EPTIt's true that a shift could come if there are revelations that drones have been killing a lot more civilians than the administration has let on, particularly if the administration has been making errors that they know about but don't care enough to fix. But I think Obama is politically good enough to keep it under wraps until 2016.
"White Paper" from Ob DOJ justifies assassination - Page 9
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
It's true that a shift could come if there are revelations that drones have been killing a lot more civilians than the administration has let on, particularly if the administration has been making errors that they know about but don't care enough to fix. But I think Obama is politically good enough to keep it under wraps until 2016. | ||
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farvacola
United States18818 Posts
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TheStonerer
Canada278 Posts
On February 07 2013 07:45 dAPhREAk wrote: hasnt obama killed more people by drone attacks than bush? edit: yep http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/12/03/the-reaper-presidency-obamas-300th-drone-strike-in-pakistan/ But if you consider the numbers, there have been more reported collateral damages during the bush administration compared to the obama administration. 13% civilians 2.9% children compared to 41.5% civilians and 25.5% children. So the quote about using the drone strikes responsibly just under the numbers does makes some sense. Do the targets represent a real threat? I can't say. You also have to think about the number of deaths during the first part of the war during bush, in direct combat, compared to now with the drone strikes. I don't assume I know everything about everything, but I trust Obama more than I trust Bush on that account. | ||
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sekritzzz
1515 Posts
On February 07 2013 10:30 TheStonerer wrote: But if you consider the numbers, there have been more reported collateral damages during the bush administration compared to the obama administration. 13% civilians 2.9% children compared to 41.5% civilians and 25.5% children. So the quote about using the drone strikes responsibly just under the numbers does makes some sense. Do the targets represent a real threat? I can't say. You also have to think about the number of deaths during the first part of the war during bush, in direct combat, compared to now with the drone strikes. I don't assume I know everything about everything, but I trust Obama more than I trust Bush on that account. Reported numbers are ridiculous under the Obama administration. They consider anybody who isn't a child or a woman a militant when its far from the case. Even the rescuers whom they also kill with their double tap drone program are considered "militants". | ||
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IamPryda
United States1186 Posts
Edit: For those of you arguing bush/Obama, realize that this is one area they are both on the same page. The drone strike program began under bush and Obama has expanded after seeing its sucess along with new advances in capabiltys and long flight times | ||
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SpeaKEaSY
United States1070 Posts
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-february-6-2013-ed-whitacre | ||
KwarK
United States41961 Posts
On February 07 2013 20:52 IamPryda wrote: It's a fine line for sure but the ethics of war will always have grey areas. No, in war you're just allowed to do flat out unethical things such as mass murder of civilians because it is sometimes the only way to compel the opposing state to submit. For example the allied bombing campaign of Nazi Germany was, in part, intended to be so horrific that Germany would capitulate to make it end (in fact it was so horrific that the British public insisted it end). But in that case your targets are complicit actors of the state with which you are at war and there is a clear party from which you can compel surrender, it is one state at war with another. The war on terror claims to be such a war and therefore have the moral authority to act unethically (things don't become more ethical during war, they just become more tolerable) but it is not a war in any real sense and the application of the same rules to the war on terror does not reasonably follow. There is not a clear enemy to attack, nor ground to take from them, there is no army poised to invade the US and impose foreign rule upon them, the stakes have never been lower, the "sometimes you have to do unethical things because war" argument cannot be reasonably applied. | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
On February 07 2013 06:51 Xahhk wrote: They killed the 16 year old son of a terrorist father in an attack separate from the killing of his father. With the justification that he COULD have been planning a terrorist plot against the united states. It's a scary precedent. Surely they have more information then that. You make it sound like they just randomly decided to kill him because he possibly could be plotting a terrorist attack. I don't think the government works like that. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On February 08 2013 00:51 AnomalySC2 wrote: Surely they have more information then that. You make it sound like they just randomly decided to kill him because he possibly could be plotting a terrorist attack. I don't think the government works like that. But this is the nature of the biggest problem with drones. You don't know that the government DOESN'T work like that either. The administration never explains or justifies why somebody had to die, and so far Obama has been getting away with it because many people believe that if Obama says someone deserved to die, they deserved it. EDIT: Obama relents for CIA nominee John Brennan On the eve of a battle to confirm his pick for America's CIA chief, President Barack Obama agreed Wednesday to let a small group of lawmakers look at a long-sought, classified Justice Department opinion explaining his administration's legal justification for targeting killings of American terror suspects in other countries. | ||
