of the treat from terrorists organizations does not include the numbers they killed in the past. Those actions are over. Those action are not a threat. The evaluation of the threat from terrorist organizations must consider their ability to grow and become more powerful.
Terrorist organizations recruit from a population as large as any nation state. Terrorist organizations have an ideology as comprehensive and as motivating as any nation state. Terrorist organizations can and do field military organizations.
Police organizations have a role to play in suppressing terrorist organizations. Police organizations are probably not sufficient by themselves to curtail the activities of the terrorists organizations we face today.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/30/glenn_greenwald_obamas_secret_kill_list
Glenn Greenwald: Obama’s Secret Kill List “The Most Radical Power a Government Can Seize”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Glenn, I want ask you about another subject. On Tuesday, the New York Times published a major exposé about how President Obama personally oversees a, quote, “secret kill list” containing the names and photos of individuals targeted for assassination in the U.S. drone war. According to the Times, Obama signs off on every targeted killing in Yemen and Somalia and the more complex or risky strikes in Pakistan. Individuals on the list include U.S. citizens as well as teenage girls as young as 17 years old. Glenn, can you comment on that?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, we’ve, of course, known for a long time that the president of the United States believes that he has the power to order people killed, assassinated, in total secrecy, without any due process, without transparency or oversight of any kind. I really do believe it’s literally the most radical power that a government and a president can seize, and yet the Obama administration has seized this power and exercised it aggressively with very little controversy.
What the New York Times article does is it adds some important, though very disturbing, details, probably the most disturbing of which is that one of the reasons why the Obama administration runs around claiming that the casualties of civilians are so low from their drone attacks, which everybody knows is false, is because they’ve redefined what a militant is. And a militant, in the eyes of the Obama administration, formally means any male of fighting age, presumably 18 to 40, who is in a strike zone of a missile. So, if the United States shoots a missile or detonates a bomb by drone or by aircraft and kills eight or a dozen or two dozen people, without even knowing whom they’ve killed or anything about them, they will immediately label any male of a certain age a militant by virtue of their proximity to that scene. And what the New York Times article said was that the rationale for this is that they believe that anybody who is even near a terrorist or any terrorist activity is, quote, “probably up to no good.” Ironically, that is, as Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News pointed out, the exact phrase that George Zimmerman used when describing Trayvon Martin to the 911 call, that he must be up to no good, the sort of suspicion that even though we don’t know anything about somebody, the mere happenstance of where they are or what they’re doing entitles us not just to harbor suspicions about them, but to kill them.
And it’s amazing that American media outlets continue to use the word “militant” to describe people who are killed by American drones without knowing their identity, even though we now know that the Obama administration uses that word in an incredibly deceitful and propagandistic way. And the fact that Obama himself is sitting at the top of this pyramid, making decisions about life and death, issuing death sentences without a shred of oversight or transparency, really ought to be provoking widespread outrage. And yet, with the exception of a few circles and factions, it really isn’t.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to William Daley, the White House chief of staff, in the Times saying Obama called the decision to strike the U.S.-born cleric Anwar Awlaki an easy one, Glenn?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, this is why I wrote yesterday, you know, I think one of the things that the New York Times article did was shed light on President Obama’s character. You know, we can talk a lot about his policies, and that usually is what’s most important, and we’ve known that he’s has been embracing these radical theories of executive power that even George Bush’s former former CIA and NSA chief, General Michael Hayden, has lavishly praised and other Bush officials are over the moon about in terms of President Obama endorsing them. So we know his policies have been extremist and radical. But here you have one of the most controversial things, as I said earlier, that a president can do: ordering an American citizen assassinated by the CIA in total secrecy with no due process, never been charged with any crime, even though they could have charged him if they really had evidence, as they claim, that he was guilty of plotting terrorist attacks, and instead of charging him, they simply secretly ordered his assassination.
And it turns out that there was no struggling in terms of the difficult constitutional and ethical and legal issues this obviously presents. According to the president’s own aides, they’re boasting to the New York Times that he’s declared that this was a, quote, “easy” decision, not anything that he struggled with, something that he made quite easily. And so, we find out that not only is he exercising this radical power, he’s not even having any struggles with conscience or constitutional questions or legal or intellectual quandaries about it. It’s something that—as his national security adviser, Tom Donilon, also bragged to the New York Times about, it shows how, quote, “comfortable” he is using force, even against American citizens. And that, I think, reflects really on the type of person that occupies the Oval Office.
AMY GOODMAN: You also write, Glenn Greenwald, in this piece—you recommend Aaron David Miller’s piece, the New York Times reporter who does a piece in Foreign Policy called “Barack O’Romney,” that the reason these candidates, Romney and Obama, are not particularly fighting over foreign policy, but domestic issues, is because of the broad Democratic-Republican consensus between the Republicans and the Democrats, even as they fight about what’s going on in Washington, people talk about no consensus at all. In fact, there’s a very serious consensus: unanimity in dealing with foreign policy, Glenn.
GLENN GREENWALD: Right. I mean, one of the things that progressives and Democratic partisans love to say is that Republicans will never give President Obama credit for anything. And this is a complete untruth; it’s a total falsehood. You can go back over the last three years and find instance after instance after instance where not just Republicans, but the furthest right neocons and national security state officials of the Bush administration have lavished President Obama with praise for his most defining and controversial policies, and, you know, I think represents exactly the kind of bipartisan consensus that he was talking about.
mespo:
I had to chuckle when I saw your comment on the Columbus, New Mexico raid. Since I lived a number of years in southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, I’ve actually been to Columbus. It’s not much more of a town now than it was at the time of the Villa raid.
When I studied New Mexico history many years ago, I was taught that the raid was in retaliation for the U.S. taking sides in the Mexican revolution. Wilson’s decision had less to do with protecting American interests than it did with jingoism.
The fact is, of course, that Pershing failed. And one of the reasons Pershing failed is that Villa was extremely popular among Mexican peasants for standing up to the gringos and Pershing received little civilian cooperation during his expedition.
In sum, my view is that it was an unnecessary waste of time, money and lives during another period of imperialist sentiment in this country.
Here is an article that Suzanne Fisher Staples, an award-winning children’s author that I know, wrote for The Horn Book in 2001. Fisher had worked as a UPI correspondent in Asia for many years.
*****
Tolerance Is Not Enough
by Suzanne Fisher Staples
http://archive.hbook.com/magazine/articles/2001/nov01_staples.asp
In the late 1970s I was based in India, working as a newspaper reporter. The most important and terrible story I covered was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
When I think of Afghanistan, images of people flood my mind. I remember a man, employed by a European friend, who drove me back to my hotel in Kabul one night after dinner. He wore gloves because Secret Police interrogators had torn off his fingernails one at a time. They said he hadn’t informed on the foreigners he worked for in enough detail.
I think of a group of refugees walking across the border into Pakistan, some in bare feet in a light snow. Several of the women carried dead infants in their arms.
I remember a seven-year-old boy in a makeshift medical camp along the Afghan-Pakistan border. His face was horribly scarred, his eyes were gone, and his right arm was a bandaged stump. He said he and his brothers had tried to pick up what they thought were toys and watches — actually, antipersonnel devices dropped from Soviet helicopters by the hundreds of thousands over Afghan mountain passes and farmlands.
A little girl told me she had watched her mother die in her village in Afghanistan. “She opened her mouth to speak, and blood came out,” she said.
In my drawer sits a photograph of me sitting with a war council of tribal elders led by Ahmed Shah Massoud, the commander of Afghan resistance fighters known as the Northern Alliance, who was assassinated in early September by hit men disguised as Saudi journalists. “You will hear of this war for many years,” Massoud told me. Even then — in 1981 — I knew he was right.
The dominant image of Afghanistan is the most inhospitable landscape most of us can imagine. It is peppered with caves and inaccessible mountain passes. Even before five years of drought and twenty years of war, Afghanistan was a desolate tribal land of high desert mountains and plains. There is virtually nothing to eat, because the natural forage is dried up and the irrigation systems have been destroyed. It is not simply fear of an American attack that has millions of Afghans on the move.
Among the many things I learned living in that part of the world is that Christians and Jews and Muslims have a lot more in common than they have differences. The Koran is much like the Bible and the Judaic scriptures in its prescriptions for how people ought to behave toward one another.
From hours of sipping tea around fires in camps all over rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, I have also learned that relatively few Muslims are fundamentalists. They abhor terrorism and are more often victims of it than we are. Muslim terrorists are not regarded as religious martyrs but as fanatics who use religion to justify political acts.
The Soviet-Afghan war was of great strategic importance to the United States. At stake: Soviet access to the major shipping lanes from the Gulf of Arabia, the most important conduit for Middle Eastern oil to the West. And yet it was difficult to get news of it into American newspapers. Most of our stories were cut to one- or two-inch columns for the “World News in Brief” sections. Our editors told us that Americans weren’t interested because they had difficulty seeing the relevance of such a remote and strange country.
I began to realize that news reports seldom let Americans see what people from cultures very different from ours are really like. News reports about battles and politics and economics rarely show individual faces — and when people remain faceless, it’s easy not to care what happens to them.
I began to think then of story as a way of providing insight into the lives of people from other cultures, because story is based on the stuff of the human heart. Story shows what we have in common, not what separates us. That was when I decided I wanted to write fiction.
Stories can show us that the people of Afghanistan are more like us than not; that they are not equipment and targets, but people — most of them decent and moderate — just like us. They are afraid when they hear gunfire outside their houses in the middle of the night, just as you and I would be.
We in America pride ourselves on tolerance, but we must learn quickly that tolerance is not enough. It is diversity that must be embraced and celebrated if this madness is ever to stop. Diversity can fill us with surprise and touch us with familiarity. It is the richness of life, and is not to be feared.
*****
Suzanne Fisher Staples website:
http://suzannefisherstaples.com/
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/06/why-obama-embraced-drones.html
An Interview With Medea Benjamin About the Life-and-Death Decisions of Drone Warfare
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9541-an-interview-with-medea-benjamin-about-the-life-and-death-decisions-of-drone-warfare
Medea Benjamin on How Drones May Be Used Against US Citizens Soon
By Medea Benjamin, OR Books | Book Excerpt
http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/9519-medea-benjamin-on-how-drones-may-be-used-against-us-citizens-soon
MONDAY, MAY 14, 2012 12:21 PM EDT
Andrew Sullivan’s father figure
The tearful Newsweek writer speaks on why paternalistic acceptance from the president is so meaningful
BY GLENN GREENWALD
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/andrew_sullivans_father_figure/
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/un-official-urges-pakistan-to-query-legality-of-drones-20120608-201iu.html
UN official urges Pakistan to query legality of drones
Jon Boone, Islamabad
June 9, 2012
THE United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has advised Pakistan to seek an official UN investigation into whether US drone strikes there are legal.
Navi Pillay told Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani he should invite the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to visit the country to examine the legality of missile attacks by remote-controlled aircraft in areas near the Afghan border.
”Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law,” Dr Pillay told a press conference in Islamabad. ”Ensuring accountability for any failure to comply with international law is also difficult when drone attacks are conducted outside the military chain of command and beyond … transparent mechanisms of civilian or military control.”
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This week the US confirmed that one of its planes had killed al-Qaeda’s second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi.
The Obama administration has embraced the program, ordering a sharp increase in strikes against suspected terrorists in Pakistan in recent months. Dr Pillay’s intervention comes at a particularly fraught time for relations between Washington and Islamabad.
