Following in a long line of things that President Obama is supposedly fundamentally morally opposed to that he does anyways, the New York Times has a lengthy new expose on the policy of targeted assassinations, with the revelation that the president has put himself at the center of the campaign.
Trying to jibe his putative claim to being a “liberal law professor” with his new self-appointed job of literally deciding who lives and who dies across the entire planet, the piece makes it seem that the policy is something the president is loath to carry out, with Tom Donilon saying he is “determined to keep the tether pretty short” on the program.
Which makes a great soundbite, but bears no resemblance to the policy, which transformed from extremely rare strikes restricted to the Pakistani border during the last years of the Bush Administration into a daily campaign of assassinating his perceived enemies across the planet, with the revelation that President Obama personally approves every single drone strike launched. That amounts to well over 1,000 killed since he took office, all but a handful never to be identified beyond the label of “suspect.”
It was President Obama who claimed the right to order the summary execution of American citizens abroad without ever charging them with a crime. This was carried out not only in the assassination of outspoken cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, killed on the claim that his sermons critical of US policy were “recruiting” terrorists, but also Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, who was never even accused of this sort of tenuous link to criminality.
Obama’s current kill list is still a closely guarded secret, but the article revealed that it contained several Americans, including potentially an unidentified 17-year-old American girl that the president is discussing knocking off at some point. The best the article can conclude is that Obama’s past comments suggest he probably feels bad about ordering these killings, but that clearly isn’t stopping him.
President Obama recognizes that there are many, not just one 17 year old girls that need to be knocked off. Thank GOD he's not a pervert! He'd want to knock them some other way.
He's a killer. He likes killing and he has a great smile. If he isn't the Anti Christ, I'd like to know who could do it better.
What kind of person wants to be a president?
What kind of person wants to be a world leader?
We have human history. A history that has gone nowhere but circles when it comes to human understanding and development,
And that history says that world leaders haven't led anybody, anywhere. They are bad people. World leaders are bad people. Please…..SHUN THEM!
Don't be confused by advances in technology. That's science. Science has nothing to do with politics, but politics interferes with science. The world is flat and the Sun revolves around the Earth. That's politics and a lot of people died and lives were ruined because world leaders didn't like that idea.
When are you humans going to realize that world leaders are bad people?
C'mon! Stop!
You don't need a world leader, you need to use common sense. Let common sense be your leader. You don't have to have an education to let that be your guide. You just need confidence. The confidence to believe in common sense instead of the lies that world leaders use to manipulate you.
Early in his presidency, he responded to 'outcry' about wasted fuel with "You gotta understand I've never had a helicoptor before." …Napolean in Time Bandits: "That's what I like –little things –hitting each other." Boys and their toys. Words are their other toys: "suspect," "militant," "Ghadafi supporter," "unless […] explicit intelligence posthumously prov[es] them innocent," "walkie talkie," ….
Please stop using "anyways" when you mean "anyway." It's not a signal of good writing and grammar. Thanks.
Please stop using "of good writing and grammar" when you mean "of good writing or proper grammar."
We've become a nation of assassins and I don't know how we can look ourselves and claim to take 'the moral high road' on anything and keep a straight face.
'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.'
I guess its time for us to start hiding under beds and scaring children because we've become the monsters.
Good comments, but I don't think the NYT article was suggesting the 17 year old girl was American.
"This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years."
I think they were saying several of the 15 were American, and separately two of the 15 were teenagers including this girl. Confusing on the NYT's part.
The blood of the innocent is on our hands as the butcher represents us.
Yep. We probably expect many more 9/11 style attacks in America as a result. All of which will be blamed on an inexplicable hatred of 'freedom' by Muslim savages who we must continue war with all over the world.
I'd bet he gets the best possible advice about those who 'need killing'. Based, of course, on the best 'intel' that money can buy.
It's just a good thing he has an 'advanced' view of what God is all about, otherwise he'd be aging faster.
