Team Obama misled us about drone strikes. - Polidicks

[url]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/new-evidence-that-team-obama-misled-us-about-the-drone-war/274839/[/url] [quote]I've written before about how the Obama Administration misleadingly invokes and twists the word "imminent." I've also complained about the effort to portray Hellfire missiles as "surgical" instruments. Proponents of drone strikes talk about how unmanned aerial vehicles can hover for hours to verify that the person in their sites is an appropriate target and avoid killing anyone else. That's a misleading account of how things sometimes work in the field, as retired Brig. Gen. Craig Nixon explained to an audience I was in last year at the Aspen Ideas Festival.[/quote]

We should just leave.

"Anyone who thought U.S. targeted killing outside of armed conflict was a narrow, emergency-based exception to the requirement of due process before a death sentence is being proven conclusively wrong".

what good is it to campaign for the norks and iranians to disband nukes if we have nukes, drones, and stealth bombers, and actively use most of them?

[QUOTE=DesolateGrun;40234550]what good is it to campaign for the norks and iranians to disband nukes if we have nukes, drones, and stealth bombers, and actively use most of them?[/QUOTE] I kinda feel that drones are the nuclear weapons of today. No one is really afraid of nuclear weapons any more, because of how damn impractical they are. However, the sheer volumes of bricks that would be shat if Iran got unmanned, armed drones with good loiter times would be enough to destabilize the orbit of the earth.

Thanks, Obama...

When people keep using phrases like "Team Obama" it just reminds me of how much our politics have become a sport.

I'm not really surprised at this at all. Half the time, the targets are labeled generically as "terrorists", not specifically "al-Qaeda" [editline]10th April 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;40235408]When people keep using phrases like "Team Obama" it just reminds me of how much our politics have become a sport.[/QUOTE] According to the article, Obama himself has spoken "misleading rhetoric" - [quote]The administration has said that strikes by the CIA's missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones are authorized only against [B]"specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces" involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting "imminent" violent attacks on Americans. "It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative," President Barack Obama said in a Sept. 6, 2012, interview with CNN.[/B] "It has to be a situation in which we can't capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States." Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by McClatchy, however, show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn't adhere to those standards. In fact, the documents "show that drone operators weren't always certain who they were killing." Under what legal theory does the Obama Administration justify that behavior? It won't tell us. Instead John Brennan is trotted out to mislead us while acting as if he is being admirably forthcoming. "On April 30, 2012, Brennan gave the most detailed explanation of Obama's drone program. He referred to al Qaida 73 times, the Afghan Taliban three times and mentioned no other group by name," Landay writes. But the classified documents McClatchy reviewed demonstrate that, during the months about which they have information, [B]al-Qaeda members were a minority of people killed by drones, and killing senior al-Qaeda leaders was rare.[/B][/quote]

IC. Back to my daily life.

Certainly going to stain Obama's reputation for historians.

It's also come to light that the CIA is essentially engaging in murder for hire at the behest of the Pakistani government. The only reason the Pakistanis aren't shooting our drones out of the sky is because when they tell the CIA to kill someone who is politically inconvenient for them, [i]the CIA kills them[/i]. We're murdering people at the behest of Pakistan's government, and a minority of our targets are even supposedly Al-Qaeda members. The administration wants us to believe that everyone we kill works for Al-Qaeda and is about to commit a specific, imminent attack. That is clearly, demonstrably, [b]bullshit[/b]. What we actually have is a secret, unaccountable list of people the administration wants dead, who we kill at random whenever we think we have a location on them, with little to no regard for whoever else winds up dead. After all, any "military-aged male" in the area gets chalked up as a terrorist kill, without any accountability for whether that is actually true. Bush's torture regime was bad, don't get me wrong, but IMO this is worse. Way more innocent people are ending up dead every year than Bush had tortured, and entire communities are living in terror with the constant threat of being blown up by remote-control at random.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;40236879]It's also come to light that the CIA is essentially engaging in murder for hire at the behest of the Pakistani government. The only reason the Pakistanis aren't shooting our drones out of the sky is because when they tell the CIA to kill someone who is politically inconvenient for them, [i]the CIA kills them[/i]. We're murdering people at the behest of Pakistan's government, and a minority of our targets are even supposedly Al-Qaeda members. The administration wants us to believe that everyone we kill works for Al-Qaeda and is about to commit a specific, imminent attack. That is clearly, demonstrably, [b]bullshit[/b]. What we actually have is a secret, unaccountable list of people the administration wants dead, who we kill at random whenever we think we have a location on them, with little to no regard for whoever else winds up dead. After all, any "military-aged male" in the area gets chalked up as a terrorist kill, without any accountability for whether that is actually true. Bush's torture regime was bad, don't get me wrong, but IMO this is worse. Way more innocent people are ending up dead every year than Bush had tortured, and entire communities are living in terror with the constant threat of being blown up by remote-control at random.[/QUOTE] You just essentially reiterated the entire article and everything it's about.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40236905]You just essentially reiterated the entire article and everything it's about.[/QUOTE] i think what emperor scorpious is trying to say is that ucs said p. much the exact same thing the author of this article was trying to convey but in different words.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;40236879]It's also come to light that the CIA is essentially engaging in murder for hire at the behest of the Pakistani government. The only reason the Pakistanis aren't shooting our drones out of the sky is because when they tell the CIA to kill someone who is politically inconvenient for them, [i]the CIA kills them[/i]. We're murdering people at the behest of Pakistan's government, and a minority of our targets are even supposedly Al-Qaeda members. The administration wants us to believe that everyone we kill works for Al-Qaeda and is about to commit a specific, imminent attack. That is clearly, demonstrably, [b]bullshit[/b]. What we actually have is a secret, unaccountable list of people the administration wants dead, who we kill at random whenever we think we have a location on them, with little to no regard for whoever else winds up dead. After all, any "military-aged male" in the area gets chalked up as a terrorist kill, without any accountability for whether that is actually true. Bush's torture regime was bad, don't get me wrong, but IMO this is worse. Way more innocent people are ending up dead every year than Bush had tortured, and entire communities are living in terror with the constant threat of being blown up by remote-control at random.[/QUOTE] unfortunately most progressives seem to not care at all about this, or at least, don't voice enough dissent

