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
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.
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.
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.
“….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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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 . . .)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
“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.
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.
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.
Great post Lotta. This war on terror is designed to never end.
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.