Hysterical, teabagger, right wing Obama bashing appears to have circled the space/time continuum and is now coming right back at itself.
A couple of weeks ago, Mark Thiessen, a former Bush speech writer and Washington Post columnist wrote this piece for Foreign Policy in which he compalins that Barack Obama has been too effective at killing terrorists with drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan:
So there you have it. Barack Obama is putting America at risk by killing too many high ranking al Qaeda leaders.
This surreal level of straw grasping was echoed at the CPAC conference on friday by a former Bush Justice Department lawyer, and co-author of the PATRIOT Act, Viet Dinh:
Obama is making America unsafe by being too tough on terrorists. This is bizarro land. Are they going to accuse of of being too fiscally responsible next? Too intelligent? Too good a family man?
Man, get it through your head. The GOP has taken hypocrisy to levels that were previously unimagined. These assholes would take a dump on the American flag while fellating Bin Laden if they thought it would make a point about how evil Obama is.
Meh, I kind of agree with them on this point. I’d prefer to end the drone attacks completely and put more resources toward catching al-Qaeda leaders alive.
I think all reality-based persons recognize this. The point, however, is that this is the exact opposite of what the GOP has been on about for the past 9 years–namely, killing terrorists instead of prosecuting them, using military tribunals instead of civilian courts, giving the FBI/CIA/NSA unprecedented wiretapping powers, etc. All while shrieking about how librul hippies are soft on terror or cozy with al-Qaeda. And they’re still assailing Obama with such rhetoric.
Yeah, but come on, Dio. Of course, the Pubs are bereft of any principles, but in the broader context, the war on terrorism is bullshit and it should comprised of police actions and coordination with local governments rather than assassinations and military operations.
Dio, despite the fact that you are a complete dumbass, you are a reasonably intelligent guy. So, it seems odd to me that you are missing the point of what these people are saying. They are arguing that it would be better to attempt to capture terrorists alive rather than to kill them with no chance of capturing them alive. Therefore, they are saying it is a bad thing that Obama is simply killing them with drones rather than attempting to capture them alive.
I don’t know anything about the merits of this argument (I hadn’t even heard it until opening this thread). But it is different than simply complaining that Obama is killing too many terrorists (as opposed to simply not killing them or capturing them), which is what you are claiming.
Anyway, I’m sure those few who would agree with the OP and who don’t have me on their ignore list have not read this far down in this post, so enjoy the inevitable circle jerk this thread will become.
I think the irony about the whole thing is that Obama hasn’t really done anything in afghanistan yet that bush wasn’t likely to do.
I’m not critisizing obama: you can’t do big U-turns in the middle of a warzone.
w.r.t. the drones specifically, I’m sure that bush would have ramped up their usage too. They’ve been very useful in this campaign and they are becoming increasingly accurate and sophisticated.
Couple this with the specific strategic factors of this war (e.g. porous border, that we can’t get near) and more UAVs makes a lot of sense.
Why are they making this argument now? In this respect, Obama is simply continuing with the plan and methodology of the Bush administration. People didn’t seem to have a problem when Abu Hamza Rabia, Al-Qaeda’s so-called “number 3” or Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a one-time leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, were killed in drone attacks in 2005 and 2006 rather than captured.
At least for Al Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan, capturing them requires the consent and active assistance of Pakistani intelligence and military. Except for the final months of 2001 (and even then, this was two-faced), they did not provide anywhere near the required level of assistance. It has only been very recently that there seems to be the possibility that this will change. With the drone attacks, even though Pakistan is likely giving some intelligence and quiet approval, Pakistan has plausible deniability that they authorized any of them.
I’m giving Obama a pass on this one , as I doubt that there are any real good oppurtunities to pick up a live AL Q agent and put em through the strainer. Since Pakistan is flakey about actually living up to commitments, albeit they may have good reasons, tagging terrorists with drone strikes is the best that can be done.
Since the CIA has been carrying out its vendetta for those officers that were killed, there will be a bathtub shaped program, where the top generals have been killed, and the lower grunt privates are killed, but we dont know who the majors and colonels are that will step into their place.
Simply plucking the weeds, but not clearing out the roots basically.
Probably. And it wasn’t like Bush was making any significant captures in Pakistan.
The guy in the article linked to in the OP is just stretching logic to a ridiculous limit. Sure, in some perfect world that might be a great strategy, but Pakistan ain’t no perfect world. (Not that I’m a fan of the drone attacks, but it’s nutty to think we could capture many people in that area.)