The Awesome Obama Thread II

So, what? Standing next to Howard Zinn (who doesn't work at ZComm any more) and Noam Chomsky means you can't tell a lie? You can flaunt the qualifications of these luminaries all you like, Dronester, but in point of fact Chomsky, Zinn, and Fisk aren't your sources. "InfoWars" is. And you've decided to completely ignore the fact that InfoWars is a rat's nest of conspiracy theories run by the country's most famous paranoid delusional.You can talk about my "medications" all you like, but the fact remains that you're the one out of his mind, here.

The article was written by Chris Woods and Christina Lamb, not Alex Fucking Jones. Sheesh.However, the point is taken: While I was only concerned about the actual news story, I'll be more careful in the future.Can we now discuss Obama's INCREASED use of drones that kill indiscriminately?

But that's not what you just recently said. Remember Crash, your written words are historical records and they can be referenced. (Dosage, dosage, dosage): Only because his death kinda gets in the way of tight deadlines. By "completely ignore" do you mean the way I acknowleged your complaint by supplying a second source. (really Crash, check the dosage)

Actually I not just support and approve of the drone strikes so far, I hope that they are a sign of an increasing awareness of the changing paradigm of war.Nation State-Nation State wars are simply no longer economically practical in either monetary or human costs. Strategic strikes like the US drone strikes are far preferable and a great way to minimize both the monetary and human costs.The US Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were just plain not very bright. But they were typical of the current paradigm of Nation State-Nation State conflicts.IMHO a far better response in Afghanistan would have been similar to what is being done now, discrete, stealth and select targeting without notice, but I also think it would be better still without acknowledgement. Send in Seal Teams, drones, smart bombs, snipers; and target the individuals instead of the Nation State.Iraq is a different story. I can't yet see any justification for invasion or specific targeting there.

Can you please address the horrible civilian deaths, and that their deaths cause hostile reactions from their friends and family. The end result, america is CREATING more enemies and INCREASING the risk of more "terrorist" strikes in the future.E.g., has Israel's harsh and illegal punishment of the Palestineans worked?

It is just what I recently said, because it's just what you recently did - used InfoWars as a source, then mocked the idea that InfoWars isn't a source to be taken seriously. Then I embarassed you so completely that you had no choice but to retract all your uses of InfoWars propaganda. Well, ok, what are you left with? Chomsky, Zinn, and Fisk? Well, no, since they're not your sources, either. As are yours. Can you show where you cited Zinn, Chomsky, or Fisk? Otherwise I don't see the relevance of their qualifications.You really have no idea what you're doing, do you? You didn't, though. You provided a completely different source in support of a completely different claim. You haven't done anything to support your citations from InfoWars or identified your sources for the images you posted or told us why we're supposed to believe that those children were casualties of an Obama-ordered drone strike on a funeral.

You are a nut case. That you believe that this is an accurate chronological order of events, even though they just happened a few minutes ago and is completely available for review, makes me really think you are in need of medication. I pity you. Really. Err, it's the exact SAME article, both sources. Please Crash, call your doctor NOW. I am dumbfounded. I clearly wrote: Don't worry about calling the doctor Crash, I'll call you an ambulance.

Actually, I would say that strategic and unacknowledged strikes cause far less civilian deaths than the average Nation State-Nation State war and create far fewer enemies than invading a Nation.

Does escalating violence solve problems? Would you prefer Obama use diplomacy OR ever more drones attacks on Yemen, Somalia, Iran, France, etc... Does drone usage only end when everybody is dead?And what about creating a standard for all nations . . .Are you comfortable with other nations, perhaps China, Costa Rica, or Vanuatu, using drone attacks upon the usa because they "believe" we are the enemy?

So, that's how you think corroboration works? That if you post the same article twice, that must mean it's true?One person repeating another's lies doesn't lend them accuracy. Repetition of a falsehood doesn't make it true. So what drone strike are they from, then? When were these images taken? Who took them?

