More Awesome Obama . . .

Great. Thanks for admitting you were wrong to falsely accuse me. Well, it wasn't a clear indication, because you DID assume wrong, but I understand that it WAS my fault. When I momentarily jumped off topic without explanation, my message became unclear, I concede.Although off-topic, please allow me to explain better now. Genocide and the LABELING of genocide is a touchy topic to me.

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The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda.

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The US was reluctant to get involved in the "local conflict" in Rwanda and refused to LABEL the killings as "genocide". Then-president Bill Clinton later publicly regretted that decision in a Frontline television interview. Five years later, Clinton stated that he believed that if he had sent 5,000 U.S. peacekeepers, more than 500,000 lives could have been saved.[60]

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Rwandan genocide - Wikipedia

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I visited Rwanda in 2002. It's was a spooky and dire place. There are untold orphans living in the city, refusing to go home because of the atrocities they witnessed to their families. Some were even forced to commit the atrocities themselves. The children won't look at you in the eyes. I've met many people with scars on their faces and arms. While America didn't cause the genocide, America did nothing to prevent it. It affects me to this day.My follow-up question "What numbers qualify for genocide Xong?" was an emotional knee jerk reaction to Xong's statement "They are not on the same level as genocide." In hindsight, it would have been better to NOT include that question or at least explain it better. I can't be any clearer about that, my apologies. I've explained myself now, twice. My question "What numbers qualify for genocide?" was not in the same sentence or even the same paragraph as the examples I gave. The examples I gave were about NUMBERS. If you still feel the need to conflate ("conjunction") separated ideas in a post is a dishonest trademark worthy of Crash. Great, you are using logic from the Jack Bauer School of Terrorism. Sadly, nearly all Americans also agreed with Bush Jr.'s similar "you are either with us or against us" and other Hollywood-styled nonsense. Grow up Rahvin, life isn't a B-movie plot. I dare you to go to a nation where they've been on the wrong side of the American stick. Cambodian children still get blown up from American landmines. Iraqi infant mortality and deformity rates in Falujah are through the roof from American chemical weapons. Palestinean civilians have suffered burns down to the bone from American made-phosphorus weapons. It saddens me because it is so easy for you to come up with, from the comfort of your couch, an insipidly hypothetical like "If you take no action, a thousand people will die." That is something I would expect from Jar.IF, IF there is another terrorist strike in the US, how would you feel if your girlfriend became "collateral damage"? I doubt you would take it so rationally and understanding. A little empathy goes a long way, try it sometime. I've already addressed your wrongheadedness with my very long post in the other thread. Mod and Caffeine seemed to disagree with you also. Since you fully disregarded us then, I shant bother repeating myself again. Yeah, that rings true, the person who does NOT want innocent civilians murdered at any cost is a dishonest person.If you are a person who lives according to Hollywood hypotheticals so that you can sleep easier, then somehow your barb doesn't sting so much. Oni made a comment about this forum turning into facebook. Perhaps he is right. Regardless, I prefer you ally with me because I am right, not because I am only your friend. But you do as your "conscience" tells you.

No, of course you're not at war with Pakistan. The military obviously does not have the authority to order foreign military interventions by itself - the military is not the sovereign power except in military dictatorships - and even then their power is more of a de facto than de jure arrangement.I had a look at the Pakistani consitution, and though they are wary about ascribing sovereignity to anyone (being an Islamic consitution, the first article in the preamble assigns sovereignity over the whole universe to God), it's clear that the military is subject to civilian rule.It does get a bit trickier though, depending on the position of the executive. While I'm sure many parliamentarians are sincere in their opposition to a US military presence, the army is not beholden to Parliament. If the government is being two-faced and pretending to agree with them, while behind closed doors opening the way for drone attacks, then you're probably stretching definitions to call it a legal breach of sovereignity.You could fairly consider it a breach of the democratic principles Pakistan is supposed to be based on, however.

