I got as far as them re-litigating Joe Lieberman
Ordering the execution of a 16 year old American citizen via drone strike, carried out while the target was eating at a cafe in Jordan. The missile killed him, his cousin he was eating with, and seven more people who just happened to be there
Wait nevermind it was when he said not to put ketchup on a hot dog
That was the incident that finally took the blinders off my eyes and made me realize "oh, Obama is literally just a fucking serial killer". It makes liberal's fascination with serial killer true crime dramas make more sense, it reminds them of their favorite president.
The wikipedia article about it doesn't even bother to mention that the drone strike murdered a whole cafe full of people. The lives of other are just a non-factor in westerner's minds sometimes.
First thing that comes to mind is he used a fuck ton of drones overseas. But in the years before his presidency, more and more drones were being used.
Second, Obama was pro-whistle blowers when he ran for POTUS. But when Edward Snowden told the world that the NSA is spying on Americans, suddenly Obama took his pro-whistle blowing stance off of his website.
As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death? As a followup, do you believe that drone warfare would have existed in any case?
As for Snowden, what makes him any different from Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen or many more? Just because you claim the high ground doesn't mean you own it.
The choices are not either drones or American boots on the ground. That's a false dichotomy. And we ended up leaving anyway. I can only imagine how it must feel to lose a family member as a civilian casualty of a drone strike and then the occupying country just leaves.
I don't see how these other example are relevant. Edward Snowden was not a double agent working for a foreign entity. He saw that a government agency was breaking the law and then told the American people. He also worked with a reputable news agency to not release unnecessary classified information. By all means, this should have been lauded by the Obama administration.
Just because you claim the high ground doesn’t mean you own it.
When you say shit like this its hard for people to take you seriously.
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore. They are the targets. Now you have a choice on how to eliminate those targets, either by combat or by a newish idea drones. But, both are not clean. More than bin Laden died in the house that night. You may argue they shouldn't be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.
You don't know if Snowden wasn't an agent by the evidence. He stole intelligence and caused it it be published then went running to Russia. I don't think a Russian intelligence agency could ask for anything more.
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore.
how long is "pretty soon"? 50+ years?
also, the US doesn't so much "fight terrorists" as it trains, arms and finances them to destabilize regions near US geopolitical rivals, and then get real shocked when all that blows back on US civilians. though it does seem to work up little baby brains into shoveling more money, bones, and blood into the military industrial complex. so maybe it's a win-win?
it trains, arms and finances them to destabilize regions near US geopolitical rivals
Hmm, that sounds familiar
and then get real shocked when all that blows back on US civilians.
I'm sure that definitely won't happen though.
For they have sown the operation cyclone, and they shall reap the whirloperation cyclone?
That's the way al-Qaeda is now. They're still taking out ISIS leaders every now and then.
But that isn't because US strikes, this is the case thanks to the massive efforts of Syria, Iraq and the Kurds. It was them who fought ISIS head-on in the battlegrounds around Tikrit, Mosul, Raqqa, Kobane, Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor. In fact, the Syrian Arab Army has been engaging Al Nusra, Al-Qaeda's faction in Syria, for a decade now, and if it's destroyed it's largely thanks to Syria's effort, all while at the same time Al Nusra quietly received weapons from a certain someone.
Your "war on terrorism" is full of shit, brother, there is no such thing as war against ISIS from the US. ISIS, even at it's largest extent, posed no threat to the United States, if anything their roots can be traced back to US interventions and financing in the region. Their bombings are nothing but a way to continue military occupation in said places, as evidenced in Syria.
How do you even argue with someone who just makes up beliefs? Like, you can and do just say whatever you want and it doesn't matter that reality doesn't reflect that, you have your ideology that the world must conform to and you just ignore things that make it inconvenient to believe.
"The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore. They are the targets. Now you have a choice on how to eliminate those targets, either by combat or by a newish idea drones. But, both are not clean. More than bin Laden died in the house that night. You may argue they shouldn't be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary." Source on this entire paragraph? Proof "pretty soon nobody wants to be boss anymore"?
takes huge steaming dump and points to it
what's the matter, can't argue with that?
there's nothing to argue with,. it's like trying to swim through cotton candy. except the cotton candy also yearns for American empire
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization
Wait, are you telling us the US Senate, White House, Pentagon, Lockheed Martin's HQ, CIA HQ and Congress were bombed by US drones? Is Joe Biden among the dead?
Ah, you mean the arab terrorists, okay, you got me hyped up for a second there. I thought that, for once, the US would take the fight against the biggest terrorist organizations but nevermind.
You may argue they shouldn't be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.
Israel moment.