The Pakistani government has stepped up its denunciations, even calling in a top US diplomat for a dressing-down on Tuesday.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, meanwhile, said Washington was running out of patience over insurgent bases along Pakistan’s border.
Despite suspicions that the Pakistan government welcomes the killing of many dangerous militants, officially it has demanded an end to all US strikes. The US government and human rights organisations disagree on how many civilians are killed or hurt by drones.
Dr Pillay said it was vital all civilian casualties were investigated and compensated.
But Pakistan may be reluctant to take up her suggestion of inviting an inquiry by a special rapporteur. Dr Pillay said such an official would investigate not just drones but also ”the spate of killings” by militants, criminals and state military intelligence agencies.
In a visit to Kabul, Mr Panetta said it was difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan ”as long as there is safe haven for terrorists” in Pakistan, singling out the Haqqani network. This is allied to the Taliban and believed to enjoy Pakistani intelligence support.
”We are reaching the limits of our patience here,” he said. ”For that reason it is extremely important that Pakistan take action to prevent this kind of safe haven from taking place and allowing terrorists to use their country as a safety net in order to conduct their attacks on our forces.
”We have made that very clear time and time again and we will continue to do that.”
Mr Panetta said Haqqani fighters had been seen leaving to attack US forces as recently as June 1, when they detonated a truck bomb and then tried to storm Forward Operating Base Salerno in Afghanistan’s Khost province.
The attack was repelled and 14 militants were killed.
Mr Panetta arrived in Afghanistan after a day of violence in which 21 people were killed by Taliban suicide attacks on a bazaar in the southern city of Kandahar, and 18 died in a NATO air strike on a house in eastern Logar province, where members of a wedding party were staying, Afghan officials said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai cut short a trip to China and issued a statement saying: ”NATO operations that inflict human and material losses to civilians can in no way be justifiable, acceptable and tolerable.”
NATO has said it is looking into reports of civilian deaths. It confirmed that an air strike had been called in during a raid to detain a Taliban commander, but originally said some fighters had been killed and only two women had been wounded.
Villagers displayed the bodies of five women, seven children and six men at the provincial capital after the strike.
■ A bomb yesterday tore through a bus carrying government employees and other civilians near the city of Peshawar in north-western Pakistan, killing 18 people and wounding 35.
US FUNDS THE TALIBAN????
One of the most important issues today is the war in Afghanistan-Pakistan and the fact that US
Military Aid to Pakistan is being used to fund the Pakistani ISI which is in turn funding Taliban
and Al Quada fighters. While this has been reported sporadically in the media for whatever
reason political pundits on the left and right have effectively ignored this issue.
Joe Klein in an article for Time, August 9, 2010, p. 19, has written an article that every American
citizen should go to their library and read, he writes,
“The commanders are unanimous in their belief that the ISI is running the show….And so,
despite professions of alliance with the US by Pakistan’s then dictator Pervez Musharraf, a
decision was made to keep the Taliban alive. A spigot of untargeted military aid from the George
W. Bush Administration helped fund the effort. A commander of the vicious Haqqani Taliban
network tells Waldman that their funding comes from ‘the Americans–from them to the
Pakistani military, and then to us.’ Waldman reports that the commander receives from the
Pakistanis ‘a reward for killing foreign soldiers, usually $4000 to $5000 for each soldier killed’”.
American tax dollars if not directly, then indirectly are being used to fund the Taliban and put
a bounty on American boys and girls head… Makes one wonder why the establishment right
or left is not reporting on this? If the right is covering for
the mistakes of the Bush administration…why is the establishment left not reporting on this???
…this is the most important issue of the day…we will never win a war where if not directly then
indirectly the US is funding the opposition!!!!
woody voinche
The US regularly funds all sides of conflicts. That’s where all the profit arises. This is a military govt. and it is completely out of control.
Propaganda has convinced people like mespo that killing civilians up to an including the advocacy of genocide is not only a rational response to terrorism but a just one.
This is why I keep harping on a very deep examination of who we are as a people. We have allowed torture and murder to become routine acts of this govt. We have allowed the complete breakdown of the rule of law. This could not have happened without the willing consent of the people. First it was the Republicans of gave consent under Bush. Now it is Democrats who will give consent under Obama. That consent is wrong. It must end.
I don’t hold out much hope for a citizen movement against a military govt., one that has been so successful in tricking the people of our nation into supporting horrific acts, misery and lawlessness. But we must try. Intellectual and moral integrity calls each of us to oppose injustice and throw off the lies we have been fed.
Whichever leg I stand on it will be cut off. No matter.
Do any of you think that anything you say, or anything you do has any effect on the course of events?
GeneH, I love your differentiation between mild perjorative intro phrase which has support in facts (sort of) is OK, while a kick in the balls is not. Interesting to see you do that. His points as always are ignored.
And don’t bore me by saying I’m coming to play behind MM’s shielding figure. I admire your brains, it is the way you use them that disturbs me. Won’t be specific for that has always proven meaningless. And don’t bother getting aroused. I’m just saying.
BTW, thanks again for the passive-aggressive label. It is finally sinking in. And I think I found a reason and therefore a cure. Now if you could find one for
feeling of erternal superiority.
Mike A:
I’ve always liked that little segment of American history. Thought I ‘d see what you had to say about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading most of the posts here; particularly those wherein reason stood its ground and refused to surrender to the cheap sophistry of those who pose as high minded patriots but actually have no respect for the constitution, freedom or rule of law and believe only in total control.
‘Mesposers’ if you will.
Perhaps if people like Mespo refrained from and apologized for intentionally misrepresenting someone’s argument and thence attacking it as if the opponent had made it himself the world would be just that much more civil. Until then, as this thread suggests, the beatings shall continue…
Bron,
Loved your quip regarding a certain lack of integrity.
anonymously:
“And in the process, you’re creating god-only-knows how many others with a vehement hatred of anything and everything American.”
**********************
Yep, they really loved us before 9/11 and their love will only increase if we stand down. Let’s move out of the Middle East altogether and withdraw support for Israel, too. That should make ‘em love us even more. Maybe we can bring all our troops home and become just another third rate power watching as a tide of Muslim fundamentalism runs rough-shod over the region with the express goal of denying us petroleum and wrecking our economy. That was Jimmy Carter foreign policy in Iran and we see how good that worked.
Why are you so afraid of these people that you would capitulate to their every tactical goal. You’d do well to recognize the wisdom of Machiavelli that if you can’t be loved you’d best be feared, and that you must deal a decisive blow to your enemy lest he be strong enough to retaliate. Pretty? No. Truth? Yes.
You don’t see an enemy when there is one.
I suppose then you are from the “I’ll destroy the village to save it” camp of American patriotism. -mespo727272 to this writer
Nope.
Bob, Esq:
Anyone can read what you said. They can decide if it you or me crying wolf. No need for an apology since there is no deception possible.
Bron:
I think Jefferson would likely agree the soft drink ordinance is an overreach. I wonder about his position though if he were confronted with the modern world and our interdependent society that was much different from his own. As for Locke, I’m in lock-step with that.
Bob,Esq.
Bron never mentioned the word “integrity.” That was Jill. Do you read Kant this way, too?
This damn system gripes me. Two carriage returns (savvy that?) gets it posted. Not meant at all. sheesh.
Now both Mespo and OS are “kill the bastards, they are our enemies, the government says so”. Sounds like mild RWA to me, including the “victim is as fault”. Especially the bit about association that OS stank up the arena with.
Never an answer as to what proof is offered against waki-kaki as to his guilt, what he supports for ideas as to
attacks on innocent Americans, etc. Do you also believe that the CIA can produce such good intelligence.
Mespo may be a nice guy, usually cheer him on, but here I can’t support him. My ass and all our asses are on the line now subject to Obama’s judgement. Just as laki-kaki was. Some others than I also feel insecure about O’s new imperial powers.
And, BTW, re juridiction- the treaty standpoint and thus the official one of the USA is that everything where we control is subject to our laws and judgments. And please advise what constitutional protections am I not accorded by my NOT residing in the USA itself?
You guys are all damn intelligent. Ain’t fun to see the fever of a fight get you to bring out such crap, in terms of reasoning, facts, argumentation, etc.
As for MM, I won’t review him, other than to say that he waves the “war is hell and peace is good”-flag He says he supports his land, and has a discharge to prove it. To then call him an “ex-pat=deserter” and other crap of that kind to counter his arguments seems a prima facie waste of time in terms of lasting value.
And do you guys never get tired of our government and the system? Many times. So what’s wrong with the facts as he sees them as to our endless feeding of the MIC with our bodies, dollars and foreign bodies? Foreign bodies that frankly I don’t think one person here cares a damn about.
Met an Ethiopian, an Eritrean family, polish tourists, an Iraqi (sunni) who came in 2008, and a few others. All of them smiled when they heard I was American. Guess none of them were terrorists.
And my Afghanistan helper was just here practicing her English before her oral exams. Americans, some of them, seem fully convinced that the Michaevellian statesmanship is the ultimiate answer, ie the one we are practicing now.
I don’t agree.
Hope this made some sense.
anonymously:
Ok, I ‘ll put you down for the “Let the village be overrun by her enemies because I lover it” school.
idealist:
“And please advise what constitutional protections am I not accorded by my NOT residing in the USA itself?”
************************
You criticize religion in Europe and the First Amendment will not be bandied about to protect you. You’re accused of theft in Cairo. The Fourth Amendment will not be honored by the Egyptian police. The document pertains to the geography it covers.
Mesposer: “Traitors give up citizenship by their act of treason.”
Mesposer: “Traitors, as you know give up citizenship, by their actions. I feel these people regardless of their place of birth, hell-bent on our destruction by their own manifest words and deeds, are entitled to no due process.”
There you go again Mark, substituting your ‘feelings’ for the rule of law.
Article III Sec. 3: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.”
18 U.S.C. § 2381: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
Gee Mark, doesn’t look like there’s anything in the Constitution or the U.S. Code that says your ‘feelings’ about alleged traitors shall substitute for the requirement of due process. In fact the Constitution is quite clear on the requirement of a conviction of treason, through due process of law analytically, before any punishment is meted out.
How do you ‘feel’ about that Mark?
Mark,
Assumed you meant the USA government’s duty to observe the constitution with regard to me. Have no reason to believe that any foreign nation considers our constitution or laws in their handling of their justice systems. And the USA does often exert its pressures on behalf of American citizens in many lands including Egypt, ex. NGO’s recently.
Now all of a sudden, the executive branch has taken upon itself
the rights of the judicial one. How do you like that? And what comes next do you believe?
Ad hominem or a concise summary of someone’s pattern of thinking?
Bob, Esq. 1, June 5, 2012 at 9:26 am
Gene,
When I make a comment like “people like Mespo would have you believe that the state has the power to make ANY law simply because of an expressed good intention” it’s only because I’ve witnessed it first hand in my arguments with him.
The man has absolutely no regard for the doctrine of specifically enumerated powers and bases his arguments for the exercise of power not granted by the constitution solely on his intentions of the end justifying the means. He’ll have you believe that the survival of the nation is perpetually in question and will quote you Lincoln in the context of the Civil War to justify dismantling the constitution to achieve his aims.