Yeah, I agree. I'm trying to figure out the rationale to calling this a "war crime", but honestly, I don't think there's one beside just smearing the president with hyperbolic spin. What do you think?

This looked like an interesting topic, but since the OP is obviously off his meds and cannot answer the simplest of questions, I am not even sure if this thread is for real or not.I think Obama is horrible myself, but the reasoning here is pretty hard to agree with, even for me.There is nothing in message 2 that has anything to do with the US violating the sovereignty of the Philippines. Mindanao is not the Philippines. MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) is a rebel group that is fighting against our friends in the Philippines. Message #2 is complete bullshit and spin. Ahh.
Ok thanks.

I think that estimation would fit 100% with dronester's previous tendencies for hyperbole.The US policy on drone strikes in general makes me uncomfortable, partially because of my perception that the strikes are carried out on the flimsiest of reasoning, and partially because of questions of sovereignty and the behavior expected of a nation that is part of the international community.And currently it's the stated policy for drone strikes that bothers me, more than any actual application thus far. The (legal) justification for US drones in Afghanistan seems pretty strong given that it's an active war zone; the presence of drones in Pakistan seems a bit more muddy given conflicting messages from the military and from their legislative body, but I'm still not going to scream "War crimes."The stated policy is that drones can be used when a foreign state gives us permission, or when that state is unwilling or unable to act against a terrorist presence within its borders. This concerns me because of the word "or," which basically means that the policy is saying that the US considers it perfectly fine to send a drone to kill some citizens of a foreign country without the express permission of that nation. If any other nation took up that sort of behavior against US citizens within American territory, we would immediately declare war. That policy of exceptionalism, where we can fuck with everyone else but nobody can fuck with us, does not strike me as good international citizenship, nor does it strike me as particularly ethical.But in no way am I going to just scream "war crime!" and ask all those who disagree to stop responding to my posts.

Yeah, I don't get it. I hafta agree with xongsmith that it does more harm than good to act so ridiculous. Yeah, I give more credit to our army. I think we're privy to a very small fraction of the infomation and data they have and use to make these kinds of decisions.Have you seen that movie Charlie Wilson's War? We just don't know what kind of covert shit's going down and what kind of info they're basing the decisions on. I'd hope the strikes are pragmatically justified with the prevention of future terrorist attacks and whatnot. Better a drone than a SEAL team, no? Ya know, assuming they're going to complete the mission either way. Sure, and those nations could declare war on us too. Its just that they're not that stupid and we're in a position to not have to worry about that. At face value, no, you're right. I just wonder what's going on behind the scenes and what the real goals and missions are about. Don't forget calling them sociopaths.

dronester...I'd like to add to the list of your gifts the ability to ignore virtually all of the actual salient points in a person's post in your "rebuttal," instead focusing on offtopic nonsense and the further development of your self-image as a martyr. I did no such thing, which means once again you're being dishonest. dronester, I despise "24" every bit as much as you do. For instance, there are no cases where I believe torture will divine the location of a ticking time bomb in time to save New York. I think that, contrary to his portrayal, the "hero" of "24" was in fact in immoral monster who belonged in the Hague, and that the writers of that show deserve scorn and disapproval. I'd wager you would agree.But my question was not a "24" scenario. Allow me to be far more specific. Let's say that a surveillance drone has actually located Joseph Kony.

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Kony has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers.[21] An estimated 66,000 children became soldiers and two million people have been internally displaced since 1986.[22] Kony was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2005 but has evaded capture.[23] The LRA operates in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan.

