drones "count all military age men in strike zone as "combatants"

Don Quixote said:
first, i do not support the war anymore

second, how do you fight a war without killing people when your enemy hides among civilians

third, the taliban/al qaeda have killed more afghan civilians than we/nato have

all that we can do now is admit that the war was a mistake and withdraw
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I'm not sure -where do you get the figures the Taliban eclipses the US in AfPak deaths?

Anyways say you're correct, this war on terror is what bin Laden wanted -an eternal campaign -you can't kill them all at one time, so they move, and reform.

The DENIAL we're killing civilians was problematic enough, but collateral damage just radicalizes the populations more.
( how would you like it if it happened to your family.

Yes it's a mistake, no it's not going to end, even AfPak "support" is scheduled to go past 2020 -we're involved in that region, we're going to see more and more.

One day soon other natons wil l have drones..then when we get hit "oh well".


I don't think it's possible to stop this now, it's too ingrained, been going on for too long, Enjoy the Crusades, they're gona be here a long time -even 'after' AfPak
 
annata said:
I'm not sure -where do you get the figures the Taliban eclipses the US in AfPak deaths?

Anyways say you're correct, this war on terror is what bin Laden wanted -an eternal campaign -you can't kill them all at one time, so they move, and reform.

The DENIAL we're killing civilians was problematic enough, but collateral damage just radicalizes the populations more.
( how would you like it if it happened to your family.

Yes it's a mistake, no it's not going to end, even AfPak "support" is scheduled to go past 2020 -we're involved in that region, we're going to see more and more.

One day soon other natons wil l have drones..then when we get hit "oh well".


I don't think it's possible to stop this now, it's too ingrained, been going on for too long, Enjoy the Crusades, they're gona be here a long time -even 'after' AfPak
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funny that we cannot stop is what they said about iraq

i just wish that we could bet our sooner and start some nation building at home
 
Darla said:
I haven't seen this major story discussed much here, if at all? I am not sure if anyone else posted it, but of course I read it elsewhere. I think it's because the left doesn't want to post about it because it reflects badly on Obama, and the right doesn't want to post about it because in their minds, it reflects well on him. I mean, it's certainly something they would fully support if a Republican were doing it, so...

It's amazing that a President has taken this much power onto himself that he is personally ordering executions and there is a collective shrug in many, though far from all, corners. I wonder if Democrats (I doubt anyone on the actual left supports this) defending this ever think about this power in the hands of a right wing President? IT's so strange they "trust" Obama with this power, well if you trust him you have to be willing to trust all who follow because if he can do it so can they. And trusting anyone with this is just a result of the cult of personality anyway.
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I don't trust any of them with this type of power and it is one of the things about our country that greatly disappoints me.
 
Well, actually, militiants, but whatever. They'll usually specificy "militiants" in their casualty figures, and all "militiant" means in this context is a young male of indeterminant guilt.
 
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_new...-in-yemen-they-just-control-a-whole-city?lite

"Now we are in a city, it is a natural city, people are living in the city, having the normal life," journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad said in Jaar. "Yet at the same time this is al-Qaida. And they just control a whole city."

'Puppet' and 'Stooge': al-Qaida chief al-Zawahiri issues message on Yemen

The journalists also interviewed refugees who had fled fighting between militants and the army.


EPA, file

A member of militant group Ansar al-Sharia stands next to an al-Qaida flag at a checkpoint in the southern town of Azzan, Yemen, on March 31.
One woman who left her home with her family because of the clashes, wiped away tears and said: "The army and security forces made it worse instead of protecting us."

Al-Qaida-linked militants seized large swathes of territory in southern Yemen last year as then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh grappled with protesters demanding his overthrow. Saleh quit last November in favor of his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Hadi Mansour.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
I wonder how long before they use them in the US?
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not long
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57409759/drone-use-in-the-u.s-raises-privacy-concerns/
(CBS News) - Unmanned aerial vehicles, a key weapon in the hunt for terrorists overseas, are coming to America. In February, President Barack Obama signed a bill that opens U.S. airspace to thousands of these unmanned aircraft.


The drones come in just about any size you want - as large as a passenger plane - or as small as a hummingbird.
"There's no stopping this technology," said Peter Singer, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and perhaps the country's foremost authority on drones. "Anybody who thinks they can put this genie back in the box - that's silliness."

Singer watched them dramatically alter the American battlefield overseas, and says they're about to become the next big thing at home
 
The White House responded Tuesday to criticism of the Obama administration’s use of drone attacks and a so-called “kill list,” saying President Obama will do what is necessary to protect Americans from harm.