That depends on the extent of the enemy you're trying to destroy. If you perpetuate the strikes for long enough the death toll just continues to rise - and it shows no signs of stopping, because the current "war" is against a poorly defined enemy.But overall, yes - it would have been vastly preferable in, say, the Iraq invasion, to simply use drone strikes to kill Hussein and his military leaders, as opposed to real warfare.The problem is that there are other options beside drone warfare or invasion. Counter-terrorism is best performed via police action - primarily because it's far more accurate than drone strikes at identifying your real target.Drone strikes are attacks of uncertainty - the operator thinks a group of targets may be associated with the enemy. Sometimes the distinction is clear, but often it's not - which is why we wind up with drone strikes that blow up friendly government forces, funerals, and weddings in addition to the occasional Taliban/al Qaeda member.Why do we care? "War" is messy after all, right? Collateral damage, and all that?We should care for two reasons. The first is the obvious ethical reason - killing innocent people is bad. Very bad. Minimizing civilian death should always be a priority in any military operation - and largely it is, that's why we use cruise missiles and Seal teams and yes, drone strikes as opposed to firebombing cities like we regrettably did in WWII.The other reason is far more practical. The "war on terrorism" is not a standard war of attrition. The enemy does not have a finite standing army whose numbers we must deplete. The enemy does not have factories or refineries or government capitols or commercial ports to attack and limit their ability to make war. The enemy does not come from a single political entity or even a single geographical area. They wear no uniforms, and they are blended in with our own allies and neutral parties.The enemy's ranks grow when we portray ourselves as tyrants, killing their children and neighbors and wives and husbands with impunity, without feeling the need to prove any sort of wrongdoing. If France sent an assassin to kill my fiance, I imagine I might hold something of a grudge against France...and suddenly, instead of eliminating one enemy, France has gained another, and likely many of her friends and family as well. The same holds true in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere the US uses its military power - the deaths of innocent civilians create more of the enemy.The "war on terrorism" is not a traditional war, and we cannot and should not fight it as such. This really is a war of hearts and minds - and the drone attacks are serving to turn more hearts and minds against us to replace the maybe-terrorists we blow up.

My time on the forum is not limitless Crash. I understand your best (only) strategies are war-of-attrition and obfuscation. I get it. You ARE excellent at this, indeed, I AM tired of your nonsense. To keep from debating Obama's increasing use of immoral and illegal drone strikes and specifcally the article "Obama Terror Drones: CIA Tactics In Pakistan Include Targeting Rescuers And Funerals" I linked, I predict you'll even eventually trot out your tired "embassy" fabrication.

Thanks Rahvin, you are my hero for the day!

Well, far be it from me to expect you to spend any amount of it finding defensible sources for your assertions.

That's hardly unique to the use of drones. The truth is, whether the missile is launched from the desk of an operator in Langley or by a pilot 20,000 feet above the arena of battle, there's just as much ambiguity and just as much need for snap judgement, with all that entails in terms of unintended civilian loss of life.Any time you decide to pull the trigger on military action, that's the kind of thing that happens. I don't think anyone ignores that or minimizes it. And it means that you have to be very sure that the ends justify the means, that military response is warranted.I don't think we can ignore the threat that religious terror organizations pose. And while I favor the "law enforcement" paradigm more than I favor the "invade countries" paradigm, that doesn't always work when we're talking about the lawless reaches of frontier Pakistan. The law enforcement paradigm works for urban terror networks; I don't think it works as a response to wasteland training camps and that sort of thing.I don't think drone attacks are properly understood as "indiscriminate"; they're very precise, in the way that a bullet is precise. But it matters where it is being aimed. I think you make a mistake by portraying drone attacks as indiscriminate bombings - no, that's what al-Qaeda does, and the difference is that the al-Qaeda bomber knows that he's going to take out 40 civilians in an attempt to hit a US target. It's terrible when civilians are killed by our drone strikes, but the standard that demands that Obama say "well, it sure looks like a terrorist training camp, what with it being only men, and the shooting ranges set up with pictures of American soldiers as targets, and the explosives lab and whatnot; but no, we can't strike it because of the one-in-a-hundred chance that it's actually just a very strange kind of wedding." Or you might say "well, France sucks, but she was intending to kill about 40 Parisians in a cafe bombing, so maybe I'll just let this one go, especially now that I think back to the time a bunch of her friends killed my uncle coming out of Sunday Mass last year." I don't expect anyone who loses a wife or a child to a US airstrike to muster much forgiveness. But you know, a lot of people in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan blame both sides. I don't think unintended civilian casualties drives as much recruitment as you might think, especially since everybody knows that the other side is killing children, too.The drone strikes aren't useless:

quote:

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The list of senior terrorists killed during the Obama presidency is fairly extensive.
There’s Osama bin Laden, of course, killed in May.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Anwar al-Awlaki as of today.
Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.
In August, ‘Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed.
In June, one of the group’s most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.
Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta.
Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.
In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.
Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and ‘Abdallah Sa’id were killed.
In February 2010, in Pakistan, Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.
In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin - accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings — was killed during a raid in Indonesia.
In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.
In May, al Qaeda’s number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.
In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed.

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http://abcnews.go.com/...he-terrorist-notches-on-obamas-beltIt's not just weddings that the missiles are hitting. It's not even mostly weddings. It's actually one wedding, and three dozen top figures in al-Qaeda.