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The man is a monster. He's a cult leader who is directly responsible for deaths in the tens of thousands, as well as forcing children to become soldiers and sex slaves. He is the leader of a group attempting ethnic and religious cleansing, which actually does meet the definition of genocide. Because he's the head of a cult, killing or capturing him has a high probability of stopping his movement cold.Attacking Kony's encampment through traditional or special forces means is unfeasible at this time; projections show any team sent to kill or capture Kony will almost certainly be killed and fail their mission, as well as killing many of Kony's followers.You can have a Hellfire-armed drone on location in 20 minutes. Because of the lethal radius of Hellfire missiles, you're likely to kill a few other people in addition to Kony. These very well may include children; the military estimate is that Koney and between 15 and 25 other individuals will die if the strike is authorized.You;re the President. Do you authorize the strike? If you do not, Kony and his army will continue to murder and rape across Africa. Thousands more people are almost certain to die if you do nothing.This is not from "24" or some other work of fiction. This is a real-world scenario where a drone strike could plausibly save thousands of lives. The question is not rhetorical, and neither is it acceptable to continue to dodge the question. Would you authorize the strike yes or no?I fail to see how a terrorist strike is analogous to a drone strike. But perhaps we should alter your scenario so that it fits better - let's imagine that I myself am Pakistani, and that an American drone attack kills my fiance along with several other people, a few of whom were possibly members of al Qaeda.I would be devastated at the loss of my loved one. I would be angry at the United States for authorizing the drone strike.But I would also be very, very angry if some of those al Qaeda members had survived and then later executed a suicide attack on an open market where my fiance had happened to be buying groceries, killing her.My feelings as a person directly affected by the decision, dronester, do not matter.Just because you insert someone emotionally into a scenario does not actually change the ethical implications of the action taken. Everyone is someone's fiance, or father or mother or child or friend. Rationally, this means that in any scenario, the choice that causes the fewest deaths will be the least-bad option. Sometimes this means that you don't have to kill anyone, and obviously that's the best way. Sometimes you can get away with only killing one person to save many, and that's still a horrible choice to have to make, but it's still a clear choice.And sometimes you might have the option to kill several people to save many, many more lives. A choice, where you literally have to decide whether you kill a dozen or allow hundreds or thousands more to be killed. If you allow those hundreds or thousands to be killed through your inaction, you bear a large portion of the responsibility for their murders. You become an unwilling accomplice. In such a case, it is ethically better to kill the dozen to save the hundreds or thousands. It is the only choice if you maintain a consistent value for human life.To do otherwise would mean that you value the lives of the dozen aggressors more than you value the lives of their hundreds or thousands of intended victims.Every one of them, the aggressors and the victims, are someone's fiance, or brother or sister or father or mother or daughter or son. Making me one of their loved ones doesn't change anything - the most ethical choice is always the option that involves killing the fewest people, which obviously also means that options that don't involve any death are always preferable when available.

I tried to look it up, but I'm not sure entirely what transition you're referring to. I'm not really well-versed in Pakistan's politics.Did this transition happen before or after January of this year? Sure, but if Canada took them up on their invitation, I don't think they'd be guilty of an act of war, or a war crime. I think they'd be guilty of taking advantage of a divided government for their own purposes. And certainly that's what we're doing in Pakistan - taking advantage, for our own purposes (military strikes against al-Qaeda leaders located in the Pakistani hinterlands.)

May 12, 2012 It's official; George W Bush IS a war criminal (see links below)

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May 18, 2012 - Former President George W. Bush is now an international war criminal. Just last week he and several members of his administration were convicted of war crimes -- the first conviction of its kind ever.

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Bush, former V.P. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were all convicted in abenstia by a Malaysian tribunal in Kuala Lumpur. Granted, this isn't a powerful country who held this trial, and the conviction won't do much, and it's mostly symbolic... but it will send a clear message to the United States that it is not above international law.

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The trial was based on the principles set out in the Nuremburg Charter, to which the US is subject.

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I propose we change the Godwin law. From now on, when talking about Hitler, the first person who mentions war criminal Bush Jr. automatically loses.To the people who voted for war criminal Bush Jr. . . . TWICE!: Well, it's painfully clear they cannot handle the right to vote. In the future I propose that ALL their choices be legally forfeited. No, not even a choice in salad dressing. Italian lite till death.And Obama? As a senator, SENATOR Obama clearly showed that he SUPPORTED impeachable offenses including torture:
The 35 Articles of Impeachment by Kucinich was never supported by Obama. Obama took an oath to uphold the constitution and laws, but that only meant for the 99%, not for war criminal Bush Jr.
Efforts to impeach George W. Bush - WikipediaNot only didN'T president Obama assign investigators to Bush Jr.'s war crimes, President Obama ALSO went out of his way to PROTECT war criminal Bush Jr. . . .