You see brother your logic makes perfect sense when you think about it: bad terrorist leader = target for our drones. The problem is that bad terrorist leader can be anywhere, and sometimes drone ends up firing a few Hellfire missiles into weddings and orphan hospitals. So what's up with that? Who answers for these war crimes? Because so far no drone operator has been convicted for war crimes, "mistakes happen" as they say and they get away with it. And this is assuming the US fights this very loose term of "terrorism" at all, because some of these terrorists were previously armed and financed by the US itself to destabilize rival governments, kinda like how the US sent thousands of TOW anti-tank missile launchers to a bunch of sus factions in Syria because Assad bad, then these people turned out to be Al Nusra
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization. Pretty soon No one wants to be boss anymore
So you're just making shit up from video games or tv, because this is the opposite of the truth. This is the tactic the US used in Iraq and Afghanistan, it consistently failed because there's always someone new who can replace the head of the organization. This isn't some leftist critique, this is what the US government learned from more than a decade of trying to make that tactic work.
Who's in charge of Afghanistan right now? How many Taliban leaders do you suppose were assassinated between the invasion of Afghanistan and the Taliban re-acquisition of control?
The Taliban actively fought US troops
Stop the shoot and cry bullshit. The yanks had no business being in Afghanistan in the first place.
For decades and decades, all the yanks have ever brought Afghanistan has been violence and terror.
He was never a leader of Al Qaeda, it did not ever have a formal hierarchy. He was more like a mascot who had a lot of money. You should do some more research about him, and terrorist "organizations" in general, if you're going to bloviate about them.
The drone program is basically an assembly line that creates war crimes.
Let's take the bin Laden raid as an example. We flew helicopters into a sovereign nation. We attacked a civilian structure. We killed many civilians including bin Laden. There are grounds for war crimes there.
Yes, US foreign policy is basically just choosing where and what type of crimes against humanity to use our tax dollars for.
Osama Bin Laden? The guy who was close personal friends with the Bush family? Yeah it was probably wrong to invade another country - an act of war if done to the USA - and extrajudicially murder somebody.
Would it be wrong for Iraq or Afghanistan to kill George Bush or Tony Blair? Their crimes makes Osama bin Laden look like a boyscout in comparison.
Oddly enough, the way we create terrorist organizations is to capitate the organizations.
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization
That's why ISIS, Al-Qaeda affiliates, and the Taliban no longer exist....oh wait
This nonsense "logic" doesn't even work in video games, it literally ignores the reality of organizations based on physically decentralized but financially centralized cell groups, not even the American War collages believe what you're peddling
You may argue they shouldn't be killed in the first place, but I believe it was necessary.
Of course you do, you probably get off on it
And that’s why there isn’t any more terrorism in the world right?
No one is blaming the US for killing terrorist with drones. The US us blamed for killing thousands of civilians.
Nobody is blaming the US for killing terrorist[s] with drones
I mean, I am. Most of the people they label terrorists are either their own CIA funded/armed proxies or geopolitical enemies and not really terrorists in the full jihadist sense (such as Iranian intel officers or Syrian military or Libyan government officials). It’s just a convenient excuse for the US to involve themselves in other nations affairs - fund and arm terrorists in a nation you want to destroy, then say you “have” to go in to “fight terrorism” and obliterate the nation.
It’s all bullshit. America will never eliminate terrorism. They are the biggest sponsor of terror on Earth. There would be far less total terrorism if they never once left their borders
I am. they created the problem then created more problems trying to resolve the blowback
People die in war, that's a fact. But I would say it makes little difference if it's a drone or a rifle.
How about America minds its own fucking business and doesn't use rifles or drones on foreign countries then? You act like these civilians have to die and its just a choice of method, how about just not invading?
Was the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 stupid or for a reaason?
Sure it was for a reason: to enrich arms manufacturers and project imperialist power.
America's reaction to 9/11 completely proves that it fully deserved 9/11
Or you chauvinists could stay in your own country for once and stop killing other people like savages
You mean the people recruited and trained by the people the US funded and trained?
Season 4 of Blowback just came out, it's recommended listening.
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization.
When you definitely understand how to wage COIN effectively.
The way we fight terrorists is to decapitate the head of their organization
No, it's to have soldiers blast an oblong opening in the head of any Middle-Easterner they get their blood-soaked hands on.
As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?
Very few people give a shit about dead foreign civilians, a lot of people get angry when the bodies of their own country's soldiers start piling up. Replace the soldiers with remote control machines and you remove a huge (arguably the main) incentive for people to oppose war.
Wouldn't calling someone a boot licker be ad hominem? Not arguing against the boot licker comment but it seem seems hypocritical to claim ad hominem to defend an ad hominem.