Look at his arguments regarding the executive’s overreaching of power in the name of a war on “terror.” Look at the way he juices his rhetoric with fear and the remembrance of fear, i.e. invoking 9/11, as justification for decimating civil liberties. About the only thing missing from his arguments is the “Smoking Gun/In The Form of a Mushroom Cloud” metaphor used by the Bush Administration to defraud the country into war.
…
In his unfettered support of policies that attack our civil liberties, Mark has consistently demonstrated that he does not believe in freedom or the rule of law. He believes first and foremost in assuaging his own anxieties and insecurities; he believes in total control.
Feel it would be cool if JT would post the following prominently in the heading:
Notice to all persons.
The statements you make will be recorded and can and will be used against you ………..!
“You criticize religion in Europe and the First Amendment will not be bandied about to protect you. You’re accused of theft in Cairo. The Fourth Amendment will not be honored by the Egyptian police. The document pertains to the geography it covers.”
You mean like the President of the US? And congress? And citizens of the US? And soldiers of the US? Assuming you meant geography and people, of course.
As to the rest of your arguments? Dear lord, how does one argue with non sequiturs? We can’t make moral arguments. You have no morals. We can’t make logical arguments- you misconstrue and twist till you’ve pidgeonholed every comment into your own preconceptions. We can’t make legal arguments- apparently your knowledge of constitutional law and historical precedent is an embarrassment even by my standards (and I don’t even start law school till next year). We can’t make effectiveness arguments, using your own precious pragmatism, because, um, pragmatism is essentially based on logic, see argument two.
J. Turley: (Paraphrased) “Attacking people with drones in an allied country and killing their civilians is bad.”
Mespo: Purple sailplanes eat red and purple lasers.
“Why are you so afraid of these people that you would capitulate to their every tactical goal. You’d do well to recognize the wisdom of Machiavelli that if you can’t be loved you’d best be feared, and that you must deal a decisive blow to your enemy lest he be strong enough to retaliate. Pretty? No. Truth? Yes.” -mespo727272
“Afraid of these people?” Surely you jest. A case of projection, perhaps.
“You don’t see an enemy when there is one.” -mespo727272
You have no idea what I see. Let’s just put it this way. We have plenty to worry about right here in the US of A, if you want to get into treasonous activities. Fact.
But here’s what I seem to know about you. You’re a guy who forges ahead without having and/or knowing the facts. A case in point? About the killing al-Awlaki’s son you wrote:
“His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip. Who is then the greater “devil”? The nation who protected itself from a traitor who had the express and avowed purpose of destroying it and whose son got caught in the crossfire, or the father who put him there as a shield and probably insured his demise. These radical folks have no compunction about sacrificing their children. And you, it seems, have no compunction about falling for their propaganda ploys.”
So again, you’re a guy who, with anger and arrogance, forges ahead, without first getting the full picture. You’re prone to knee-jerk reactions rather than wise, careful decisions which, in my book, makes you dangerous, foolish or, both.
“Gee Mark, doesn’t look like there’s anything in the Constitution or the U.S. Code that says your ‘feelings’ about alleged traitors shall substitute for the requirement of due process. In fact the Constitution is quite clear on the requirement of a conviction of treason, through due process of law analytically, before any punishment is meted out.”
***************************
Well, Bob you missed 8 USC Sec. 1481 which specifically addresses the issue and does provide for stripping citizenship upon conviction for treason. So it seems there must be some due process. Thanks for letting me do the research for you.
Still, I have no compunction about taking out people, even the native born, who have as their express and very public purpose the killing of innocent Americans and who placed themselves beyond the reach of US law enforcement even as they direct the operations of our enemy. He’s an enemy as sure as if he aimed a gun at one of our service people across sand dune. In fact, he called for the death of them along with women and children.
You want to shed tears for him go ahead. You’ll get none from me or the American people judging by the polls:
http://today.yougov.com/news/2011/10/07/killing-al-awlaki-raises-obamas-approval-terrorism/
anonymously:
Maybe I’ll argue like you and never concede any factual error. The point was that fact was not relevant to the discussion about whether taking out the radical cleric was appropriate.
mespo727272
1, June 8, 2012 at 11:52 am
anonymously:
Ok, I ‘ll put you down for the “Let the village be overrun by her enemies because I lover it” school.
==========
Sure, be my guest — it won’t make it true.
The point was that fact was not relevant to the discussion about whether taking out the radical cleric was appropriate. -mespo727272
Ah, that might have been your point, but I was drawing attention to the fact that a 16-year-old American was killed by one of our drone strikes. You seem to think that you draw the lines here — that anyone who veers a bit outside the confines of your neatly, albeit falsely, constructed “reality” is making irrelevant points. If you don’t see the relevance of my posts, then feel free to ignore them. I really don’t care.
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/08/media_drones_and_rank_propaganda/singleton/ FRIDAY, JUN 8, 2012 10:34 AM EDT
Media, drones and rank propaganda by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.aclu.org/human-rights-national-security/un-expert-calls-us-halt-cia-targeted-killings
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/predator-drone-foia
Mespo said:
““His father who put him in harm’s way was targeted and Anwar al-Awlaki knew he was being targeted when he took his child on that trip.”
Does that remind you of anything you’ve heard in the last year or so, Mespo?
Like the dialogue between two crew members in the helicopter who shot and injured the daughters of the Iraqi man who tried to rescue a man wounded by this helicopter—after they killed all the other civilians.
This whole mission and the decision to take them out was based on completely false observations made in broad daylight, from a helicopter hovering overhead.
How you can mistake a 35mm camera for a AK-47 is beyond belief. And the smartass who said that did it instantly, not even saying “He has something in his hand. See it. What do you make of it?” No he was the asshole back behind his game console at home beating his buddies at being quickest and best. Where the EFF is respect for life.
A couple of weeks digging graves and gathering mutilated bodies might change the attitude, but don’t really think so.
After catching sight of the daughters after firing at them, the comment was: “Serves him right for taking his kids with him.” He was a EFFing passerby taking them to see their grandma perhaps. But for those in the helicopter, the whole coúntry was populated by probable secret combatants.
And that is how we see any area in the world which wants to have a govennment change, avoid American intervention, American subversion of their economy, government, education system, culture, you name it. America fights it. With whatever is most economical at times, and most often with the most profit making method for our MIC.
But you got partriot Act up your rear, and can’t tolerate that anybody might in your mind say something thát might be construed as to meaning that some patriots were dishonored by their own government. One of whom was your father. I believe you have written about it here on this blawg. You don’t need to defend him by playing the Pentagon spin doctor. Now do you?
Don’t get things mixed up. It sure screws up the head. I know, I can so testify from own experience.
Mespo,
Skip the last, got you mixed up with someone else.
But Pentagon spin doctor, or a repeater of their spin is what you are by what you say. I want aay argue, because you don’t argue. You vituperate, denigrate, mistate….you name it.
I absolutely don’t get it. Here is a blog whose primary purpose (at least the most interesting bits) is to show (and ridicule) justice failing in our country. And I suddenly find several of the leading (and very smart) commenters are throwing around, or standing by, arguments about “traitors” and “I’ll put you down for wanting to destroy our country”. Sort of like an acceptance of a worldwide Stand Your Ground law.
I have got to start paying closer attention.
Mesposer: “Well, Bob you missed 8 USC Sec. 1481 which specifically addresses the issue and does provide for stripping citizenship upon conviction for treason. So it seems there must be some due process. Thanks for letting me do the research for you.”
There you go again Mark; intentionally misrepresenting my argument.
Does 8 USC 1481 provide that
Mepsoser: “Traitors give up citizenship by their act of treason.”
or
Mesposer: “Traitors, as you know give up citizenship, by their actions. I feel these people regardless of their place of birth, hell-bent on our destruction by their own manifest words and deeds, are entitled to no due process.”
No it doesn’t. It specifically states “if and when he is convicted thereof by a court martial or by a court of competent jurisdiction.”
See that Mark? Ya can’t kill people you ‘feel’ aren’t entitled to due process because your feelings are no substitute for the law.
Yet another example of you demonstrating that you have no respect for the rule of law and that you believe first and foremost in assuaging your own anxieties and insecurities through tyrannical control.
CLH,
Mespo is a squirmy little bastard; isn’t he?
Loved the clarity of reasoning in your posts. Keep up the good work; and the good fight.
anonymously 1, June 7, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Military Suicide Rate Surges To Nearly One Per Day This Year
…
===================================
It is actually 18 per day, 6,570 per year, according to Admiral Mullen.
Dredd,
So Huff Post understated the count and I posted it, without checking the numbers. Thanks for the correction.
18 per day. (And how many homeless, how many with PTSD? Any resulting homicides?)
According to “Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press.” (from the above Huff Post link)
WASHINGTON — Suicides are surging among America’s troops, averaging nearly one a day this year – the fastest pace in the nation’s decade of war.
The 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan – about 50 percent more – according to Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press.
According to Mike Mullen, it is actually 18 per day, 6,570 per year. (Dredd’s source)
———
Which count is correct? Or is the true count somewhere in between.
CLH,
You are at the head of your class and you have not started yet.
Dredd,
I guess you are factoring in ALL vets, including non-active and retired, OR?????
Well, as to KIAs. are they less than DUI deaths, friendly fire, malfunction of equipment, plain fuckups, etc.?
How many drone ops did we lose due to falling out of their chairs due to LOL? Or op centers due to some f**k pushing the HOME button when he fell asleep watching the screen.
“I thought they had promised to set a cover on that one.”
Anybody know. And who asked Mullen, and why did he answer?
Answer the last one especially. There’s an erection going on, and that “mistake” was meaningful. They are erecting the gallows for the Kenyan-American. And the last shreds of pop power.
Go for it guys, is the cry.
Curious,
Curious you ask. And curious it is, and might get more so.
My guess? The rats are defecting the sinking ship. The
Kochs won the war without declaring it
The damn double CR does it again=post.
Just wanted to add:
The smartest rats leave first. Logical and natural.
Bob,Esq.:
Mespo is a squirmy little bastard; isn’t he?
***********************
Nope, no ad hominem from you. Just good ol’ rational argument. Like I said full to the brim.
By the way I didn’t misrepresent your argument. I researched it, corrected it, and presented it better than you did since you missed the applicable code section. I then corrrected myself. Something you are loathe to do.
Get over yourself, Bob, Esq. That ego must be hard to carry around all day, especially with that full venom sac.
anonymously:
“Ah, that might have been your point, but I was drawing attention to the fact that a 16-year-old American was killed by one of our drone strikes.”
******************
Don’t blame you for changing the subject. Who would want to defend Anwar al-Awlaki? The death of his son appears to be an accident unless evidence to the contrary arises — which it hasn’t.
By the way, I’m always wondering why you assume our motivations are evil and theirs are pure? I’d be happy to compare track records with them.
CLH:
I wish you well in law school. It should be illuminating for you — very illuminating.
Curious:
“I absolutely don’t get it. Here is a blog whose primary purpose (at least the most interesting bits) is to show (and ridicule) justice failing in our country.”
********************
I don’t think we’re a funeral dirge around here. I think we’re here to present and defend opposing points of view. If you want affirmation instead of information you can go anywhere on the blogosphere and get that. We have a spirited debate here with a little acrimony to keep it from being too esoteric or boring. It’s fun unless you take it as an affront to your ego — which I don’t. Most folks here are smart and can present themselves well (you too, Bob, Esq.) and they do.
This blog is designed to make you challenge your pre-conceived notions and it does. Nothing wrong with that. More people should do it. I agree with Emerson:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
The debate is the thing. Not just reaffriming what you and everyone around you believes.
mespo,
“My point is limited to ‘states’ who will do nothing to stop terrorists.”