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In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Departmentone of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaksdetails how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.

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Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe – Mother JonesSo we can NOW correctly say that Obama is a war criminal abetter.Lastly, since Obama maintains the same policy of disappearance and torture of the Bush administration and has expanded the use of illegal and immoral drone missile assassinations, it is only a matter of time before Obama will also be correctly charged as a war criminal.Sorry Crash, no links from The White House or other "liberal" media outlets (go figure):Blair, Bush in 'war crimes trial'
BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Blair, Bush in 'war crimes trial'Malaysia hosts symbolic trial against Bush, Blair
Page Not Found: 404 Not Found - CBS News George W. Bush Convicted of War Crimes
zcommunications.org - zcommunications Resources and Information.George W Bush guilty of war crimes
FacebookMalaysian tribunal finds Bush guilty of war crimes
Yahoo Search - Web SearchBush, Blair found guilty of war crimes
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/211590.html?utm_source=dlvr....Bush and Blair found guilty of war crimes for Iraq attack
Bush and Blair found guilty of war crimes for Iraq attack | Salon.com

Yawn.You might even have something of interest to say if the Malaysian Tribunal had any standing or recognition.

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On May 12, 1996, Albright defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes segment in which Lesley Stahl asked her "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" and Albright replied "we think the price is worth it."[52]

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Madeleine Albright - Wikipedia

I didn't support the sanctions then and I don't, now. Not sure I see the relevance.

dronester, I don't understand.This quote, from me: deals with the consistent value of human life. That sacrificing one life for a hundred is a morally obligatory course of action, when the results are certain.This quote, from Madeline Albright in 1996: deals with what would appear to be an inconsistent valuation of human life, where 500,000 Iraqi children are counted as less significant than whatever was supposed to be gained through the use of UN sanctions.I have never once made a comment regarding the Iraqi sanctions and whether I supported or did not support them (of course, since I was a teenager in 1996, I don't remember being particularly aware of the issue).I am confused as to what my quote has to do with Albright's own statements. Where is the relevance? You provided no actual words of your own, so I don;t know what point you were trying to make. If you were trying to say that "it's morally wrong to sacrifice 500,000 children through the use of sanctions," then I would be inclined to agree with you...unless sacrificing those 500,000 children in Iraq would be certain to save the lives of a million Kuwaiti children (I find that sort of circumstance to be laughably unlikely, but I want to be clear as to what my actual stance is).If you were trying to say "this is what happens when we accept that sacrificing lives is a valid moral option under some circumstances, and dronester finds that to be morally reprehensible," then I'd have to say that you seem a bit confused as to the value of human life...because if all lives are morally equivalent, then there will be circumstances where sacrificing a smaller amount of lives will be justified by saving a larger amount. Killing Hitler in, say, 1930, would almost certainly have saved a few million lives, and I don't think you'd disagree there.Aside from what exactly you were trying to say or imply, I don't see what relevance Madeline Albright's words from 1996 have to do with the topic of this thread, which is President Barack Obama.Could you please clarify, dronester, exactly what you're trying to say?

It seems that you incorrectly thought that 7 links to the same story would lend weight to your tears.From your own links:

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It is no surprise that neither man will be attending the proceedings - they may not even be aware that it is taking place.

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the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal which found them guilty is a "tribunal of conscience" and does not have the power to impose any punishment.

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It's just some people trying to make a statement.But I might start my own tribunal and find you guilty of something.
You can then whine about how the authorities have refused to arrest and imprison you! Which is then followed by a link the the very liberal BBC.
Did you make a funny?Anyway, congratulations on finding some people who didn't like the war.
That must have taken you quite some time.