“President Obama made clear from the start to his advisers and to the world that we were going to take whatever steps are necessary to protect the American people from harm, and particularly from a terrorist attack,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.

Details about the attacks in such places as Yemen and Pakistan and the Al Qaeda members on the list were made public in a lengthy New York Times story that included interviews with more than 30 White House advisers and former advisers.

The story has resulted a range of concerns and questions – including about the legality of such attacks in countries where the United States is technically not at war and the moral implications of Obama deciding whether to OK a drone strike that could potentially kill civilians, as well as whether the Times interviews resulted in potential security leaks

was gonna start a new thread.....so many drones, so little time.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...efends-drone-attacks-kill-list/#ixzz1wNWMa6VI
 
It's all very neo-con/neo-lib and mirrors the Israeli Likud far right. This is more disastrous foreign policy and a continuation of Bush/Cheney. Now we will sell this tech to Italy...so it's good for business and our corporatist owners.
 
Haiku said:
It's all very neo-con/neo-lib and mirrors the Israeli Likud far right. This is more disastrous foreign policy and a continuation of Bush/Cheney. Now we will sell this tech to Italy...so it's good for business and our corporatist owners.
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excellent. My biggest complaint is we're ALL neocons/libs since 9-11, and it's going to stay that way. Corporatist , warmongers all -I critize Obomber more, because he should know better :truestory:

I even wonder if any of his Bullshit has any meanings anymore, runs up debt, runs up wars, - his one good qualification "the lessor of 2 evils"

f**k him to hell on a drone.
 
Darla said:
I haven't seen this major story discussed much here, if at all? I am not sure if anyone else posted it, but of course I read it elsewhere. I think it's because the left doesn't want to post about it because it reflects badly on Obama, and the right doesn't want to post about it because in their minds, it reflects well on him. I mean, it's certainly something they would fully support if a Republican were doing it, so...

It's amazing that a President has taken this much power onto himself that he is personally ordering executions and there is a collective shrug in many, though far from all, corners. I wonder if Democrats (I doubt anyone on the actual left supports this) defending this ever think about this power in the hands of a right wing President? IT's so strange they "trust" Obama with this power, well if you trust him you have to be willing to trust all who follow because if he can do it so can they. And trusting anyone with this is just a result of the cult of personality anyway.
Click to expand...

Well, if someone is both actively planning to threaten the United States and has made themselves inaccessible to capture, I would think that drone strikes would be allowed at least as a measure of self-defense. We don't have to go through a trial in order to neutralize a dangerous suspect who's about to escape. However, we must be careful not to stretch this logic too far. And, of course, one of the main criticisms of Obama is that he hasn't been making an attempt to capture where possible, simply using the drones when and where ever they would be convenient. I was also a bit disturbed by this argument from the justice department:

"The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch. "

How on Earth could deliberations in the executive branch be considered due process? I can understand killing as a matter of necessity, but that's not "due process", it's necessity. It is an incredibly radical and unprecedented move if the executive branch is seriously claiming that it doesn't matter how much of a threat someone poses, or how practical a capture would be, they can still send in a drone strike regardless simply by holding a meeting, deciding the person is guilty, and sentencing them to death. Due process can never be satisfied without the involvement of the judicial branch, or even a jury.

I suppose we argue that we're in a war with a party that has not signed the Geneva convention, in which case we would technically be bound by no rules (I still think there are some basic standards of human decency that should be observed no matter what). However, I think it would be an incredibly dangerous precedent to allow the president to declare a war with no plausible end date against an entire class of crime which has been known to exist for pretty much all of human history. This "war" also presumably is not limited to any piece of geography (it's basically a war against everyone on the planet, I guess), and it comes with all the powers typically granted to a president in time of war. What is the end condition for this war? Is our goal to be at war until terrorism signs a peace treaty with us? Offers it's unconditional surrender?

Also, when police officers in the US accidentally kill a few innocent Americans in the process of attempting to neutralize a dangerous suspect, it rightly causes a shitstorm*. This hopefully causes the police to be more conservative with their use of deadly force. With the drone strike program, nobody gives a shit about the foreign, brown, Muslim brats who have their lives ripped away when Obama decides that it's slightly more convenient to blow up the apartment complex that the suspect is hiding in with a fucking missile than to send a strike team in. The people who are effected by this program have no say over it.

*Granted, this shitstorm is proportional to the whiteness of the victim.
 