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radscorpion9
Canada2252 Posts
On February 07 2013 21:20 KwarK wrote: The war on terror claims to be such a war and therefore have the moral authority to act unethically (things don't become more ethical during war, they just become more tolerable) but it is not a war in any real sense and the application of the same rules to the war on terror does not reasonably follow. There is not a clear enemy to attack, nor ground to take from them, there is no army poised to invade the US and impose foreign rule upon them, the stakes have never been lower, the "sometimes you have to do unethical things because war" argument cannot be reasonably applied. Even if its technically not a war, the same principles still apply so it doesn't matter whether it can truly be seen as a war or not. When you say there is not a clear enemy to attack, you can only mean that in the sense that its hard to understand who is affiliated with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda. But the fact remains there is a clear understanding of who you're trying to attack. In war time, how do you determine whether someone is a spy for for your enemy, or secretly working with them in other ways? In that case it is very similar to the situation with Al Qaeda, regardless of whether its a state or not. Having ground to take from the enemy also seems somewhat irrelevant. I mean the only purpose of taking ground is to act as a means of understanding when you're winning the war, or how to better enable your side to win the war. But it has no bearing on whether or not a "war" is legitimate just because there is no land to take, because the ultimate purpose of war is to stop the enemy from attacking you; whether land is involved or not is immaterial. And even if there is no army poised to invade the US, the threat of a terrorist attack is obviously something that is seen as very negative and something they want to avoid, hence "war" to prevent that from happening. I mean its just a minor change in how you define war in this case, but it all still makes sense. For that reason I can't understand why you would say the stakes have never been lower, considering the amount of damage that can be done with something as ubiquitous as an airliner (not to mention the ease of planting a number of explosives, including biological, chemical agents, and dirty bombs, in a country as big as the US!). So I would say its very similar, if you just analyze it a little bit. Because just like in war time you don't have time to put people through a time-consuming legal process. I mean how long do some court cases drag on in the US, 5 years? There has to be some kind of expert panel, some kind of judicial process that can provide a reasonable level of defense for determining who is a terrorist and who isn't. Because it would be silly to allow someone who by all accounts is clearly working with a terrorist organization (we kind of have to have good faith here) to continue doing so, potentially leading to another serious terrorist strike that kills hundreds of people, simply because he was an American citizen. There are reasonable boundaries here. I don't think it should be decided by one person either, but there definitely should be a process, as what they are in is basically very similar to a war. Edit: Although I think there are grounds to argue that many of the techniques being used (i.e. torture, drone strikes on not completely identified targets) are unnecessary to win this "war", and overkill, like the Patriot Act. I think those are good arguments, and should be pursued, as the US' response needs to be proportional to what it is being threatened by. | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
On February 08 2013 01:50 coverpunch wrote: But this is the nature of the biggest problem with drones. You don't know that the government DOESN'T work like that either. The administration never explains or justifies why somebody had to die, and so far Obama has been getting away with it because many people believe that if Obama says someone deserved to die, they deserved it. EDIT: Obama relents for CIA nominee John Brennan I understand that, and yes it IS chilling to think about how it could potentially be used. But I would like to believe that the single most powerful man in our government didn't rise to such a position without being a reasonable and moral human being. Plus, I know this doesn't exactly mean much, but it's not a stretch to assume the 16 year old son of a known terrorist would want revenge after our government executed his father. I assume they had plenty of intel on what he was up to. Like you said, there really is no way to know for sure, but maybe that's really a good thing right? | ||
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KwarK
United States41961 Posts
It's not a war, or at the very least, not a conventional one and claiming all of the suspensions of checks and morality that go along with a conventional war on the basis of it is bullshit. | ||
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dcemuser
United States3248 Posts