Calling all artists! – We need someone to draw a new Obama campaign poster. I'm thinking Obama smiling and giving a thumbs-up as he stands atop a mountain of skulls, surrounded by dead, mangled children and the ruins of villages destroyed by by drone bombs all around him. There could be deathbots (drones) flying above. Also we can see below the groud a torture dungeon full of prisoners like the one in Mogudishu, Somalia. Then maybe have Romney on the side somewhere shouting about how weak the president is and how he can do much better. That's just a start. Many other things could be referenced (war on whistleblowers, persecution of Bradley Manning/ Wikileaks, NDAA, assassinating American citizens, NSA spying, rendition, etc. I'll let the artist take it from there.
Would the old "change" you can believe in still apply?
yes he's the grim reaper president
So this is what the Nobel Peace Prize has come to. Obama is serving two masters, neither of which is the American public. One is Wall St. and the banksters, the other the Military-Security Industrial Complex. Most American voters will probably vote for him because it's a choice between the histrionic and the calmly deceptive and despite or because of the agitation from the right the calmly deceptive seems more palatable.
The fact that this new "power" is in the office of POTUS, expect Romney, should he get elected, to up the ante just as Obama did with Bush's new claimed authority. Maybe Barak should go back and listen to his Preacher…he certainly seeing to it that his his prophesy will be fulfilled
Another CHILD Maiming and Murderin Bastard…. Our leader…… Killing children … DELIBERATELY!!
I would have NEVER DREAMED or ACCEPTED that the "Change we can believe in" [man] has turned to murdering CHILDREN……… And he [apparently] is comfortable and ????? proud enough to announce it to the world…….. by way of letting our sociopathic electorate know that he is sufficiently corrupt and insensitive…….. even to the point of endangering HIS OWN children… as frontman for the death to Muslims for oil and Israel empire… For surely as the sun will rise,…..the fathers, mothers, brothers, and even sisters, cousins and distant kin of the slain, especially the innocents will contemplate the eye for an eye remedy to their suffering……their sense of injustice….. The pivotal "hit" for me was the drone strike on 16yo Terek Azuiz and his 12 yo cousin Waheed Khan…….. Two boys blown to bits for no discernible crime…. by our fearless top psychopath………… the hope one… See: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/7/us_drone_ki… http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/tag/tariq-az…
This is a declaration of all-out war against the Islamic world. Over the years thousands of innocent men women and children are going to be killed on also in the west.. It.s sickening and retaliation against western targets can be expected. These criminal policies are bound to make the world more and more dangerous.
Obama decides who lives or dies…just like god or better since a god entity has not proven but Obomber is very much real. And scary at that.
If the law is not equipped to stop Obama from ordering the murder of individuals with which we are not at war, then it will not be any barrier to ordering the murder of US citizens on American soil.
The US has reached the point in its history when even the pretense of a system of governance "by laws and not men" has been discarded. And, since 911, a new generation of Americans has come to adulthood while blatant US war crimes, the obliteration of the 4th amendment, the unquestioned primacy of power, the utter irrelevance of law, are all the norm.
God help us.
The secondary title of this article ("President Has Personally Ordered Every Single Drone Strike") is false according to the New York Times article ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-le… ).
"The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name. He signs off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan — about a third of the total."
Thus, Obama does not "sign off "(I assume this means the same as "order") on about 2/3 of the drone strikes in Pakistan (the 2/3 with the least risk to civilians). Thus, the title of this article is inaccurate.
Another quote from the New York Times article:
"If the agency [the CIA] did not have a “near certainty” that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama wanted to decide personally whether to go ahead."
So again, he only signs off on the strikes that pose the most risk to civilians. If the CIA determines that a particular drone strike nearly certainly won't result in any civilian deaths (note: civilians are narrowly defined), then they execute the strikes without Obama's orders.
The secondary title of this article ("President Has Personally Ordered Every Single Drone Strike") is false according to the New York Times article ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-le… ).
"The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name. He signs off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan — about a third of the total."
Thus, Obama does not "sign off "(I assume this means the same as "order") on about 2/3 of the drone strikes in Pakistan (the 2/3 with the least risk to civilians). Thus, the title of this article is inaccurate.
Another quote from the New York Times article:
"If the agency [the CIA] did not have a “near certainty” that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama wanted to decide personally whether to go ahead."
So again, he only signs off on the strikes that pose the most risk to civilians. If the CIA determines that a particular drone strike nearly certainly won't result in any civilian deaths (note: civilians are narrowly defined), then they execute the strikes without Obama's orders.