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KissingCommies said:
Well, if someone is both actively planning to threaten the United States and has made themselves inaccessible to capture, I would think that drone strikes would be allowed at least as a measure of self-defense. We don't have to go through a trial in order to neutralize a dangerous suspect who's about to escape. However, we must be careful not to stretch this logic too far. And, of course, one of the main criticisms of Obama is that he hasn't been making an attempt to capture where possible, simply using the drones when and where ever they would be convenient. I was also a bit disturbed by this argument from the justice department:

"The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch. "

How on Earth could deliberations in the executive branch be considered due process? I can understand killing as a matter of necessity, but that's not "due process", it's necessity. It is an incredibly radical and unprecedented move if the executive branch is seriously claiming that it doesn't matter how much of a threat someone poses, or how practical a capture would be, they can still send in a drone strike regardless simply by holding a meeting, deciding the person is guilty, and sentencing them to death. Due process can never be satisfied without the involvement of the judicial branch, or even a jury.

If we are to suppose this is a war with a party that has not signed the Geneva convention, in which case we would be bound by no rules besides those which we choose to impose on ourselves (I still think there are some basic standards of human decency that should be observed no matter what). However, I think it would be an incredibly dangerous precedent to allow the president to declare a war with no plausible end date against an entire class of crime which has been known to exist for pretty much all of human history. This "war" also presumably is not limited to any piece of geography (it's basically a war against everyone on the planet, I guess), and it comes with all the powers typically granted to a president in time of war. What is the end condition for this war? Is our goal to be at war until terrorism signs a peace treaty with us? Offers it's unconditional surrender?

Also, when police officers in the US accidentally kill a few innocent Americans in the process of attempting to neutralize a dangerous suspect, it rightly causes a shitstorm*. This hopefully causes the police to be more conservative with their use of deadly force. With the drone strike program, nobody gives a shit about the foreign, brown, Muslim brats who have their lives ripped away when Obama decides that it's slightly more convenient to blow the apartment complex that the suspect is hiding in up with a fucking missile than to send a strike team in. The people who are effects by this program have no say over it.

*Granted, this shitstorm is proportional to the whiteness of the victim.
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Water you have been making some very thoughtful posts lately!
 
it's a war, that's not a war, but we have enemy combatants, who could be US citizens, but it's a battlefield - though not really battles, just the Taliban, whom are capable of inflicting casualties, except we're in their land, and if we wern't they couldn't.

Now it's global, even though quite a few are disrupted by Law Enforcement, not drones, but drone we must, as we muster up another drone and civilians are really combatants, -well because they are STANDING there near a combatant......... but we'll also take a no-fly zone in Libya and turn that into a battlefield....
I think i ran out of contradictions . Nice post Kissing Commies well articulated. Trying to make sense of the nonsensicle.
 
KissingCommies said:
Well, if someone is both actively planning to threaten the United States and has made themselves inaccessible to capture, I would think that drone strikes would be allowed at least as a measure of self-defense. We don't have to go through a trial in order to neutralize a dangerous suspect who's about to escape. However, we must be careful not to stretch this logic too far. And, of course, one of the main criticisms of Obama is that he hasn't been making an attempt to capture where possible, simply using the drones when and where ever they would be convenient. I was also a bit disturbed by this argument from the justice department:

"The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch. "

How on Earth could deliberations in the executive branch be considered due process? I can understand killing as a matter of necessity, but that's not "due process", it's necessity. It is an incredibly radical and unprecedented move if the executive branch is seriously claiming that it doesn't matter how much of a threat someone poses, or how practical a capture would be, they can still send in a drone strike regardless simply by holding a meeting, deciding the person is guilty, and sentencing them to death. Due process can never be satisfied without the involvement of the judicial branch, or even a jury.

I suppose we argue that we're in a war with a party that has not signed the Geneva convention, in which case we would technically be bound by no rules (I still think there are some basic standards of human decency that should be observed no matter what). However, I think it would be an incredibly dangerous precedent to allow the president to declare a war with no plausible end date against an entire class of crime which has been known to exist for pretty much all of human history. This "war" also presumably is not limited to any piece of geography (it's basically a war against everyone on the planet, I guess), and it comes with all the powers typically granted to a president in time of war. What is the end condition for this war? Is our goal to be at war until terrorism signs a peace treaty with us? Offers it's unconditional surrender?

Also, when police officers in the US accidentally kill a few innocent Americans in the process of attempting to neutralize a dangerous suspect, it rightly causes a shitstorm*. This hopefully causes the police to be more conservative with their use of deadly force. With the drone strike program, nobody gives a shit about the foreign, brown, Muslim brats who have their lives ripped away when Obama decides that it's slightly more convenient to blow up the apartment complex that the suspect is hiding in with a fucking missile than to send a strike team in. The people who are effected by this program have no say over it.

*Granted, this shitstorm is proportional to the whiteness of the victim.
Click to expand...
Has anyone seen this memo?
 
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