Sky rockets? Really, must this crowd always turn everything into an action movie? Who's staring in this one, Bruce Willis and Tatum Channing?
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Originally Posted by Miss Shelby
the drones are gov't employees. So they're up there surfing porn and wasting tax payer money, I gaurantee you there not up there doing what they're actually getting paid to do.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
The video above is set to just play a 15 second clip of CNN's Erin Burnett asking if using an armed drone here in the US to hunt and kill Christopher Dornier would be a good idea.
Never mind due process, right to a trial, not murdering suspects- never mind that. If our government just kills whomever it wants anywhere in the world based on nothing more than suspicion, intelligence, pattern recognition, and by completely circumventing normal rules of warfare and the judiciary- then why the fuck not right here in the US? I mean, we've already targeted and killed US citizens in other countries this way.
Maybe if he's sitting in a Denny's and the US uses a drone to blow it up, we can just say that all the males there between 15 and 80 were militants. We can suggest that the others there were likely terrorist sympathizers, who should have known better to associate themselves with Mr. Dornier. We can point out that no US law enforcement personnel were put at risk, and how this drone strike has made us all safer. Yay!
There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs .... When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact... With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says. Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach. "Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.
"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?
Matt Taibbi covers an article by Michael Kugelman, wherein the Senior Program Associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C (put that on a business card, I dare you!) explains that drone attacks aren't so bad because measles kills more people, and that missiles from robots in the sky don't make people angry: it's just that anti-American sentiment is so much easier than concern for, well, measles.
Taibbi also outlines the NYT role in being enablers and lickspittles, hiding from the public their knowledge of Saudi drone bases, and now offering up the solution to the president ordering extra-judicial assassinations across the globe. Wait for it........ It is going to be a really good idea....Perhaps a secret star-chamber rubber-stamp court to give the patina of legitimacy- as long as it in no way hinders the executive branch from killing whomever they choose. Yay!
But wait! Greenwald also points out that when challenged by the ACLU in court, the Obama Administration cannot even do so much as acknowledge whether or not the CIA drone program exists. Classified! You know, that one CIA drone program they talk about all the fucking time:
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Even in the face of the endless stream of public statements from the president on down discussing and boasting about the drone program, the federal judge presiding over the lawsuit last September meekly deferred (as usual) to the DOJ's secrecy claims and dismissed the ACLU's lawsuit. The judge, Rosemary Collyer, ruled that all of the public statements cited by the ACLU whereby Obama officials boasted of the drone program do not constitute official acknowledgment that the CIA (as opposed to some other government generally) has a drone program. The ACLU has appealed this decision.
As ludicrous as the DOJ's secrecy claims were before, they have now reached Alice in Wonderland proportions. Just last week, Obama's nominee to lead the CIA, John Brennan, spent hours upon hours before the Senate Intelligence Committee praising the CIA targeted killing program and discussing the oversight he would make available for that program as CIA director. Then, GOP House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers went on Face the Nation and did the same; when asked if "the administration has been straight with Congress in sharing information on what the rules are about using" drones, Rep. Rogers replied: "Monthly, I have my committee go to the CIA to review them. I as chairman review every single air strike that we use in the war on terror, both from the civilian and the military side when it comes to terrorist strikes."
Clearer and more definitive acknowledgment by the US government that the CIA has a drone program is impossible to imagine. As a result, late last week, the ACLU wrote a letter to the appellate court where its case is now pending to notify the court of these new public acknowledgments. Specifically, as the ACLU put it, Brennan and the Committee members "extensively discussed various aspects of the CIA's targeted-killing program, including the 'role' of the 'CIA director in [the]
approval process' for targeted killings abroad". Moreover, Rogers openly "discusse[d] his committee's 'monthly' oversight of the CIA's targeted-killing program." Now, there is simply no way to deny in good faith that the US government has publicly and officially acknowledged the CIA drone program.
