Ended war in Iraq when many Republicans wanted to stay there forever.
Ending war in Afghanistan when many Republicans howl in rage at the very idea of announcing an end date.
Didn’t get us involved on the ground in Libya, which some Republicans favored.
Hasn’t gotten us involved in Syria, which some Republicans favored.
NOT likely to start a war with Iran, which if Romney is elected, is very likely.
21st Century Republicans: The Party of the Ignorant, the Insane, and Perpetual War.
speaking as someone who used to vote almost solid Republican and would like to be able to do so sometime in the future if only they get over this crap.
I thought the numbers were going to be pretty bad until I read the cite. Only 474-881 civilians killed out of 2,562-3,325 total kills. Those numbers sound pretty good to me.
That damned Washington was a terrorist, too: shooting at people from behind trees like a bunch of guerrilla fighters. And that damned Lincoln with his grapeshot, mowing down god-fearing Americans. And fuck that goddamned FDR for fire-bombing Germany and Truman for killing all those civilians in Hiroshima (okay, those two were pretty terrorist-like).
War has collateral damage, always. It’s more efficient to kill these al quaida assholes with drones than to drop bombs on villages. I support it, and hope it continues up until we get the hell out of there in a couple of years. Longer, if necessary. They brought it on themselves and are paying the price for it.
Oh, and fuck Pakistan for a bunch of duplicitous, traitorous assholes.
I don’t agree with the moral logic of the OP, but I don’t even think it is internally consistent. If the premise is that one ought not vote for a candidate that would do anything you consider evil, regardless of whether the vote makes a worse alternative more likely, aren’t you obligated to examine the record of the candidate you’re voting for to determine if any of it is evil? Is the contention that Gary Johnson doesn’t believe in any policy that you consider morally wrong?
How does voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson convey the message you don’t support the stated acts? The polling results only show that you voted for that particular person. Why not write in ‘Executions require trials’ or ‘No more drone strikes’ Then at least your particular message gets out.
I’m not against supporting third party candidate if you think their message at a whole is important but it’s completely possible to agree with Obama’s platform on more issues then you agree with Stein’s.
I’m from MA. Romney has no real chance here. Early in Obama’s term I was prepared to vote against him in the primary and election because I felt he wasn’t going to address the issues important to me. He came through in ways I wasn’t expecting and he’s getting my vote.
I’d much rather see Romney lose his home state by as large a margin as possible than throw support to a third party candidate.
The problem is you don’t know the degree of covert operations how intertwined they become with local sides and for how long these operations continue to be in place. There are deeds done in your name that you probably don’t approve of or, perhaps, you might find them highly inflammatory toward the side being covertly operated on. And there’s nothing you can do but sit here and rationalize these deeds until you are blue in the face - your opinion does not have an impact on how the other side is perceiving them and saying “unfortunate collateral damage” does not make dead any more alive.
So, these actions accumulate over time and may reach a point of combustion and you end up looking at WTC burning and wonder who the heck would do something like this. Yes, I am suggesting that something happened since Bin Laden was fighting Russians and 9/11 that you will never know. However, it has been explained already that “they don’t like our freedoms”.
The whole point - I think of WillFarnaby - is that lack of clear moral compass will lead to a weak character that will accept, not, will suck in, any Orwellian explanation of events 5 or 10 years from now. And, if understand further, he (she?) is pointing out that you have a chance to prevent that. Yet, many simply choose not to cause that’s much more easier.
You know, in Sarajevo, Serb 5th column in the city - like we didn’t suffer enough from daily grenades from the hills surrounding the city - they had number of snipers shooting down on civilians including children. Some of the stories are excruciatingly painful so I’ll spare you that. But, what I will tell you is what was more painful was listening to Serbian AM radio and people justifying these war criminal acts so blissfuly it was amazing and scary at the same time. What happened to them, as an ethnic group, is that they totally lost their moral compass for extended period of time and they are so weak they cannot get themselves out of a moral failure hole and probably wont be able to do that for very long time. And for that, I mostly blame concerted effort to rationalize worst criminal deeds.
/* I have no idea if this makes any sense - it sounds like a rant almost…
The hypocrisy of the US: we’re allowed to use drones in other sovereign countries but the moment someone sends a drone to a US city we’ll likely go ballistic.
They did, only it was in the form of several commercial jet aircraft. This is paybacks. Do you really think that these drone attacks are just because Obama woke up one day and thought: “Gee, I think I’ll just start killing people for no reason?”
There’s another way to view it: when military personnel are placed in and around civilian areas, so closely integrated that it is impossible to target them without also hitting the civilians, the conventional interpretation of International Law is that these civilian casualties are the fault of those who placed troops in that position.
i.e., you can’t fire rockets from a school, and then complain that the enemy response is “targeting schoolchildren.”
One of the ugliest things about this new era of asymmetric warfare is that the “small army” is often composed of irregulars, who are not distinguishable from civilians. They don’t wear uniforms, they stay in civilian housing, and, worst of all, they fight from within civilian neighborhoods.
This is relatively successful in the war for “hearts and minds.” It allows them to paint the opposition as mean and cruel when it shoots back and, inevitably, hits civilians. But, as time goes by, the world is beginning to see that it is the army that uses civilians as a shield that is actually at fault when civilians are harmed.
No; they are because this is a religious war; Christian versus Muslim, even though mostly only the Muslim side is willing to admit it openly. No one cares how many innocents are killed or how effective they are militarily, because the real point is to simply kill Muslims for being Muslim. We’re just going through the rigamarole of using drones instead of carpet bombing because it lets us pretend to ourselves that we are going after military targets and not just randomly slaughtering people.
I’m not arguing fault particularly; I’m saying it’s unfortunate and tragic regardless. (And I doubt that this occurs in all the situations where civilians die.)
Of course not, but why should that get in the way? [Seriously, I suspect the argument will be that they are racists or useful idiots.]
Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13491 the one banning torture and furthermore revoking GWBush’s torture memo. The one that Romney may want to zing Obama with on Wednesday evening. Readers of the NYT know that Election to Decide Future Interrogation Methods in Terrorism Cases. So by all means Grumman: support GWBush’s torture policy by voting for Jill Stein. You seem to be all for it, just like Nader supporters threw the election to GWBush. I’ll be voting for Barack Obama with a clear conscience.
The Presidency is decided on the margins. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Obama faced opposition from the Republicans, his own party and the entire National Security Establishment. If you want to press for a moral US foreign policy, you are simply going to have to work a lot harder. Voting for Ralph Nader et al is a vote for torture. Details.