you’re actually just completely wrong, and i don’t consider you a legitimate contribution to the conversation.
you said it’s too bad kids die, but “the war happened there.”
this is not action of war. this is not part of military action. it is CIA action that allows more unilateral say-so without military oversight.
the pentagon is not conducting these attackes.
they literally have nothing to do with what happened in any of the actual declared wars.
…meanwhile you said we aren’t even at war with anyone. so you both say kids die and that’s part of the deal, because “war happened in their country,” then in the same breath turn around and say we’re not even at war.
…what of the other studies? the CMC study? the Brookings institute study?
you only want to discuss and validate the ones that support your dogma. 10-to-1 is the result of a study’s findings. you want to call it bullshit.
all that can be determined is you arbitrarily decide which statistics are the legitimate ones and not just pretend the others don’t matter, but pretend i made them up.
neither is true. what is true is you are inconsistent in what you debate. you have proven time and again you default to whatever portion of data best suits your POV, which was determined well before you ever even HEARD the rest of the data.
dogma.
not rational consideration of actual data. and it’s always far-far-FAR right wing dogma. in every case you ever have EVER argued.
you are a politically religious, at all costs, especially when it sacrifices intellectual consistency. you don’t care about the rationale, or the intellectual linearness. you simply care about what the most right-winged ideals are, and side with those. what data is most credible? why, the most right-winged data, of course. USAtoday is only credible if the article supports something you believe. otherwise it’s not. Obama is only careful if it supports a kill-policy of racial discrimination you can get behind as a WASP. the rest of the time he is a big fat fuck up who can’t do any single thing right. you don’t make sense, either. you and XT are nothing more than partisan. logic isn’t part of your buffet.
To be fair, all of the Obamabots support this policy since they will literally get behind murder/war crimes under their Obama-based ethical standard. And all sorts of races voted for Obama.
Judicial process is not part of war. The drone strikes are war. The CIA can carry out acts of war, they even have their own tactical divisions for this purpose. The CIA is not a law-enforcement agency.
Do you read your own cites?
From the first:
From the second:
That’s why they are called “signature” strikes, they target behaviors and characteristics rather than identities (“personality” strikes). Double-tap strikes are another matter completely.
Yes, it is. The strikes are carried out under the September 14, 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. It is part of military action.
Or, you can oppose the war effort, but recognize that the strikes are not illegal, and should be opposed on other grounds.
The strikes are legal as long as they target al-Quaeda, or associated groups working alongside al-Quaeda, as long as those groups had something to do with 9/11. If they did not have something to do with 9/11, it becomes assassination, which is illegal under US law. Because the targets are mostly secret, or without known identities (like the signature strikes you mentioned), there’s no way for the public (and maybe even the government) to know if they fall under the AUMF.
The legality under international law is also suspect.
Right, legal targets are “those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Note the “he [the President] determines” line, which empowers President to decide targets without any other process.
The problem is the AUMF, much more than the drone tactics.
Maybe. There have been documented strikes on funerals, schools, mosques and other public places where one can reasonably expect a high number of civilian casualties compared to the military aims, which could violate 5b. The double taps mentioned earlier might also violate 5b.
Obama has labeled all military-aged males as “combatants”, which may violate number 2, if “combatants” are being targeted though they’re really just civilians. And while spreading terror isn’t the primary goal of drone strikes (which would violate 2), it’s certainly an effect.
I’m not sure how these criteria are judged, though, or how the above examples compare to past violations.
Ya know, in spite of my username and my location I’m a middle-aged American guy. My whole life I’ve been watching people from the Middle East burn American flags, call America the “Great Satan”, and generally use my country as a whipping boy for their problems. Sure, I know they might have a grudge. Fine, whatever.
But I’m supposed to get my panties in a bunch over some drone strikes? I don’t see them weeping over any of the terrorist attacks that have killed Americans. I don’t see them or their governments dealing with the scumbags and haters that live next door. I mean, literally, guy down the street, president of the Let’s Hate America Fan Club, goes door to door asking for money to build more dynamite vests so he can vaporize the Great Satan, you think that might be a guy to move the hell away from? A guy to marginalize, to put a lid on? Apparently not.