But good faith is no impediment to the Obama DOJ when it comes to its abuse of secrecy powers. This morning, the DOJ sent a letter to the court replying to the ACLU. Ever after the events of last week, they have the audacity to claim that even the question of whether there is a CIA drone program must still be concealed. The DOJ argues - completely falsely - that the ACLU "identif[ies] no statement in which Mr. Brennan allegedly confirms purported CIA involvement in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for 'targeted killing'", but merely cite "general discussions of 'targeted killing' that do not address the involvement of any particular agency". They dismiss the admissions of Chairman Rogers on the ground that "statements made by members of Congress do not constitute official disclosure by an Executive Branch agency."
Chickenshit make believe will do in the court, while the executive branch continues to pick targets for execution and then kill them, and anyone near them, with impudence.
There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs .... When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact... With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says. Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach. "Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.
"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?
Ok, I told you guys this when I was drunk before, right? I was in Gaza when Israel bombed a house in Gaza Town which was where the head of Islamic Jihad (or an operative, I'm not even sure) lived. One of their first 'targeted killings': USATODAY.com - Israeli strike kills Hamas leader, at least 14 others (It says Hamas in the article but he was Islamic Jihad, I am 100% sure of that.)
Anyway, the guy who dropped the one ton bomb that created that huge crater where an appartment building was, when asked, said all he felt at the time was a slight bump when the bomb left the plane. So I guess we have long past the point where a soldier can actually see, hear and smell what he did to the people he was firing at.
I think it's probably looking at the past a bit with rose-colored glasses to assume that war today is somehow much less humane or whatever.
It's not as if soldiers didn't used to get over the fact that they were stabbing and slicing people up close and personal, or that they didn't kill children or civilians.
And in the past it's not as if the main thing that upset populations about going to war was the people being killed on the other side.
The difference is now that the proportion of soldiers who are really putting their lives on the line is lower. Which is akin to complaining that we're too good at war and it would be better if America's military was worse and we had more casualties. Maybe America would be more circumspect about going to war if that was the case, but I don't you're going to get anywhere arguing that once we're at war, we should put more of our soldiers in harm's way or that we should weaken our military so that we feel less tempted to use it.
At least, I don't think that's the thing to really focus on when talking about this.
I think the main difference is that drones are routinely used on targets in countries that the USA is not at war with. If the USA is at war with a country, then I suppose using drone strikes rather than manned aircraft is just a way of waging war at lower cost and without risking USA pilots.
I suppose that in the past, spies or other under-cover illegal assassins would have been used to attack targets in countries that the USA was not at war with.
Drones make it easier though: if and when the targeted country shoots down a drone or recovers one that has crashed, it's much less of a publicity coup against the USA than when illegal human assassins are killed or captured.
I expect that once Russia and China begin to routinely use drones worldwide to kill people that they consider might be threats to their regimes, the USA will suddenly have a change in thinking and decide that drone strikes without a declaration of war are illegal.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced this week a new medal for desk-bound warriors who control killer robots responsible for the deaths of thousands in South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.
The Distinguished Warfare Medal will recognize drone pilots for their “extraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but do not involve acts of valor or physical risks that combat entails.”
In other words, what Glenn Greenwald once described as “sitting safely ensconced in a bunker on U.S. soil and launching bombs with a video joystick at human beings thousands of miles away” is now considered an “extraordinary achievement.”
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced this week a new medal for desk-bound warriors who control killer robots responsible for the deaths of thousands in South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.
The Distinguished Warfare Medal will recognize drone pilots for their “extraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but do not involve acts of valor or physical risks that combat entails.”
In other words, what Glenn Greenwald once described as “sitting safely ensconced in a bunker on U.S. soil and launching bombs with a video joystick at human beings thousands of miles away” is now considered an “extraordinary achievement.”
I think the world may be turned upside down in saying this, but Rand Paul is actually doing something vaguely useful, in threatening to filibuster the confirmation of John "Kidnapping and Torture and Extra-Judicial Murder is Cool" Brennan as the next head of the CIA, until he answers the question that has been posed to him before, that Brennan and Obama have ducked. From Senator Aqua-Buddha's press release:
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In the letter, Sen. Paul states: "The question that I and many others have asked is not whether the Administration has or intends to carry out drone strikes inside the United States, but whether it believes it has the authority to do so. This is an important distinction that should not be ignored."
It would be great for someone to finally force the Obama Administration to offer the barest outline of the limits of their conceptions of global warfare and the extra-judicial assassinations of US Citizens, among others.