On February 06 2013 08:32 Shiragaku wrote:This is in complete violation with our Nuremberg values back in World War II where we put every single despicable Nazi war criminal on trial when the British and Russians just wanted to execute them on the spot. I do not think any nation had just a large scale assassination campaign before. We abandoned those values long ago - by the 60s any restraint we had was gone. I mean, the Bay of Pigs alone proves that, nevermind the many, many similar (but smaller) situations in the following decades. | ||
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farvacola
United States18818 Posts
On February 08 2013 03:56 KwarK wrote: And nobody else is bothered by the fact that this war on terror is going to be an indefinite thing, along with the suspension of moral restrictions, a global warzone and the ability to declare anyone a combatant in it? The Emperor in Star Wars claimed fewer powers than the government does now and they had an actual war with the enemy before claiming indefinite emergency powers for the security of the state and to destroy the terrorist resistance. It's not a war, or at the very least, not a conventional one and claiming all of the suspensions of checks and morality that go along with a conventional war on the basis of it is bullshit. At first I was confused as to why you'd assert that the war on terror is going to be an indefinite thing, but then you brought up Star Wars and it became clear. You've clearly already made up your mind as to how to regard the US, so I'm not entirely sure what you seek to gain through childish hyperbole other than some degree of accord with other posters, likely non-US citizens and those under the age of 20. This is fine I suppose, the fallacy of monolith is oh so much easier to believe when comparisons with Star Wars make sense. In any case, you'll have to pardon my refusal to buy into your Space Opera Slippery Slope. You can point to the generally war hawkish nature of the United States and to our military operations over the past decade if you'd like to suggest that the current state of drone strikes and the like indicate a future of repression, war, and amorality, but in no way can you definitively prove such a thing. It could be argued that drone strikes reduce the chance for casualties, avoid the consequences of putting boots on the ground, and allow for the elimination of terrorist leaders that have proven otherwise very difficult to capture or kill. Nations like Yemen and Pakistan, especially the latter, continuously prove themselves patently unable to even maintain basic law and order in their own nations, with armed Islamists gunning own aid workers, doctors, and little girls on practically a weekly basis. Granted, these are hardly outright justifications for the use of drone strikes, but when terrorists are able to hide behind the veneer of the "peaceful" state (in the case of Pakistan, a nuclear one) that is clearly unable to govern its own people, atypical, surgical military operations whose efficacy hinges on expediency become far more reasonable. In considering the issue of eliminating US citizens without due process, you'll have to forgive my unwillingness to join in with the cacophony of internet voices who seem oh so sure that the killing of a major Al-Qaeda coordinator and his son necessarily leads to an Orwellian or Palpatinian future, or even warns of one. The White House has already released a few of the "White Papers" and is making more and more information transparent as the public and Congress make their displeasure known. Furthermore, you'd have to literally know nothing about US partisan politics to suggest that Obama is unaware of what this precedent sets in terms of executive authority; in other words, if you think the current state of executive drone strike authority is going to remain unchanged through the end of Obama's term, well you've got another thing coming. Additionally, while it seems easy to make a cursory appraisal of the past ten years and say "the war on terror will most certainly continue", the specifics of Obama's (and the nation's at large) attitude towards violent conflict complicates things a fair bit. Washington DC is filled with people who disagree. Thank God. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On February 08 2013 03:56 KwarK wrote: And nobody else is bothered by the fact that this war on terror is going to be an indefinite thing, along with the suspension of moral restrictions, a global warzone and the ability to declare anyone a combatant in it? The Emperor in Star Wars claimed fewer powers than the government does now and they had an actual war with the enemy before claiming indefinite emergency powers for the security of the state and to destroy the terrorist resistance. It's not a war, or at the very least, not a conventional one and claiming all of the suspensions of checks and morality that go along with a conventional war on the basis of it is bullshit. This is the critical question that is not in the "is the US becoming Big Brother" thread. Ultimately, the biggest question is whether the government will ever say "Okay, we've knocked Al Qaeda back far enough that you can wear your shoes through airport security and we don't have to scan your e-mails any more". Unfortunately, there are few reasons to be optimistic right now. It would be a surprise to say the least if there is any serious effort to scrap DHS in our lifetime. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5276 Posts