There is a difference between “nothing” and “what is required” and “something”.
Consider again the Mexico/Arizona example. Sure, we give Mexico money and resources to fight the “war on drugs” and none of that mitigates that all the while the ridiculous prohibition bolstered profits of the drug trade are fueling an actual para-military threat to the legitimate government of Mexico. Despite numerous pleas to cut off the money to the drug cartels by simply changing our polices (which would result in a cuts to LE budgets and a loss of profits to the private prison industry not so coincidentally enough), the non-action of America to address the root of a problem that is a threat to another country’s sovereignty by a group of criminals could equally be defined as “doing nothing” as we are doing nothing of substantive value to address a nominative allies problem – kind of like allowing for use of airspace but not aiding in the capture of a criminal known (either through intelligence or materials support) to be in the mountainous border regions of a country who shall remain nameless. If that is the criteria, the case for Mexican drone strikes can be made as both justified and rational. We are not doing what is required by an ally to address the root of the problem which is the functional equivalent of doing nothing even if it has the window dressings of doing something. Your actual
mileageperception of doing something versus actually doing something may vary, but the analogy is pretty straight forward.And so I again say to you, ask yourself what would happen Mexico violated our sovereignty by launching drone attacks into Arizona?
Sovereignty and the right to self-determination lie at the foundation of international law and diplomacy.
Playing fast and loose with it because a nominal ally isn’t getting us the precise result we need is counterproductive.
anonymously 1, June 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Dredd,
So Huff Post understated the count and I posted it, without checking the numbers. Thanks for the correction.
18 per day. (And how many homeless, how many with PTSD? Any resulting homicides?)
————————————————-
idealist707 1, June 8, 2012 at 3:14 pm
…
Dredd,
I guess you are factoring in ALL vets, including non-active and retired, OR?????
=============================================
I was quoting Admiral Mullen, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Here is another quote and another link, so you don’t have to watch the video:
(Washington Post). This is a Pogo moment: “we have met the enemy and it is us.”
The song “when the truth is found to be lies … you better find somebody to love” by Jefferson Airplane comes to mind.
Mespo,
I share your declared intention, but not your conclusions.
you said:
The debate is the thing. Not just reaffriming what you and everyone around you believes”
And I who thought all your ass-k*****g (collective your) had the opposite goal. Hmmm.
It is definitely not like my evening class was at Pasadena College:
“We are not here to ask questions and debate, we are here to learn.”
Could not be combined apparently. You and I think it can.
But how shit casting aids debate and ev learnigg escapes me. And acrimony to use your word.
Of course I am perfect as all know, who has an eye in his head. Eller hur, mina herrar?
Good night all. Even goblins must sleep.
Gene & mespo, check your email.
GeneH.
Saw your post and since it was a golden opportunity, I reappear:
Your question to Mespo, housed in your beautifully simple analogies is great´, just great.
But, and here comes the but…..is it relevant to pose such a question when our USA has simply said: “To hell with sovereignity, se don’t NEED to play by those rules anymore.”
I can’t see tha facts with my eyes) and not conclude that such a decision was not made a long time ago.
If you concur, any ideas on when the decision was made?
OS,
Out rounding up the posse, are you?
Don’t you know the villain always escapes. Otherwise what would all the white hats have to keep themselves occupied?
You did seem in an irritable mood today. Making your
demonstrative exit is new to my eyes.
But you’ve got all the slack the blawg allows, and hope you will permit me the same.
Unattained hopes save no man. I said that, and sll else under my avatar.
Mesposer: “By the way I didn’t misrepresent your argument. I researched it, corrected it, and presented it better than you did since you missed the applicable code section. I then corrrected myself. Something you are loathe to do.”
I missed the applicable code section? I see; so tell me, how does 8 USC 1481 materially prove or disprove the following assertions?
Mesposer: “Traitors give up citizenship by their act of treason.”
Mesposer: “Traitors, as you know give up citizenship, by their actions. I feel these people regardless of their place of birth, hell-bent on our destruction by their own manifest words and deeds, are entitled to no due process.”
To which I argued
Me: “There you go again Mark, substituting your ‘feelings’ for the rule of law.
Gee Mark, doesn’t look like there’s anything in the Constitution or the U.S. Code that says your ‘feelings’ about alleged traitors shall substitute for the requirement of due process. In fact the Constitution is quite clear on the requirement of a conviction of treason, through due process of law analytically, before any punishment is meted out.”
How does 8 USC 1481 become “the applicable section” in an argument that says you can’t kill people you’ve simply accused of treason, sans conviction through due process of law, simply because you ‘feel’ like it.
You didn’t correct my argument, you intentionally obfuscated and misrepresented it in a feeble attempt to escape in a puff of sophistry.
I707, we are all friends here and occasionally have something to tell each other that is not blog related. Turn off your antennae.
Concerning veteran suicides, 12,000 a year attempt suicide. An average of 18 per day succeed. American veterans kill more of themselves each year than all enemies combined kill over the last ten years.
A 9th Circuit panel had said:
Common Sense v Shinseki, 644 F.3d 845 (9th Cir. 2011). The majority of the panel held for Common Cause, Judge Bybee dissented.
The en banc 9th Circuit Court reversed the panel, saying the exclusive remedy was administrative appeal, or to the Federal Circuit, and awarded costs to the defendant VA.
“The debate” may indeed be the thing.
But the underlying reality is more important, especially when we’re talking about killing people.
I really don’t see much challenging “pre-conceived notions” going on. I see intellectual gloss on visceral positions.
I don’t take winning debating points as the end; I see it as a cop out. One cannot easily honestly and easily join debating points with “I care” in the same breath.
test
Gene H:
“And so I again say to you, ask yourself what would happen Mexico violated our sovereignty by launching drone attacks into Arizona?”
*************************
Obviously, Mexico could conclude that we aren’t doing enough but given the billions we have spent and spend on the drug war that would be a hard argument to make. But lets say the unlikely becomes true and they did do it.Once they decided to violate US airspace I dare say we would shoot those drones down precisely because we can. Besides the right to pursue these criminals, they need the means. They don’t have the means. I doubt they would run the risk of inflaming a friendly neighbor but if they did, they would suffer the consequences.
All that said, it proves nothing. I have already said I believe the world of foreign affairs is amoral. It’s based on providing safety and security and to some extent the most powerful nation wins. Imposing our values on persons and nations who don’t share them is foolhardy. Welcome to reality.
For sure there is no threat of terrorism against the US behind these drone bombings. Pakistan has cut off our supply routes and taken away one of the important drone bases we were using. At the NATO summit in Chicago the Pakistani president was pressured to give the US those things back. He did not.
Basically we have a war crime. The US govt. is using collective punishment to get what it has no right to have. The drones will continue until we have what we want. This should deeply offend the people of our nation.
G. Greenwald is also writing about an increasing amount of what I will call, “drone porn” put out by the MSM. You have to ask, why and why now? Yes, Obama followers appear to love a violent president, the more violent, the more reason to vote for him. However, I do not believe it is the only reason we are being subjected to drone porn. What is the govt. doing? In addition to making Obama supporters love him more because he is a violent and brutal man they are sending other messages. Our nation is in great danger. So are others in the world. Peacefully resist.
.Bob,Esq:
“See that Mark? Ya can’t kill people you ‘feel’ aren’t entitled to due process because your feelings are no substitute for the law.
Yet another example of you demonstrating that you have no respect for the rule of law and that you believe first and foremost in assuaging your own anxieties and insecurities through tyrannical control.”
**************************
Well, Bob, Esq, something is askew here. Congress approved the use of military force against Al Qaeda. The President ordered the death of our radical Al-Quaeda Iman under a claim of law. It was approved by the National Security Council as an American citizen was involved. The mission was carried out under color of law. The traitor is dead and there is no hue and cry except for a few that the act was illegal. The American people support the action. We are obviously safer and no prosecutorial organization — international, domestic, or combined — has said anything except “good work” in killing a terrorist.
What you forget is that International law allows the killing of a person who poses an imminent threat to a country. On the topic, Judge Abraham Sofaer wrote:
When people call a targeted killing an “assassination,” they are attempting to preclude debate on the merits of the action. Assassination is widely defined as murder, and is for that reason prohibited in the United States…. U.S. officials may not kill people merely because their policies are seen as detrimental to our interests…. But killings in self-defense are no more “assassinations” in international affairs than they are murders when undertaken by our police forces against domestic killers. Targeted killings in self-defense have been authoritatively determined by the federal government to fall outside the assassination prohibition.
Seems a federal judge agrees with my “feelings” that killing this guy is no different that killing a domestic criminal with a gun pressed to your child’s temple.
will:
“But the underlying reality is more important, especially when we’re talking about killing people.”
*********************
What I see is the reality that you are unwilling to accept any argument other than your simple one that “killing is bad; letting live is good.” As I pointed out above, let’s see how it plays out in the scenario where a killer is holding a gun to your child’s temple and you have the means to end his life before he makes the fatal trigger pull. How’s that for a visceral “I care”? Wanna’ give us an intellectual gloss here?
We all know the answer, but let’s see how it plays out in your world of perfect morals.
Jill:
“Basically we have a war crime. The US govt. is using collective punishment to get what it has no right to have. The drones will continue until we have what we want. This should deeply offend the people of our nation.”
*******************************
Tell us what “war crime” has been committed?
Mespo,
I have been following you fairly well and see your point of view until the comment to Jill…..
“All that said, it proves nothing. I have already said I believe the world of foreign affairs is amoral. It’s based on providing safety and security and to some extent the most powerful nation wins. Imposing our values on persons and nations who don’t share them is foolhardy. Welcome to reality.”
A belief that international affairs is inherently amoral? Does not justify not having any in how you conduct your international affairs other than “might makes right”. To conduct international diplomacy in this way is not only counterproductive to the very idea of diplomacy, it certainly makes the effort of “brining American democracy” to the world a hypocritical if not moot point. It makes as much sense as violating the Bill of Rights to prove the value of the Bill of Rights. The merits of the case – be that for cooperation or adoption of foreign values – should stand or fail on the merits of the argument, not the “I can kick your ass card”. And if necessity is the trigger, then a threat to your national sovereignty like the drug cartels present to South and Central America is actually a really strong argument for unilateral action on their part should they have the means. I’m not saying that the “I can kick your ass” card doesn’t exist or even that it should never be played, but to mix metaphors here, when all you have is a hammer, the world starts to look like nails. Remember, in the end it wasn’t a Reaper that took out Bin Laden. It was people acting on actionable human gathered intelligence, not some RC pilot operating off of what may or may not be valid signal intelligence.
AY:
I was trying to find out the particulars of her charge. I’m not sure what war crime she means.
Gene H:
I meant that in international affairs using your sense of morality hinders your response. Hobbes had it right that nations interact with one another from an egocentric perspective. As Professor Mary Midley says of Hobbes,” All our passions, he said, may be “reduced to the desire for Power” – essentially, the power to protect ourselves. Thus all morality – not just its political aspect but the whole of it – is valid only so far as it serves this ruling purpose. If, for instance, you ask about virtue, he tells you “Force and Fraud are in War the two cardinal Virtues” – “Honour consisteth only in Opinion of Power”, and “The Value or Worth of a man is, as of all other things, his Price, namely as much as would be given for the Use of his Power”.