No because their enjoyment of boot directly informs and relates to the argument they are creating, that American boots are better than middle eastern children.
would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death
Buddy you have a lot of unexamined assumptions you need to address, first let's start with the context of these "missions" your beloved soldiers and drones carry out
Is murdering innocent people for oil execs and military capital something you consider necessary and noble?
As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?
yes, personally i'd love to see more dead US soldiers actually
As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?
-
Why are you automatically supporting these "missions" in the first place? They shouldn't be carried out at all.
-
Yes I would rather have live soldiers doing it. Dead bodies means less people will support doing these "missions" that shouldn't be done in first fucking place.
The US is literally the Empire from Star Wars and this thread is basically you doing "empire did nothing wrong" but unironically.
You are the bad guy.
-
Oh no, the poor wittle soldiews might die when they're sent to kill people 🥺
As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?
Don't know what to tell you but people being invaded don't tend to hold american soldiers' lives as sacred.
As to drones, would you rather use live soldiers to carry out missions given the possibility of their death?
turnabout is fair play
He's asexual but likes to dream about cute boys
He's literally me wtf?
He deported more HISPANICS then any other pres- whoops wrong tone
He re-authorized the PATRIOT AC- dang it
He bailed out banks, condemned protestors, tried to murder the BLM movement in it's infancy, kept contributing to the permanent military state, and was CULPABLE for SYRIA becoming an OPEN AIR SLAVE MARK-darn
I just suck at this, I guess.
was CULPABLE for SYRIA becoming an OPEN AIR SLAVE MARK-darn
That was Libya. Syria is the one where the US funded ISIS and keeps stealing oil.
2011 Invasion of Lybia and the subsequent overthrow of Gadaffi - Slavery, refugee crisis, Boko Haram
2014 Invasion of Syria - Ongoing refugee crisis, ISIS
2014 Invasion of Yemen (Saudi-led) - Humanitarian crisis, ISIS
2013 Euromaidan Coup in Ukraine - Azov, Crimean secession, Russo-Ukraine War
2015 Sanctions on Venezuela - Economic crisis, threat of warfare, hyperinflation
2009-16 Support to ETIM - Terrorist attacks throughout China, especially Xinjiang, ETIM+ISIS collaboration, development of "Uyghur genocide" narrative
2013 AFRICOM - Increased US military presence in Africa, drone strikes in Sudan, Somalia and Lybia, growth of Boko Haram and ISIS
2009 Honduras Coup
If it's the Kunduz Hospital airstrike you're thinking of it was actually worse than a drone strike (as if these can be ranked but I digress), they had an AC-130 bombarding the hospital for over an hour including for 30 minutes after MSF contacted both the American and Afghan forces
In terms of body count, bragging that he made us the #1 producer of natural gas and choosing to not address climate change because it, along with healthcare, would expend too much political capital.
Closely related was his pretending to be very concerned about the violence facing the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline but also allowing a national law enforcement response that I have to presume was coordinated by his FBI.
This is the focal point for my personal hatred of Obama.
Not only were the drones awful, but there was some reporting at the time about a policy of double-tapping - hitting the target, then sending a second missile after emergency crews showed up to deal with the damage.
fucking over mortgage holders in favor of recapitalizing the banks, immiserating millions and cutting black wealth in half
all those people who had the sheriff show up to evict them is top me, one of the largest examples of state enacted violence against the people in modern history and it was mostly non-white people who were the victims which is amazing to think it was the first black president who resided over this
colonial occupiers should actually have to be on the ground occupying so that more of them can die
This isn't the worst thing he did but it's the one that made me see him for what he is: drinking the water at a press conference in Flint.
"This is not a political stunt."
"This is not a political stunt."
If I ever get the chance to ask him a question, I'd ask him why he did this.
Yes, there are worse things he's done, but this one is so clearly and obviously bad in a way you can't wriggle out of with phrases like "national security" or "complicated situation". I want him to know that this is what he's going to be remembered for.
lt was 100% from the outside at least. The only pipes that weren't shut off in that school were the ones to the toilets. He drank water his own people handed him and he was still unsure enough to take that tiny little dab of a sip.
And everyone there knew it, and he knew they knew it, and he did it anyway.
Ending occupy wallstreet and kicking the can down another ~20 years or so.
When the markets implode, just know there were signs
Could you go into more detail? This sounds interesting, but it’s not something I really know much about.
Probably his 180 on banking and bankers, and policy in general tbh.
I remember Matt Christman talking about it in a vlog, how that betrayal and his general betrayal of American workers helped pave the way to the tea party reaction
When he gave the ok to the saudis to start a war in Yemen.
Then the Syrian war.
Lybia.
Rember he greatly scaled the international sanctions program.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama did this? Say it ain't so!! That sounds like the opposite of peace promotion!
Perhaps it was for the greater good.
it almost always is when it comes to Amerikkkas crimes