On February 08 2013 04:46 farvacola wrote: At first I was confused as to why you'd assert that the war on terror is going to be an indefinite thing, but then you brought up Star Wars and it became clear. You've clearly already made up your mind as to how to regard the US, so I'm not entirely sure what you seek to gain through childish hyperbole other than some degree of accord with other posters, likely non-US citizens and those under the age of 20. This is fine I suppose, the fallacy of monolith is oh so much easier to believe when comparisons with Star Wars make sense. In any case, you'll have to pardon my refusal to buy into your Space Opera Slippery Slope. You can point to the generally war hawkish nature of the United States and to our military operations over the past decade if you'd like to suggest that the current state of drone strikes and the like indicate a future of repression, war, and amorality, but in no way can you definitively prove such a thing . It could be argued that drone strikes reduce the chance for casualties, avoid the consequences of putting boots on the ground, and allow for the elimination of terrorist leaders that have proven otherwise very difficult to capture or kill. Nations like Yemen and Pakistan, especially the latter, continuously prove themselves patently unable to even maintain basic law and order in their own nations, with armed Islamists gunning own aid workers, doctors, and little girls on practically a weekly basis. Granted, these are hardly outright justifications for the use of drone strikes, but when terrorists are able to hide behind the veneer of the "peaceful" state (in the case of Pakistan, a nuclear one) that is clearly unable to govern its own people, atypical, surgical military operations whose efficacy hinges on expediency become far more reasonable. In considering the issue of eliminating US citizens without due process, you'll have to forgive my unwillingness to join in with the cacophony of internet voices who seem oh so sure that the killing of a major Al-Qaeda coordinator and his son necessarily leads to an Orwellian or Palpatinian future, or even warns of one. The White House has already released a few of the "White Papers" and is making more and more information transparent as the public and Congress make their displeasure known. Furthermore, you'd have to literally know nothing about US partisan politics to suggest that Obama is unaware of what this precedent sets in terms of executive authority; in other words, if you think the current state of executive drone strike authority is going to remain unchanged through the end of Obama's term, well you've got another thing coming. Additionally, while it seems easy to make a cursory appraisal of the past ten years and say "the war on terror will most certainly continue", the specifics of Obama's (and the nation's at large) attitude towards violent conflict complicates things a fair bit. Washington DC is filled with people who disagree. Thank God. i find that very ironic in this context. consider him the guy with the white paper  | ||
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KwarK
United States41961 Posts
On February 08 2013 04:46 farvacola wrote: At first I was confused as to why you'd assert that the war on terror is going to be an indefinite thing, but then you brought up Star Wars and it became clear. You've clearly already made up your mind as to how to regard the US, so I'm not entirely sure what you seek to gain through childish hyperbole other than some degree of accord with other posters, likely non-US citizens and those under the age of 20. This is fine I suppose, the fallacy of monolith is oh so much easier to believe when comparisons with Star Wars make sense. In any case, you'll have to pardon my refusal to buy into your Space Opera Slippery Slope. You can point to the generally war hawkish nature of the United States and to our military operations over the past decade if you'd like to suggest that the current state of drone strikes and the like indicate a future of repression, war, and amorality, but in no way can you definitively prove such a thing. It could be argued that drone strikes reduce the chance for casualties, avoid the consequences of putting boots on the ground, and allow for the elimination of terrorist leaders that have proven otherwise very difficult to capture or kill. Nations like Yemen and Pakistan, especially the latter, continuously prove themselves patently unable to even maintain basic law and order in their own nations, with armed Islamists gunning own aid workers, doctors, and little girls on practically a weekly basis. Granted, these are hardly outright justifications for the use of drone strikes, but when terrorists are able to hide behind the veneer of the "peaceful" state (in the case of Pakistan, a nuclear one) that is clearly unable to govern its own people, atypical, surgical military operations whose efficacy hinges on expediency become far more reasonable. In considering the issue of eliminating US citizens without due process, you'll have to forgive my unwillingness to join in with the cacophony of internet voices who seem oh so sure that the killing of a major Al-Qaeda coordinator and his son necessarily leads to an Orwellian or Palpatinian future, or even warns of one. The White House has already released a few of the "White Papers" and is making more and more information transparent as the public and Congress make their displeasure known. Furthermore, you'd have to literally know nothing about US partisan politics to suggest that Obama is unaware of what this precedent sets in terms of executive authority; in other words, if you think the current state of executive drone strike authority is going to remain unchanged through the end of Obama's term, well you've got another thing coming. Additionally, while it seems easy to make a cursory