Hobbes also explained the value of the State. Again Professor Midley on Hobbes: “The state exists only as a means of self-preservation for its citizens. What justifies its authority is (he said) simply the social contract, a tacit agreement by all members to obey government in return for the protection of their own lives.”
To that extent, it is an amoral world. I have said until I’m blue that self-preservation is the fundamental goal of all international affairs. It is the basic law that trumps the rest. We can argue about the best way to achieve it, but we can’t really argue about it’s utility. To a large extent might does make right in the international sphere and we have eons of history to prove it. If not, why spend all these trillions on defense? Are we so naive to believe that moral suasion would protect our interests if we had the military capabilities of Sweden?
Gene H:
In international affairs, I am an advocate of the classical realism school. I was looking for something to explain the basics for folks here that hear what I say and gasp as though it’s new. Actually, it harkens back to Aristotle,Cicero, Thucydides, Hobbes, and Machiavelli. Here’s a short primer:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/polreal/
As U.S. Escalates Pakistan Drone Strikes, Expansive “Kill List” Stirs Fears of Worse Civilian Toll
Democracy Now
June 4, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/5/as_us_escalates_pakistan_drone_strikes
GUEST:
Chris Woods, award-winning reporter with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. He leads the Bureau’s drones investigation team.
Excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN: Appearing on MSNBC over the weekend, Democracy Now! correspondent, The Nation’s national security correspondent, Jeremy Scahill, caused a stir when he said drone strikes that kill innocent civilians amount “murder.” This is where Jeremy explains why. Another guest, Colonel Jack Jacobs, briefly interrupts him.
JEREMY SCAHILL: If someone goes into a shopping mall in pursuit of one of their enemies and opens fire on a crowd of people and guns down a bunch of innocent people in a shopping mall, they’ve murdered those people. When the Obama administration sets a policy where patterns of life are enough of a green light to drop missiles on people or to use—you know, to send in AC-130s to spray them down—
COL. JACK JACOBS: But that wasn’t the case here. You’re talking about a targeted person here.
JEREMY SCAHILL: No, no, no, no, no. That’s not—if you go to the village of al-Majalah in Yemen, where I was, and you see the unexploded cluster bombs, and you have the list and photographic evidence, as I do, of the women and children that represented the vast majority of the deaths in this first strike that Obama authorized on Yemen, those people were murdered by President Obama, on his orders, because there was believed to be someone from al-Qaeda in that area. There’s only one person that’s been identified that had any connection to al-Qaeda there, and 21 women and 14 children were killed in that strike. And the U.S. tried to cover it up and say it was a Yemeni strike. And we know from the WikiLeaks cables that David Petraeus conspired with the president of Yemen to lie to the world about who did that bombing. It’s murder, when you—it’s mass murder, when you say, “We are going to bomb this area because we believe a terrorist is there,” and you know that women and children are in the area. The United States has an obligation to not bomb that area if they believe that women and children are there. That—I’m sorry, that’s murder.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Jeremy Scahill on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes. Chris Woods, your response? Would you call it murder?
CHRIS WOODS: I think Jeremy’s strong words indicate a really—a rising concern, particularly about these signature strikes being carried out by the CIA and the Pentagon in Somalia, in Yemen and in Pakistan. And it’s not just Jeremy who’s speaking out about this. We’ve had Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, who introduced drone strikes; Robert Grenier, former head of the Counterterrorism Center at CIA when the drone strikes began; and Dennis Blair, who is the former director of national intelligence for the United States. All three of these very central characters have all made strong noises in the last few weeks, saying, “We are concerned about this policy. We’re worried that it’s getting out of control. We’re worried that it’s not achieving what it’s supposed to be doing and may actually be making matters worse.”
And I think the Washington Post, just last week, very powerful article built on investigations on the ground by their African editor showing that drone strikes in Yemen are actually leading to an increase in support of al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, everybody at the White House and the CIA seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet here. There is no voice of criticism that we’re aware of challenging this narrative that’s driving events in Washington. And the concern is that this is pushing America into a position that is going to make its efforts to fight terrorism worse rather than better.
“And the concern is that this is pushing America into a position that is going to make its efforts to fight terrorism worse rather than better.” — Elaine M.
Well, you know, turning this freighter around, whether in the drone policy realm, foreign affairs realm, or the economic policy realm, or the marijuana legalization realm, etc., etc., just ain’t in the cards. Doesn’t really matter what’s morally productive though, does it? It’s just, debate all you want, but in the end getting on board with realism, and support the team.
DonS,
I didn’t write the sentence you quoted. Chris Woods made that statement in his interview with Amy Goodman for Democracy Now.
Elaine,
I hope I am not on that list!
mespo,
Although I am appreciative of your educational guide for those in need of guidance, I personally understand the origins and variation on political realism. That is why I echoed Mike A’s statement about Machiavelli and said what I said about the “I can kick your ass card”. I understand that mutual protection is an underpinning of the social compact as well. However, it is an action – and you’ve stipulated as such – that should be taken as a last resort. That being said, the current drone policy is not one of last resort, but first resort. The core of my contention is that by ignoring the more aspirational ethical goals of diplomacy in favor of a tactic that by its very nature is a violation of sovereignty and invites escalation, it is in cases such as Pakistan (and their attendant nuclear capacities) unacceptably risky brinkmanship and overall bad tactics. The benefits don’t match the risks or the overall cost to our already severely damaged international image. Morality doesn’t have to hinder your responses but it should inform your course of best action. This current strategy is far from an optimal outcome and I think it shows the laziness and hazards of relying too heavily on the fall back position of might as right over what may be a more labor intensive and lengthy solution that serves both our ends and mending the PR damage done by Bush’s illegal invasion for oil profits.
Of course, we haven’t been helped in our ability to find diplomatically optimal solutions by the mass exodus of career diplomats from the State Department on Bush II’s watch or the appointment of that nitwit Panetta as Sec Def. I have a broad group of people I discuss political matters in addition to the Prof’s salon. To a one, none were please that Panetta was appoint to that position no matter their personal partisan (or lack thereof) leanings. To me, he’s just a prime example of the Peter Principle in Washington. He should be teaching (poorly) some kind of poli sci class at a third rate community college somewhere based on his actual competence. I didn’t like what he did at CIA or OMB and I don’t like what he’s doing now.
Just to disclose any potential bias I might have on the matter.
Gene H:
“Although I am appreciative of your educational guide for those in need of guidance, I personally understand the origins and variation on political realism.”
***********************
I know. We’ve discussed it before. I was trying to provide a basis for those who didn’t. Our conversations usually draw a crowd.
I’m watching an MSNBC investigation into the run-up to the death of Dr. George Tiller and the thought that keeps running through my mind is given that Dr. Tiller, his practice and every person working at his clinic was harassed, threatened and put on wanted posters for years before the actual murder took place, where was the justice department? Considering the tactics used and the knowledge of the groups using the tactics why weren’t people put in jail for threatening Tiller’s life? Why weren’t these groups labeled as terrorist organizations and hounded out of existence before they could do more harm?
This thread has been a fascinating read but raised the same kinds of questions/concerns in my mind that the targeting and killing of Dr. Tiller did and it comes back to the same fundamental conclusion. That conclusion is a generally all purpose ‘rule’ for much action taken in support of any aim: timing is everything. Timing IS everything.
From reading Richard Clark it is apparent that the US knew who the likely suspects were by name and that Bin Laden specifically was the leader and mastermind. Also known were their likely sanctuaries.
If at that time the President had resisted the urge to use 9-11 as a ploy for a completely bogus war had instead sent our forces to bomb the valleys and mountain regions (or even bustling cities) that harbored these villains and obliterate them- collateral damage be damned- I don’t think there would have been any debate. There wouldn’t be a discussion now. Even if that were carried out into the (fairly near-term) future by some number of iterations, as new leadership came up it too was destroyed.
With that caveat I agree with Mespo’s original and basic assertion. You have to do what you have to do.
As it stands though, that window opened and closed long ago so consequently the same rules or latitude in acting does not and IMO should not apply. We look like (and are) just murdering kids and civilians entirely out of proportion to any public or national benefit. The moral de-evolution to arranging sorties to kill responders is barbarism of a high (or low) order. Mistaking goat-herding groups of children for terrorists and killing them is just ridiculous.
The current situation is untenable; the ‘war’ is endless, drone strikes are daily and the collateral damage is more in line with a mindless desire to run up a body-count than actually ‘get the enemy’. I remember Vietnam, at one point Water Buffalo were counted as enemy kills (I read). And if in fact the argument can be made that all or a significant proportion of the populous is actually the enemy, then it’s time to leave. Consequently, I must agree with the posters that are advancing the point of view that our drone strikes are “murder”, in effect if not intention, and must stop if we want any shred of national pride/image to survive. It’s time.
Great post Lotta. This war on terror is designed to never end.
Lotta,
You are right about the government propaganda during the Vietnam War. Dead farm/domestic animals were often included in the body count of enemies killed by US forces.
“The debate” may indeed be the thing. But the underlying reality is more important, especially when we’re talking about killing people.” — Will
I agree that the underlying reality — i.e., dead and dismembered remnants of a body upon the ground — ought to concern us more than the method of disputation employed to either justify or condemn extra-judicial killing by the state. But how best to convey that reality? Very few Americans have ever taken part in such killing or witnessed it at first hand. If one takes the position that “the words don’t do it,” then we have to see the pictures, like the photos from Abu Ghraib prison, for example, or the CIA/Military video tapes of prisoners undergoing repeated torture until they “confess” to whatever crimes we tell them they have committed.
Yet even if one could arrange for a public viewing of state-sponsored murder and torture, how many of us would want to observe our fellow citizens exulting in the gladiatorial spectacle of it all. I can easily imagine the twenty-first century equivalent of Bear Baiting in Baghdad, with Queen Elizabeth clearly enjoying the death struggle down in the pit, only with President Obama and Secretary Clinton in prominent attendance lest their Republican foes label them “weak,” or “squeamish,” or “wimpy,” etc. Can’t have that.
So, again, Americans could use a much greater exposure to the reality of state-sponsored killing, or at least a more accurate representation of it, but since our corporate military government will not allow this under any conceivable circumstances, we will have to make the best use of our words and our reasoning as we can. Not perfect, or even optimal, but it will have to do until we can force open our own government to our inspection and our judgment.
It pains me to read this:
“I agree with Mespo’s original and basic assertion. You have to do what you have to do.”
Self-referential tautologies convey no information but instead mask an unexamined and unstated emotional appeal. Furthermore, Mespo’s assertion does not qualify as either basic or original. More like tired and trivial — what Robert J. Lifton termed, the “thought-terminating cliché”:
S. I. Hayakawa, in the first edition of his classic Language in Action (1941), further analyzed the self-referential tautology as follows:
In view of the above, whenever I hear or read a self-referential, tautological, solipsistic thought-terminating-cliche of the form,
“You have to do what you have to do,”
I immediately translate it into the standard English directive,
“You must accept what I do or propose to do with the same credulity you normally extend to the merest suggestion of authority.”
Or, the shorter version:
“No, I don’t.”
Michael Murry: “It pains me to read this:
“I agree with Mespo’s original and basic assertion. You have to do what you have to do.”
Self-referential tautologies convey no information but instead mask an unexamined and unstated emotional appeal. … The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”
————–
OK. But some things are simple, like the standard openings in chess.