The governments of the nations these people live in are unwilling or incapable of dealing with these people. It is actually the actual job of the American government to protect American lives and property, and part of that is finding these people and serving them with subpoenas and making sure they attend their court dates. And if that won’t work, then blowing them to itty bitty pieces.
And if it’s a choice between sending in live Marines or a drone, I vote for the drone every time. What’s redeeming about drone strikes is that they save American lives. It would be great if we could figure out a way to do this that saved EVERYBODY’S lives, but apparently Americans are the only people in this equation that care enough about human life to even argue this point. It’s a question that nobody else in this game is even pretending to care about.
This is not true. The Pentagon and CIA are carrying out the drone strikes.
And more importantly, paramilitary groups like the CIA (which the CIA has become) must follow the same laws of war as the regular military. There’s no loophole.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are not in the Middle East. By the way, saying “all of those people over there act in this way so they deserve to die” is called “racism.”
Thanks for the recycled horseshit talking points. No one in these countries is willing and able to carry out an attack on the U.S. and most of the people killed in the drone strikes are not even linked to these pathetic so-called “militant” groups that never posed a threat to begin with.
The only person in this equation who is going to other countries and murdering their citizens is Barack Obama.
No, they don’t. Even if you don’t believe bombing funerals and first responders is terrorism in itself, it recruits terrorists. In Pakistan, the US leadership currently has a 92% disapproval rating. The Times Square bomber in 2010 explicitly called out the US murder of Pakistani women and children as a reason why he was willing to commit an act of terrorism.
Wow, the Pakistani people disapprove of the United States? Cry me a river. Maybe they should, I dunno, quit taking our money, and quit sheltering homicidal Muslim terrorists. If they could control their own borders, perhaps there wouldn’t be any drone strikes on their territory. But god forbid they should solve their own problems, it’s easier to let Uncle Sam do it and then complain afterwards. How dare you be so mean to me, Uncle Sam. Now give me more money.
Oh no, some utterly insane lunatic claims drone strikes are the reason he’s attempting to bomb Times Square? Wow, I’m glad he brought that to everybody’s attention in such a thoughtful and rational way. I think we should seriously consider that our foreign policy might give utterly insane lunatics an excuse for mass murder, and adjust our foreign policy accordingly to only include actions that meet the approval of utterly insane lunatics.
Perhaps it would be more efficient and save precious bomb-funding dollars if we just established some sort of assembly line for killing all the Pakistanis, though? Maybe they could all be “concentrated” into some kind of “camp” system.
If your goal is to kill terrorists in a country which provides support for those terrorists and does not have the will or the capability to capture them, then the drone system you are so opposed to is actually more accurate and less deadly to non-terrorists than your own concentration camp idea.
Godwin’s Law. Also, the fact that we are not randomly killing all Pakistanis is proof that we harbor no such intent.
I did not realize the President’s job was to make people in Pakistan happy. I thought his job was to win the war and protect American lives. Pakistani-based militants are killing Americans every single day. A President who did not take action against them would be a pretty poor C-i-C.
If you follow terrorist attacks long enough, you quickly realize that there is no difference between an attack in response to a specific event, and an attack that they were planning to carry out anyway just for giggles.
Absolutely right. Their own government refuses to protect them, but they cry when they suffer the obvious and foreseeable consequences for their actions.
The reason they are recycled is because they are true.
Cite please. Last I heard, we were in a war with these people in a little place called Afghanistan that you may or may not have heard of. Afghanistan was also the headquarters for a pretty important international terrorist group that repeatedly attacked America. I’m sorry, but have you been living under a rock for the last 30 years?
I’d also like to submit this to Occam’s Razor. What is the simpler explanation:
President Obama, who is the leader of a military engaged in America’s longest war, who possesses at his fingertips the sum total of all US and NATO intelligence, who has repeatedly demonstrated his concern for the perception of the US overseas and a limited desire for US military action, who in every other respect appears to be a pretty level-headed guy… That this person who I have described would choose to engage in the most inefficient form of genocide possible for no readily identifiable reason other than his own personal giggles.
OR
His critics, who are mere spectators to the event, are wrong.