Why is it okay to assassinate US citizens when they're not on US soil? Why is it okay to assassinate non-US citizens no matter where they are? Why the particular fuss about the specific case of US citizens on US soil?
The US Supreme Court differentiates between the rights of US citizens and the rights of non-US citizens; so there is better grounds to challenge the killing of a US citizen in the US courts.
Human rights, including the right to not be assassinated extra-judicially, is an important one for all peoples, undeniably. Focusing on US citizens brings US media scrutiny in the way that questioning the killing of citizens of Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Somalia has not. It also is harder for government officials or members of the public to suggest that the government killing US citizens without charges or trial or any recourse jibes with rule of law, in a way that they cannot as easily dismiss.
Since the Obama Administration has not outlined any legal limits to whom they may target, even to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, this would be a place to start.
It would be great for someone to finally force the Obama Administration to offer the barest outline of the limits of their conceptions of global warfare and the extra-judicial assassinations of US Citizens, among others.
Almost makes me wish for a Republican President. I mean then at least the people would pretend to care about their civil liberties being trampled on. If I'm going to be oppressed either way, then I guess partisan faux outrage is preferable to a collective "meh" from people who don't give a damn so long as it's THEIR guy wielding unchecked power.
Jimmy Carter has been vocal about Obama's disregard of doing what is right (or even legal), and you can't get much more famous than being a former President of the United States.
As for the lack of more widespread criticism from fellow Dems in office. . . I suspect it's pragmatism: they'd rather have it where some more good comes out of Obama's term than bogging him down in attacks from both sides.
Pragmatically, I'll take the guy who helped get us some health care reform (which will save many, many lives per year) even if it means some people are illegally killed in other countries.
The lesser evil is likely the only choice we will ever have. Someone, somewhere always gets screwed. Darwinian selection means that dicks prosper. Look at Wall Street. Predators of all kinds are the end result of a long line of dickish animals.
As for the lack of more widespread criticism from fellow Dems in office. . . I suspect it's pragmatism: they'd rather have it where some more good comes out of Obama's term than bogging him down in attacks from both sides.
I don't think that's what is happening, and I don't think criticism from your own side prevents "more good." Unless by pragmatism you mean toeing the party line because your party members are highly involved in whether you get plum committee positions or chairs, and are also involved in your chances at re-election. If pragmatism also means abandoning principles, then sure; unless civil liberties were window dressing for the (D) Party platform, in the same way fiscal conservancy is for the (R) Party platform- just to be trotted out when not in power.
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Originally Posted by Kashmir
Pragmatically, I'll take the guy who helped get us some health care reform (which will save many, many lives per year) even if it means some people are illegally killed in other countries.
But it is not an either-or equation. Either we're okay with drones or no (tepid) health care reform? It also doesn't give anyone a pass. Obama is not Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, and it doesn't hold water.
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Originally Posted by Kashmir
The lesser evil is likely the only choice we will ever have. Someone, somewhere always gets screwed.
Therefore what?
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Originally Posted by Kashmir
Darwinian selection means that dicks prosper. Look at Wall Street. Predators of all kinds are the end result of a long line of dickish animals.
That's a pretty broad justifyin' brush. Social Darwinism is fun because you can use it to justify any form or direction of society you care to name, and then somehow give it a false patina of scientific basis.
Last edited by chunksmediocrites; 03-10-2013 at 01:28 AM.
You go with the lesser evil, screw as few people as possible, naturally.
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Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites
That's a pretty broad justifyin' brush. Social Darwinism is fun because you can use it to justify any form or direction of society you care to name, and then somehow give it a false patina of scientific basis.
It is for people who are trying to justify something. I'm not justifying anything, simply observing the way of the world. Might shouldn't make "right", but it does.
Just what I've said a couple times already. Partisan politics where one doesn't buck the party, in part because it could be bad for one's career; and because civil rights are essentially window dressing for the Democratic party- an issue primarily trotted out when not in power, to criticize the other party.
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Originally Posted by Kashmir
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Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites
That's a pretty broad justifyin' brush. Social Darwinism is fun because you can use it to justify any form or direction of society you care to name, and then somehow give it a false patina of scientific basis.