It actually is, in the context I placed it relevant to time, just that simple and requires little further analysis, IMO This was a horrendous act. We knew who did it and where they were. To go to kill them and those harboring them as an object lesson to those that would contemplate such things is I think, an appropriate, necessary and proportional response that would be in the best interest of a country suffering such an assault.
Taking the attack as an opportunity to start a bogus war of aggression in some other country or establish an endless war with no upper limit of collateral damage (or expense) seemingly imposed is immoral. I do believe that there is a necessity for a timely and certain response of some serious magnitude by nations being attacked by a self-proclaimed enemy. To fail to do so is to reward bad behaviour and encourage further bad behaviour. On that, if I read Mespo correctly, I agree it is necessary.
As I said though, I think we missed the window to take the appropriate action. The much belated attack on OBL was as close as we have managed to come (I am fine with his death) and it should have been done years ago when the Bush administration let him slip away- for their own political reasons I have no doubt.
Dear Lotta,
Have you stood under the arch as I suggested you do as a reward? Just a reminder that I have a high regard for you in spite nf now differing in opinions on today’s issue: When and what we should and should have done visavis 9/11.
You state in your latest:
“It actually is, in the context I placed it relevant to time, just that simple and requires little further analysis, IMO This was a horrendous act. We knew who did it and where they were. To go to kill them and those harboring them as an object lesson to those that would contemplate such things is I think, an appropriate, necessary and proportional response that would be in the best interest of a country suffering such an assault.”
I contend that there was and is not any proof that the alleged perpetrators of 9/11 was more than a planted trail as standard practice by our intelligence agencies—both FBI and CIA, ie a false flag operation. The characteristics of the felling of the TT extablishes it was an FF operation. The actions taken at FBI headquarters to deflect and quench the info and the investigations at regional level supports among many similar facts that the hiding of the FF operation was approved and guided from above in the hierarchy. These guys don’t operatie like feudal lords without a king.
I won’t take more time referring to this aspect. Let me only constitute that Bush and Co (particularly Cheney revealed it in a prior speech on their need of a catastrophe to get America on board their wagon of major expansion of war capability) prepared and sold us a bill of goods.
And it is similar to the WMD lies we were served through the propaganda later.
I contend that the draconian STOP measure proposed by you to have occurred at an early stage after 9/11 is but wishful thinking. We both seem to share the belief in retribution, where proof exists, should be visited on the guilty.
But we differ in that you are prepared for any number of collateral damages or that none need to occur (by some miracle); and I do not believe that the miracle would occur through the action of total war, no matter how short your surgical operation can be imagined to be.
Postulating the occurence of an event which did not occur and proposing its greater efficacy and other virtues is fine, but fallacious as you know.
But what I differ on is I feel that the proposal is equally barbaric as that which was and is being used. Of no greater ethical or diplomatic results.
But we DID nOT take that road. To speculate is useless.
What we have to deal with, if our reflections can be ranked as dealing, is the fact we have been propagandized on three major occasions leeding to major policy decisions.
This of greater importance than “if-only” suppositions of timely and more tasty forms of revenge with happier outcomes for the nation hiding the miscreants and for us as well.
None of your musings is connected to reality. And your moral position as to elimination through an act of war, particularly one not proven to be an act of war by the terror group pointed out, is not one I can support.
Hope my argument holds some food for thought and will not be dismissed with the usual contempt routinely dealt out to ALL opposing opinions here at Turley’s.
mespo727272 “Tell us what “war crime” has been committed?”
I don’t think it is even controversial. Policies that lead to intentional attacks of non combatant populations are war crimes.
My guess is that many would be convinced targeting rescue operations and funeral processions have such a high probability of including non combatant populations that they are likely war crimes.
The prosecution might hinge on the exact targeting information.
An attack based on intelligence that a particular terrorist was present might pass muster and not be a crime.
An attack based on the understanding that there might be terrorist present is likely a war crime.
In the Bush administration care was taken to obscure the role of senior administration officials in the commission of war crimes.
I don’t expect prosecutions any time soon. But if that day should ever come, it is clear that the prosecutions will begin in the office of the president.
For many people around the world, Panetta’s speech will be viewed as adding unrestained arrogance to unrestrained power.
===========================================
True enough. Isn’t that what power is about? Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Perhaps the United States should become isolationist and let the rest of the world stew in their own juices. Let the chips fall where they may. Protect the borders of the United States and let the rest of the world deal with their own problems. But that’s too much to ask. Ego always gets in the way.
With regard to the nuclear power plant problem in Japan, I have read some most unpleasant reports. Eight million people in Tokyo. That problem hasn’t been solved, they’re merely in a holding pattern. How long can they continue to hold?
I’ve said it before, stop buying their oil and deal with the economic consequences. How do you cut off the head of the snake? Don’t bother, just starve it. But that’s naive on my part.
With regard to 9/11, I agree with ID707.
Obama is shocked, shocked, that there are leaks which bolster his tough guy cred.
McCain doesn’t believe it:
““It is difficult to escape the conclusion that these recent leaks of highly classified information, all of which have the effect of making the president look strong and decisive on national security in the middle of his re-election campaign, have a deeper political motivation,” said Senator John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign opponent, this week.
“But Mr. Obama called such accusations wrong.
“The notion that my White House would purposefully release classified national security information is offensive,” he said, adding: “But as I think has been indicated from these articles, whether or not the information they’ve received is true, the writers of these articles have all stated unequivocally that they didn’t come from this White House, and that’s not how we operate.”
See, see. Obama says it’s offensive, and just to prove it, he’s going to investigate.
“Holder Directs U.S. Attorneys to Track Down Paths of Leaks”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/holder-directs-us-attorneys-to-investigate-leaks.html?_r=1&hp
Some things get investigated and are to receive “consequences”.
Just the wrong things.
It’s, as ever, retribution (revenge) for leaks which show their bare bottoms. Or in fact of the DS cables, their total nakedness was revealed.
The Prez says:
““Since I’ve been in office, my attitude has been zero tolerance for these kinds of leaks and speculation,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “
So, any link to the ststure protecting leakers? Is it any protection?
How about the leak of the helicopter
attack on civilians in a war-crime fashion in Bagdad? Should that not have qualified as protected leak?
And did he actually say: “speculate”? Speculation as to weapons, to take one example, if they happen to coincide with reality (how could you know that sitting at the breakfast table) is now indictable as a crime.
Guess he really wasn’t a constitutional scholar after all. Or is it for that which one uses that knowledge?
Silly prez. For each move, he digs his ass deeper.
But still we choose to endure him.
There is a third altenative. Not pleasant, but still productive. The revolution in the government of mankind. The one we thought ours would lead to on the face of it—-but that was all propaganda.
Thank goodness for the “knowledge heads” here who can provide solid ground and disabuse us on such things as “Roosevelt’s mistake in abandoning his stimulus program”, when in fact it was the Disiecrats and the Repugs who force him to.
MattJ,
We own or control over half of the GDP of the world.
How could we stop trading and dealing? Isolate America. Could not be done. Would WS permit it. Would the Fed allow it? They are independent, endowed
with certain powers. Try taking over.
Elaine, sorry I mis-attributed the the Chris Woods quote. My point, and his, still stand of course. The “kill ‘em all and let God sort them out” policy, to extend the point, cannot work, even with impeccable moral authority on the US side.
To be honest, I’m not even clear as to what the point of the actual policy is. Closest I can guess it’s to put the fear of God into Al-Qaeda operative and recruits. It’s a way to extend wars without obvious boots on the ground too.
.. . . (no response needed, I’m just lost in this moral morass . . .)
DonS,
Here’s a link to and an excerpt from an article written by Chris Woods for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism:
Witnesses speak out
February 4th, 2012 | by Chris Woods
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/witnesses-speak-out/
Excerpt:
Researchers working for the Bureau in Waziristan spoke to people who had witnessed US drone attacks on both rescuers and funeral-goers. These personal testimonies provide eyewitness accounts of events reported in leading media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Associated Press.
The Bureau has also included comments from Washington Post national security correspondent Joby Warrick, on the CIA’s decision to attack a funeral in 2009.
‘We saw that all the people died’
On December 17 2009 CIA drones attacked the village of Degan. Al Qaeda commanders Abdullah Said al Libi and Zuhaib al-Zahibi were reported killed. There were some claims that the ultimate, unsuccessful target was Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law Sheikh Saeed al Saudi.
But in the aftermath of the attack, as villagers and Taliban tried to retrieve the dead and injured, the drones returned to the attack. According to the Bureau’s Waziristan researchers, two Taliban and six civilian rescuers died – five of the latter named as Bashirullah, Amir Khan, Shairullah, Abidullah and Fazle Rabbi, all of the Dawar tribe.
That day 30-year old Zahidullah was in Degan visiting his mother’s brother:
I was in my uncle’s house and there were approximately six drones in the air. As we were looking, one drone fired missiles at a house very near to us. After a short interval another fired further missiles at a second house. As the targeted people belonged to Degan village we rushed out to help. The victims were local Taliban belonged to Hafiz Gul Bahadur’s group. Some other local Taliban also rushed to help. These people were busy in rescue activities when a drone again fired two missiles. I and some other villagers were further afield so we ran away. When the situation became calmer we returned. We saw that everyone had died. Some dead bodies were burnt; most appeared to be OK, but there were [fatal] injuries to their chests and heads. A total of 16 people died in these attacks of which six were civilian rescuers and two Taliban rescuers. We were all very distressed by this incident. Some young people announced loudly that ‘We will continue Jihad against America until we finish the USA or embrace Shahadat [martyrdom].’
‘They were good people’
On September 16, 2010 Samiullah Khan, a Waziristan-based journalist, was in Danda Darpakhel to interview a Taliban commander. As they talked, a deafening explosion blew out all the windows. Drones had just struck a house two doors down.
According to reports at the time, villagers fled in panic as up to eleven drones attacked two housing compounds linked to the Haqqani Network.
‘As the US drones came over the village people started shouting and running here and there shouting ‘run, drones have come,” a local tribesman told AFP. Up to fifteen were killed. Among the dead were eight rescuers, who died when the drones struck again.
Samiullah Khan – who is also one of the field researchers employed in this project – told the Bureau what he witnessed:
There was of course a drone up in the air – in that area they seem to be up 24 hours a day. About five minutes into the interview I heard a massive noise from an attack and all the glass in the house broke. I ran out, though the Taliban were urging me not to approach the site. I saw people crying ‘Help us, help us’, there was a huge fire. Since everyone in the [damaged] house was dead or injured, the only people who could help were other villagers or the Taliban I’d been interviewing.
Many people were badly burned. We put three in my pick-up truck and took them to Miranshah town – doctors there told us they were unlikely to live, each having 90 per cent burns to his body. Back in Danda Darpakhel more people had come to the attack site to help with the rescue, thinking that the danger had now passed after 30 minutes. But the drones returned and fired again. If I had been there I would have been caught in that explosion. People there were killed, including two of my friends. They were good people. One was a student; the other ran a stall at the local bazaar. Neither was involved with the Taliban.
ID707,
You don’t get it. It has nothing to do with taking over. Use over your half of the GDP. Can you do it? Starve the snake.
Michael Murry:
Your choices of authorities to support your sentimental and overtly America- bashing view of the world is hilarious. S. I. Hayakawa? Really? The same US Senator who opposed returning the Panama Canal saying, “We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square.” The same person of Japanese ancestry who also opposed apologizing and reimbursing Japanese Americans for internment at the hands of their government? It’s hard to think of a Senator with a firmer adherence to realpolitik.