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;40235408]When people keep using phrases like "Team Obama" it just reminds me of how much our politics have become a sport.[/QUOTE] I was thinking more along the lines of how extreme republicans and democrats are like Twilight readers. :v:

Did people really hold a high standard for Barack Obama? He is an American politician. Being likeable doesn't change that fact.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;40236879]It's also come to light that the CIA is essentially engaging in murder for hire at the behest of the Pakistani government. The only reason the Pakistanis aren't shooting our drones out of the sky is because when they tell the CIA to kill someone who is politically inconvenient for them, [i]the CIA kills them[/i]. We're murdering people at the behest of Pakistan's government, and a minority of our targets are even supposedly Al-Qaeda members. The administration wants us to believe that everyone we kill works for Al-Qaeda and is about to commit a specific, imminent attack. That is clearly, demonstrably, [b]bullshit[/b]. What we actually have is a secret, unaccountable list of people the administration wants dead, who we kill at random whenever we think we have a location on them, with little to no regard for whoever else winds up dead. After all, any "military-aged male" in the area gets chalked up as a terrorist kill, without any accountability for whether that is actually true. Bush's torture regime was bad, don't get me wrong, but IMO this is worse. Way more innocent people are ending up dead every year than Bush had tortured, and entire communities are living in terror with the constant threat of being blown up by remote-control at random.[/QUOTE] They gave Obama a noble piece prize, Fucking insanity right.

[QUOTE=MR-X;40240012]They gave Obama a noble piece prize, Fucking insanity right.[/QUOTE] Why? For what?

[QUOTE=laserguided;40240043]Why? For what?[/QUOTE] Iirc, no reason, they just kinda gave it to him. [editline]10th April 2013[/editline] Apparently he was nominated 12 days into his first term, so yeah, it was literally just given to him for no reason, at least at that point.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;40236905]You just essentially reiterated the entire article and everything it's about.[/QUOTE] Well, yeah. But I at least thought my post was more opinionated and profane than the original article. Wired had some good information the other day from talking with the guy who exposed and wrote about the CIA's secret deals to take out Pakistan's political enemies in exchange for airspace access. [url]http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/04/mark-mazzetti/[/url] [editline]10th April 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;40240270]Iirc, no reason, they just kinda gave it to him. [editline]10th April 2013[/editline] Apparently he was nominated 12 days into his first term, so yeah, it was literally just given to him for no reason, at least at that point.[/QUOTE] Well, at the time he represented a huge departure from Bush's "Fuck em all, we're America" cowboy politics, and he expressed a renewed interest in peace. That did not happen, and instead he presides over entirely extralegal assassinations by remote-control in multiple countries.

:tinfoil:

great source

i think the whole collective united states of america should just break up with obama and get it over with already stop dragging the relationship on just because there's no other leaders around

[QUOTE=Riller;40234693]I kinda feel that drones are the nuclear weapons of today. No one is really afraid of nuclear weapons any more, because of how damn impractical they are. However, the sheer volumes of bricks that would be shat if Iran got unmanned, armed drones with good loiter times would be enough to destabilize the orbit of the earth.[/QUOTE] The solution? Hand out stinger missiles like candy.

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;40242024]The solution? Hand out stinger missiles like candy.[/QUOTE] Isn't that what happened in Afghanistan in the 80s?

really needs to be more prominently known that the CIA is basically a lawless gang that engages in what essentially amounts to murder for hire and drug running untouched by international law american exceptionalism at work folks

[QUOTE=zombojoe;40242362]Isn't that what happened in Afghanistan in the 80s?[/QUOTE] Contrary to popular belief, the stingers didn't really affect the war all that much. Soviet pilots soon figured out how to avoid being shot down by flying at higher altitudes and avoiding certain hot spots.

Its weird that the Disposition Matrix sounds like something straight from a conspiracy theory, but its very much real.

[QUOTE=johnsten;40242020]i think the whole collective united states of america should just break up with obama and get it over with already stop dragging the relationship on just because there's no other leaders around[/QUOTE] Are you implying we should just ditch the Presidency? :v:

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;40242024]The solution? Hand out stinger missiles like candy.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]CHRIS WALLACE: What about…a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute? SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried—it’s to keep and “bear”, so it doesn’t apply to cannons—but I suppose there are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided. WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist? SCALIA: Very carefully.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/07/gun-rights[/url]