It is for people who are trying to justify something. I'm not justifying anything, simply observing the way of the world.
You are conflating observations with premises and conclusions.
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Darwinian selection means that dicks prosper.
Not an observation.
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Look at Wall Street. Predators of all kinds are the end result of a long line of dickish animals.
The NYT has a long article offering background on the decision to target and kill US Citizen Anwar al-Awlaki using drones. The reporters use mostly anonymous government sources in this piece, and several times skirt the issues central to Awlaki's death.
Does a US citizen have a right to trial, or not?
Does the executive branch have the legal power to order the assassination of a US citizen without any judicial oversight or review?
Greenwald points out that the Obama Administration made every effort to avoid and repel challenges to their targeting of Awlaki, and claimed national security secrecy in the courts, as a means to avoid discussing it entirely. So now, when scrutiny comes, numerous anonymous government officials come forward to give details. Will Obama search out these anonymous government sources giving these reporters sanitized, pro-Administration talking points on the Awlaki killing? Because, you know- national security! Vital secrecy!
The New York Times and the Obama administration have created a disturbing collaborative pattern that asserted itself again on Sunday with the paper's long article purporting to describe the events leading up to the execution by the CIA of US citizen Anwar Awlaki. Time and again, the Obama administration shrouds what it does with complete secrecy, and then uses that secrecy to avoid judicial review of its actions and/or compelled statutory disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. "Oh, we're so sorry", says the Obama DOJ, "but we cannot have courts deciding if what we did is legal, nor ordering us to disclose information under FOIA, because these programs are so very secret that any disclosure would seriously jeopardize national security".
But then, senior Obama officials run to the New York Times by the dozens, demand (and receive) anonymity, and then spout all sorts of claims about these very same programs that are designed to justify what the US government has done and to glorify President Obama. The New York Times helpfully shields these officials - who are not blowing any whistles, but acting as government spokespeople - from being identified, and then mindlessly regurgitates their assertions as fact. It's standard government stenography, administration press releases masquerading as in-depth news articles.
Greenwald also points out that there is evidence that Awlaki was targeted primarily for saying things the US government didn't like- which is actually protected as free speech; and that the timeline of when the US targeted Awlaki, as well as the "confession" of the underwear bomber in his plea agreement that Awlaki was the puppet-master, has more than a few holes in it.
US drones are reported to have killed two "militants," including a "foreign national," as they rode on horseback in the terrorist hub of Datta Khel in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. The strike today is the first reported by the US in Pakistan in 29 days.
The CIA-operated, remotely piloted Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired two missiles at a pair of "militants" as they were riding horses in the village of Degan in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. The two militants and their horses are reported to have been killed, Pakistani intelligence officials told Dawn.
The identities and affiliation of those killed have not been disclosed. AFP reported that a "foreign national" was killed in the strike.
Today's strike in North Waziristan is the first reported in Pakistan's tribal areas since Feb. 8, when US drones killed two Arab al Qaeda operatives and four Uzbeks in North Waziristan. The Arabs were identified as Sheikh Abu Waqas, a Yemeni explosives expert, and Abu Majid al Iraqi. The four Uzbeks, who were likely from the al Qaeda-allied Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, were not identified. The strike took place as the foreign fighters were having dinner with members of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. A previous strike, on Feb. 6 in North Waziristan, is said to have killed five militants.
The two strikes in February have recently stirred up some controversy. The New York Times reported earlier this month that those two strikes were not carried out by the US. The report was based on interviews with "three American officials with knowledge of the program." The officials claimed one of the strikes was likely a Pakistani operation and that the other explosion may have been caused by infighting within the Taliban.
However, US intelligence officials involved with the drone program in Pakistan have told The Long War Journal that the two February strikes were indeed US operations.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations, the military's public relations branch, denied The New York Times report and claimed it was a "distortion of the facts and seems to be aimed at diluting Pakistan's stance on drone strikes."
Given the way the so-called War on Terror has been conducted thus far, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the FBI put the Underwear Bomber up to it, then gave him "explosives" instead of explosives so nothing would get scorched except UB's dangly bits.
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Re: Sky Robots killing bad guys for freedom!!!
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