You really need to work on your propaganda skills!
Matt:
Don’t know where you get “we own or control over half the GDP of the world” from? it’s really a little less than a quarter according to the IMF (and we’re in second place), but why let a easily ascertainable and central fact get in the way of your rant?
“….Neither were involved with the Taliban….”
But you can be certain that their relatives and friends will be now. Thank you CIA, and our wise politicians. “Hearts and minds”. What a laugh.
These are live people who have not been connected to terrorism as such, only being “bad guys” who abused there own in Afghanistan.
They are being used in martial experimants in countergerilla measures. They don’t vote here.
Even if they did and were citizens, Obama wouud still take them out.
Try launching a protest and see what YOU get from him.
mespo,
The United States didn’t steal the Panama Canal, the French did. The French couldn’t finish the job so the Americans did. Then Jimmy Carter gave it away. I disagree with that decision.
mespo727272 1, June 9, 2012 at 10:00 am
Matt:
Don’t know where you get “we own or control over half the GDP of the world” from? it’s really a little less than a quarter according to the IMF (and we’re in second place), but why let a easily ascertainable and central fact get in the way of your rant?
=========================
Mespo, you’re as full of shit as somebody else. I was speaking to what ID707 said. Go back to law school.
Mesposer: “Well, Bob, Esq, something is askew here.”
That’s right Mark. No less than twice in one week you intentionally misrepresented my argument and lied about it being mine. Still waiting for an apology.
You have argued here that it is right to assassinate American citizens solely based on the fact that they have been accused of treason.
Your complete lack of regard for any moral or legal standards in your arguments combined with your lack of remorse for the consequences of your behavior and your arguments…
There’s a medical definition for what you sound like.
This being a blawg, thought that this OT notice would be welcomed. Remembrance of JT’s Congress appearances, indirectly so. Maybe he also got NYTimes front page notice.
Anybody interested in historic battles? For instance Joseph McCarthy and the Army hearings.
NYTimes headlines it today as a memorable event. The report itself is interesting as a document as to how things were presented then.
Here’s a link below to the article. Front page upper right placement. Can be bought in replica. Suitable gift to JT?
Personally remember hearing exchanges between McCarthy
and Welch on the radio. The yankee badger versus the southern gentleman. Guess who got the public’s sympathy vote in audible form?
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0609.html#article
Bob,Esq:
“You have argued here that it is right to assassinate American citizens solely based on the fact that they have been accused of treason.”
***********************
Well, that plus he was the operational head of Al-Quaeda and openly advocated killing innocent American women and children in the name of jihad, and the killing was authorized by international law and no one has even suggested prosecuting us, but why let those little facts get in the way of you rant.
Please continue … you were just decrying the targeted killing of a madman who wanted to kill Americans for no good reason.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/09/the-obama-double-tap/
A comment from the previous article:
lottakatz
1, June 9, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Nal: “Obama’s “double tap” policy is nothing short of despicable. Obama has brought dishonor to America and to our founding principles.”
**
Jill: “The US is using collective punishment, to include the killing of civilians, to coerce compliance from another nation. This is a govt. completely out of control both internally and externally. ”
———-
Agree. well said.
mespo,
In all fairness, that is not what I read Bob as saying. He’s decrying your apparent flexibility in applying the rule of law, due process and the definition of what constitutes war. You are describing the actions of a criminal and applying the remedy of warfare. This just serves to highlight the problems of declaring war on a noun instead of a state. The reasoning that war can be against states and non-state actors is as ridiculous now as it was on Propaganda 101 thread where the Nazi apologist was saying the Jews declared war on Germany when a group of Jews called for an economic boycott of Germany without any kind of state to back them let alone state backing for their actions. Al-Quaeda is no more capable of declaring war for Pakistan than the AJC was capable of “declaring war” for the non-state Jews of the 30′s and 40′s, yet you seem to have no issue with violating Pakistan’s sovereignty to get at them and thus inviting a state of war between the U.S. and Pakistan which would be considerably more dangerous than dealing with a violent criminal organization in the traditional manner. War is a status of relationship between states, not between states and non-state groups. That is part of the general problem of perception created when a society has to think of things in martial terms like “the War of Poverty” or “the War of Drugs” or “the War on Terror”. That’s a gross distortion of both defining the problem and the appropriate solutions to that problem.
GeneH.
Beautiful.
Mespo:
If you want to enter an adult discussion about the use of language, please first read S. I. Hayakawa’s (now updated) introduction to general semantics, Language in Thought and Action — still a world-wide classic. He has some really good material on denotation and connotation, which Gene H alluded to in another thread on propaganda. You can find Hayakawa’s book at any halfway decent bookstore, since it has never gone out of print since its first edition in 1939 and shows no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future. Once you have done that, then we can further discuss your addiction to the self-referential tautology, or thought-terminating cliche.
And since I also quoted the historical psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton — who has expressed no views on the Panama canal or Japanese American Internment Compensation — you might want to read his famous work: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: a study of “brainwashing” in China. It would explain you to you almost as well as S. I. Hayakawa did back in 1941, regardless of his political views on any subject at any time in his life.
But then, dealing with the substance of a topic doesn’t seem like one of your strong suits. And please don’t respond with: “A REMF.s gotta do what a REMF’s gotta do,” by which you would really mean to say: “This particular Rear Echelon Mother F***er simply does what one would expect a Rear Echelon Mother F***er to do.” And from my experience with REMFs, this usually means watching them drool while screaming at others: “Let’s you and him fight so I can watch from a safe distance!” Pathetic.
One more thing: I earned the right to “bash” the policies of the American government when my mother gave birth to me in America. We used to call this “citizenship.” I further earned the right to “bash” the policies of the American government when its corrupt officials bullied me into joining the U. S. military in preference to prison or exile for non-compliance with its policy of conscription. So if the American government doesn’t like me “bashing” its lunatic militarist imperialism — of which I have bitter personal experience — then the United States Government can desist from giving me every reason in the world to “bash” it. Given enough “bashing,” the American government will eventually stop deserving it. Simple as that.
Now, off to the library with you.
Michael Murry:
“Once you have done that, then we can further discuss your addiction to the self-referential tautology, or thought-terminating cliche.”
*********************
Ah, Mike, not to upset your apple cart but the person who wrote the tautology you complain so vociferously about was Lottakatz, not me, but, hey, why spoil a good rant with pesky facts.
And sure, you have a right to complain but why should you? You an ex-pat carping without doing anything here except carping via the internet. What’s an ex-patriot (as you proudly proclaim on your blog) anyway? My thesaurus say the opposite of a patriot is a traitor, but I’ll assume you’ve not engaged in any act of treason so what is your status? Misanthrope? Curmudgeon? Disappointed idealist?
For your nickel you get to complain all you want about the country, its leaders, and its policies. You don’t get to hate her with impunity however because that means hating its people and that, my dear ” Man (perhaps) Without a Country ” is the essence of treason.
By the way, I don’t intentionally talk to traitors.
Drone death in Yemen of an American teenager
By Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter
Published On Sat Apr 14 2012
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1161432–drone-death-in-yemen-of-an-american-teenager
Excerpt:
SANAA, YEMEN— With the house still quiet with slumber, the 15-year-old left a letter for his mother begging forgiveness, then crawled out a second-storey kitchen window and dropped to the garden below.
Abdulrahman al Awlaki crossed the front yard past potted plants and a carnival ride graveyard — Dumbo, Donald Duck, an arched seal balancing a beach ball — debris from his uncle Omar’s failed business venture to install rides in local shopping malls.
The family’s guard saw the grade nine student with a mop of curly hair leave the front gate at about 6:30 a.m. that morning on Sept. 4. Abdulrahman then made his way to the gates of Bab al-Yemen to catch a bus to a cousin’s house in Shabwa province in the south.
As he crossed the desert on his six-hour journey, his family awoke to news of his disappearance.
“He wrote to his mother, ‘I am sorry for leaving in this kind of way. Forgive me. I miss my father and want to see if I can go and talk to him,’ ” said the boy’s grandfather, Nasser al Awlaki, as he sipped tea in his lavish home. “ ‘I will be coming back in a few days.’ ”
“He was very obedient to everybody in the house,” said Awlaki, “and that’s why it was a surprise that he would make that kind of decision.”
Nine days later, Abdulrahman turned 16.
He never found his father, the radical online preacher Anwar al Awlaki, who a U.S. congresswoman had called “Terrorist Number One.”
The teen wasn’t even in the right part of the country.
On Sept. 30, CIA-directed hellfire missiles blasted a target in northern Yemen, killing his father and ending the two-year manhunt for the cleric whose preaching encouraged plots in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
Anwar al Awlaki was born in the United States, having grown up in the West after his father, Nasser, moved his family there to study.
Few mourned Awlaki’s death, but there was concern about the precedent. How could U.S. President Barack Obama order an American killed without any review?
There has been considerably less talk about what happened two weeks later.
On Oct. 14, U.S. drones pounded targets again, this time hundreds of kilometres away in the southeastern region of Azzan.
Abdulrahman, also born in the U.S., and his 17-year-old cousin were among the seven killed. They were apparently having a barbecue.
At first, media outlets reported that Abdulrahman was five years older than his actual age, had been militant like his father and, that a high-value Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) target was also among the dead.
But his grandfather, Nasser al Awlaki, a Fulbright scholar, former agricultural minister and prominent figure in Yemen, said Abdulrahman had nothing to do with his father since he had gone into hiding in 2009.
Nasser al Awlaki has never apologized for his son’s radical views, but said he had also worked hard to insulate his grandchildren from the controversy. He attempted, he said, to give them a “normal life.”
Furious at the inaccurate reporting, he released his grandson’s birth certificate. It reads: “Abdulrahman Anwar al-Aulaqi (another English spelling of the last name). Born: Denver, Colorado. Sept. 13, 1995.”
It later emerged, but was not widely reported, that the strike did not kill its purported target, AQAP’s media chief, Egyptian Ibrahim al Bana.
The U.S. administration has refused comment.
It is unclear whether Abdulrahman was the target or if the U.S. had bad information and was going after Bana, or someone else. Either way, Awlaki said he wants answers.
So do the student demonstrators who forced former president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power, many of whom knew Abdulrahman. They carried posters in Change Square with his picture last year and the words: “The Assassination of Childhood.”
“We just don’t know why they did that,” Awlaki said of the U.S. strike. “Is it because Abdulrahman was there? It’s very possible, but I cannot claim with certainty what happened. Is it a blunder on their side?
“They cannot claim he’s collateral damage.”
DRONES and U.S. directed missions have killed hundreds in Yemen in the past four years, some hitting AQAP targets, many more striking civilians.
Aside from the moral and legal implications, analysts in Yemen and the U.S. question their effectiveness against terrorism.
Take, for instance, a strike in Abyan province in December 2009 that killed 55. Among the dead were 14 women and 21 children.
The U.S. refused to acknowledge the botched mission. Compare this to the reaction last month when 17 Afghan citizens were slaughtered, allegedly by U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. Obama released a statement promising to “establish the facts as quickly as possible and to hold fully accountable anyone responsible.” The families of the dead were reportedly offered $50,000 each in “condolence payments.”