appraisal of the past ten years and say "the war on terror will most certainly continue", the specifics of Obama's (and the nation's at large) attitude towards violent conflict complicates things a fair bit. Washington DC is filled with people who disagree. Thank God. So when is the war going to be over? We got the metaphorical Obi-Wan and didn't even lose a massive ship in the process. When will security return to pre 9/11 levels? When will emergency powers be surrendered? The reason I think it's going to be indefinite is because terror isn't a person you can kill or a country that can be captured, it's a concept that will always be around. When you declare a war on a concept you haven't started an actual war, what you've done is just told everyone that the new ideological framework that you're going to operate within is a wartime ideology. The reason I don't think the war on terror has an end is because it isn't a war, it is a declaration of an ideology in which the people at the top are greatly empowered. The release of a white paper that in short says that the President reserves the right to summarily execute anyone who he can show to meet criteria he comes up to a judge of himself is not the kind of transparency that gives me faith in the system. Rather it is a codification of emergency powers. | ||
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HunterX11
United States1048 Posts
On February 08 2013 04:46 farvacola wrote: At first I was confused as to why you'd assert that the war on terror is going to be an indefinite thing, but then you brought up Star Wars and it became clear. You've clearly already made up your mind as to how to regard the US, so I'm not entirely sure what you seek to gain through childish hyperbole other than some degree of accord with other posters, likely non-US citizens and those under the age of 20. This is fine I suppose, the fallacy of monolith is oh so much easier to believe when comparisons with Star Wars make sense. In any case, you'll have to pardon my refusal to buy into your Space Opera Slippery Slope. The original al Qaeda organization of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden has in fact been destroyed. Al Qaeda has become a franchise of sorts, a brand name. Al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Maghreb, even random groups like Abu Sayyaf. It will be decades if not longer before one could claim the AUMF has expired because every human being who might use the name "al Qaeda" is dead. This is not a slippery slope. This is not sci-fi. This is reality, in real life, right now. | ||
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farvacola
United States18818 Posts
On February 08 2013 05:04 KwarK wrote: So when is the war going to be over? We got the metaphorical Obi-Wan and didn't even lose a massive ship in the process. When will security return to pre 9/11 levels? When will emergency powers be surrendered? The reason I think it's going to be indefinite is because terror isn't a person you can kill or a country that can be captured, it's a concept that will always be around. When you declare a war on a concept you haven't started an actual war, what you've done is just told everyone that the new ideological framework that you're going to operate within is a wartime ideology. The reason I don't think the war on terror has an end is because it isn't a war, it is a declaration of an ideology in which the people at the top are greatly empowered. The release of a white paper that in short says that the President reserves the right to summarily execute anyone who he can show to meet criteria he comes up to a judge of himself is not the kind of transparency that gives me faith in the system. Rather it is a codification of emergency powers. Just so we're clear, I actually agree with your concern, simply not your gravity. A great many Democrats and liberals are very suspicious of Obama when it comes to defense/military, and the topic of drone strikes, executive authority, and the larger war on terror have been at the forefront of the MSNBC and CNN news cycles. This already apparent and public concern gives me some degree of optimism, though as strange as it sounds coming from me, Republicans like Chris Christie are what really help me sleep at night. If the Republican Party is able to consolidate, re-organize, and really hit the 2014 elections with fervor, the ideology of top-heavy authority becomes far more complicated and less likely to present any sort of coherent threat to American civil liberties. And partisan conflict is only one side of the coin of power dissolution, the other is departmental/branch distance, organizational flaw, and flat out stupidity. I'm simply far more likely to regard the government as an at times belligerent association rather than a solid machine. I mean, at this point in time, the federal government is currently unable to keep firearms out of the hands of diagnosed mental patients. Is the slope really so slippery? Edit: And HunterX, I'm well aware of the ubiquity of the name "Al-Qaeda", but as far I'm concerned, it's dispersal and ad hoc adoption by regional terrorist groups seems far more evidential of the lessening of the prominence of terrorism than the alternative. In other words, the ideology is less important than the name recognition, and at this point, if you are angry at the powers that be and are Islamic, you might as well call yourself "Al-Qaeda". | ||
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TheRealArtemis
687 Posts
The war on terror will never end (we all know that) but it will keep them down) its a permanent foot on their throat. | ||
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