Naming Those Killed in US Drone Strikes
By: Kevin Gosztola Friday May 11, 2012
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/05/11/naming-those-killed-in-us-drone-strikes/
Excerpt:
The Obama administration, Woods finds, is seeking to redefine the definition of “civilian.” This is inevitable, given the fact that the administration is redefining “due process” too.
In June 2011, counterterrorism chief John Brennan claimed that no civilians had been killed by US drones. George Stephanopoulos, host of “This Week” on ABC, pressed Brennan recently on the idea that no single civilian had been killed. He replied, “What I said was that over a period of time before my public remarks that we had no information about a single civilian, a noncombatant being killed.”
The language can be explained by highlighting the reality that those supportive of the drone program in the Obama administration see people in countries like Pakisan, Somalia or Yemen, which are constantly experiencing strikes, as combatants or non-combatants. Any non-combatants, who are associating with or are nearby enemy combatants, including family members, are not likely to be considered “innocent” civilians.
Additionally, terrorists or civilians are legal terms that are meaningless. The administration operates under the mendacious theory that the Authorized Use for Military Force (AUMF) gives the US authority to kill any person that may pose a “threat.” The term “civilian” presumes that citizens of Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen have legal rights to not be subject to extrajudicial assassination if the US decides they are a “threat.” The administration has no respect for the due process rights of citizens, which they might have in their country. The administration responds to concerns about sovereignty and civil liberties with the callow remark that citizens can either face “targeted” or “surgical” drone strikes or a full-blown US military occupation. It is the administration’s position that citizens in these foreign countries should be grateful there exists technology that does not make it necessary for the US to have a greater presence in their country.
The US wants people to think only “militants” or enemy combatants like Quso are killed. They don’t wish to confirm to news media that others, who are not al Qaeda, are killed. The continuation of the drone program depends on people believing drones do not kill a large number of innocent civilians and can efficiently kill members of al Qaeda and its affiliates. This is why the Bureau estimates “between 170 and 500″ civilians killed have yet to be identified.
It is why, until activists in the US pushed back, the State Department intended to block Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who had sued the US government for drone strikes in Pakistan, from entering the US to attend an international Drone Summit in Washington, DC. He has represented drone victims in Pakistan and sought to name them, share with the world who they are and force the world to not ignore their deaths.
Akbar recently submitted constitutional petitions to the High Court in Peshawar, Pakistan, on behalf of drone victims and sued the Pakistan government. The petitions relate to an attack that occurred on March 17, 2011, and killed Malik Daud Khan, head of the Tribal Jirga [assembly] in North Waziristan. Tribal elders had gathered to resolve a “Chromite mine dispute among two sub tribes.” The dispute had caused a “long feud” and posed a “threat to public peace.” On the day the Jirga met, the CIA targeted the tribal leaders and killed fifty people.
Son of Malik Daud Khan, Noor Khan, filed one petition, calling on the Pakistan government to end its failure to protect the Pakistani people from drone attacks. A second petition was filed on behalf of the forty-nine other victims. The second petition names some of the victims.
The names and descriptions of those killed definitely cuts through the narrative that the US likes to promote:
Din Mohammad aged 25 approx. hailed from Manzar Khel, North Waziristan Agency and was a driver by profession and was also dealing in sale and purchase of chromite. On March 17th 2011, he was in attendance at the Jirga and was killed at the spot by the drone strike. He was buried according to Islamic and Pashtun rituals at his ancestral graveyard. He has left two widows and two small children…
Khanay Khan resident of Miramshah, North Waziristan Agency, aged 40 years approx. was participating at the Jirga as representative of his people. He was the sole bread earner of his family as well. On March 17th 2011, he was in attendance at the Jirga and was killed at spot by the drone strike. His body in pieces was brought back to Miramshah by his sons and buried there…
Mohammad Noor aged 27 resident of Khar Tangi, North Waziristan Agency was in attendance at the Jirga on March 17th 2011 along with his slain Uncle Gull Mohammad and Cousin Mohammad Ismail when around 1100 hrs US operated drone struck the Jirga with hellfire missiles killing dozens at the spot including his Uncle and Cousin. Mohammad Noor was severally injured. His lower body was damaged scarring his legs for life. He was hospitalized and both of his legs were fractured and doctors had to insert a metal rod to act as bones in his legs to enable him to stand and walk with clutches….
Not naming the dead reinforces the unethical, illegal and inhumane aspects of the US drone program. It is no surprise that news outlets in the US rarely publish accounts on the victims. However, it must be noted that, especially in Pakistan, even if one wanted to go report on who was killed, those who run to rescue victims can easily become targets. The CIA and Pakistani military also cordon the area around Waziristan making it impossible for journalists to get in and document those killed and what was damaged in the attacks.
The US cannot have journalists going into areas to do reporting that brings transparency to the nature of the program. This is why President Obama ordered former Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh to not pardon and release Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye from prison. Shaye was effective at covering the aftermath of drone attacks. He interviewed victims in the al-Majalah massacre and helped human rights groups uncover the fact that the bombs were not from Yemen but rather the US.
It is also why Tariq Aziz likely became a target. Aziz was 16-years-old. He wanted to photograph drone victims to raise awareness. The UK-based human rights group Reprieve decided to provide cameras to children in Pakistan. He attended a drone conference in October 27, 2011, in Islamabad. He received some training that he could use to cover and report on drone strikes. Days later, he was targeted and killed in a drone strike while driving his mother to the hospital in Waziristan.
How Many Innocent Deaths Are Acceptable to Kill A Suspected Terrorist?
Jesselyn Radack
June 6, 2012
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/06/1097827/-How-Many-Innocent-Deaths-Are-Acceptable-to-Kill-A-Terrorist
Excerpt:
U.S. officials tell us that a drone strike has killed al Qaeda’s #2 operative – Abu Yahya al-Libi:
One American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described Mr. Libi as one of Al Qaeda’s “most experienced and versatile leaders,” and said he had “played a critical role in the group’s planning against the West, providing oversight of the external operations efforts.”
U.S. officials also told us the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was a dangerous terrorist, when it turned out he was a propagandist, and not all that influential in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, despite Administration officials’ claims that civilian deaths are rare and minimal (one official recently said “in the single digits”), the think tank New America Foundation estimated that since Obama took office, the number of drone deaths in Pakistan alone totaled between 1,456 and 2,372. Certainly these were not all high-level al-Qaeda operatives.
I can’t help but notice the numbers’ similarity to some of the casualty numbers from the Pentagon or World Trade Center. Obviously, Americans would no doubt agree with me that — though Obama claims the legal authority to do so — it would be morally reprehensible to take down one of the WTC towers with a drone just because an al-Qaeda operative happened to be hiding out in a broom closet.
The question then is: how many innocents is it acceptable to kill to take down one suspected terrorist?
Elaine M, your question: “The question then is: how many innocents is it acceptable to kill to take down one suspected terrorist?”
If the innocent is ME, it is not acceptable to kill ANY innocents to take down one suspected terrorist (or ten, or a hundred…) –
But if a bunch of people who are NOT ME are killed to take down one suspected terrorist, then they were NOT INNOCENT. They might have been THUGS!
Get OVER it!!
Gene: “In all fairness, that is not what I read Bob as saying. He’s decrying your apparent flexibility in applying the rule of law, due process and the definition of what constitutes war.”
Gene,
He’s been consistently misrepresenting my arguments lately. Furthermore, he’s not being flexible with law or morality, he has repeatedly claimed he’s entitled to disregard both entirely.
Who’s gonna call the guys in white uniforms?
Haven’t known him long, but this seems strange.
Hear me Messpo? Heard any strange noises? Are they sending radio waves against your brain.
Are you going to be our next President?
Get a grip or get help.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/25/un-inquiry-us-drone-strikes
UN to investigate civilian deaths from US drone strikes
Special rapporteur on counter-terror operations condemns Barack Obama’s failure to establish effective monitoring process
Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 October 2012 13.07 EDT
The United Nations is to set up a dedicated investigations unit in Geneva to examine the legality of drone attacks in cases where civilians are killed in so-called ‘targeted’ counter-terrorism operations.
The announcement was made by Ben Emmerson QC, a UN special rapporteur, in a speech to Harvard law school in which he condemned secret rendition and waterboarding as crimes under international law.
His forthright comments, directed at both US presidential candidates, will be seen as an explicit challenge to the prevailing US ideology of the global war on terror.
Earlier this summer, Emmerson, who monitors counter-terrorism for the UN, called for effective investigations into drone attacks. Some US drone strikes in Pakistan – where those helping victims of earlier attacks or attending funerals were killed – may amount to war crimes, Emmerson warned.
In his Harvard speech, he revealed: “If the relevant states are not willing to establish effective independent monitoring mechanisms … then it may in the last resort be necessary for the UN to act.
“Together with my colleague Christof Heyns, [the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings], I will be launching an investigation unit within the special procedures of the [UN] Human Rights Council to inquire into individual drone attacks.”
The unit will also look at “other forms of targeted killing conducted in counter-terrorism operations, in which it is alleged that civilian casualties have been inflicted, and to seek explanations from the states using this technology and the states on whose territory it is used. [It] will begin its work early next year and will be based in Geneva.”
Security officials who took part in waterboarding interrogations or secret rendition removals should be made accountable for their actions and justice, Emmerson added.
“The time has come,” he said, “for the international community to agree minimum standard principles for investigating such allegations and holding those responsible to account.
“Let us be clear on this: secret detention is unlawful as a matter of international law. Waterboarding is always torture. Torture is an international crime of universal jurisdiction. The torturer, like the pirate before him, is regarded in international law as the enemy of all mankind. There is therefore a duty on states to investigate and to prosecute acts of torture.”
The US stance of conducting counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaida or other groups anywhere in the world because it is deemed to be an international conflict was indefensible, he maintained.
“The global war paradigm has done immense damage to a previously shared international consensus on the legal framework underlying both international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” Emmerson said. “It has also given a spurious justification to a range of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations.
“The [global] war paradigm was always based on the flimsiest of reasoning, and was not supported even by close allies of the US. The first-term Obama administration initially retreated from this approach, but over the past 18 months it has begun to rear its head once again, in briefings by administration officials seeking to provide a legal justification for the drone programme of targeted killing in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia …
“[It is] alleged that since President Obama took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. Christof Heyns … has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view.”
Emmerson singled out both President Obama and the Republican challenger Mitt Romney for criticism. “It is perhaps surprising that the position of the two candidates on this issue has not even featured during their presidential elections campaigns, and got no mention at all in Monday night’s foreign policy debate.
“We now know that the two candidates are in agreement on the use of drones. But the issue of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques is an one which, according to the record, continues to divide them.
“I should make it absolutely clear that my mandate does not see to eye to eye with the Obama administration on a range of issues – not least the lack of transparency over the drone programme. But on this issue the president has been clear since he took office that water-boarding is torture that it is contrary to American values and that it would stop.
“… But Governor Romney has said that he does not believe that waterboarding is torture. He has said that he would allow enhanced interrogation techniques that go beyond those now permitted by the army field manual, and his security advisers have recommended that he rescind the existing restrictions.”
The Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, he pointed out, used the technique. “Anyone who is in doubt about whether waterboarding is torture should visit Tuol Sleng, the infamous S-21 detention facility operated by the Khymer Rouge in Phnom Penh.
“Over a period of four years 14,000 people were systematically tortured and killed there. It is now a genocide museum. And right there, in the middle of the central torturing room, is the apparatus used by Pol Pot’s security officials for waterboarding.”