Do you agree with Obama's decision to start killing more people? Then why do you support him?

@Robert Gentel,

Thanks....it's good to understand that.....I've not been keeping up sufficiently with world horrors recently.

Obviously I agree with your views, but, if I were a US citizen, I'd likely vote for Obama as wearily as I do for Labor, as the lesser of two evils.....but only a little the lesser.......but the evil scales sure are even more even than I had realized.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

That policy existed prior to Obama taking office and the escalation and broadening its use (e.g. to American citizens) are worthy things to "bitch" about, whether or not your need to feel like you have an isolated perspective on the situation causes you to consider this to be a "third rate" complaint.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Probably not so third rate to the people affected by by the deaths......or those suffering them if they are not killed outright.

They might feel they have some reason for the anger you so revealingly characterise.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

I am putting the lie to the lesser of the evils meme that is used to justify pretty much anything in American politics. There is little basis upon which to allege that. As "more evil" as the liberals find Bush to be Obama represented an escalation in killing from Bush that they'd rather just display a bout of cognitive dissonance about.

The truth of it is that right now there is only one candidate against all of this and he's a Republican, not a Democrat.

2 Replies

@dlowan,

Quote:

Probably not so third rate to the people affected by by the deaths......or those suffering them if they are not killed outright.

Which is a tiny fraction of the human population. However all of us humans are effecting by the practice of assassination and death by drone, as we are all at risk, as are all humans who ever live going forwards if we are to continue to allow these practices.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Yes.....he's more evil re killing than Bush was at the end of his presidency.....but I doubt he'd be reaching Bush's overall level?

From what I gather of the candidate you mention from this thread (I've decided to eschew following the US election at all right now, since I cannot affect it) I gather he is not going to be a serious contender, so I'd not see voting for him as meaningful. I also gather a number of his views are odd, to say the least.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

I would argue that the practice of invading other countries is a practice also affecting all of humanity. The drones are pretty nefarious, but no more nefarious, i think, than the long standing practice of the US and other powerful empires of helping to install and then supporting leaders who do unspeakable things to their own and other people, for perceived short term gain.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

Quote:

I would argue that the practice of invading other countries is a practice also affecting all of humanity. The drones are pretty nefarious, but no more nefarious, i think, than the long standing practice of the US and other powerful empires of helping to install and then supporting leaders who do unspeakable things to their own and other people, for perceived short term gain.

true, but that practice is as old as history. I think we should concentrate on the new bad stuff that we have decided to do. And it is this new bad stuff that Obama is responsible for....and Bush. If you are going to prioritize your moral complaints about Obama the assassinations and the use of drones to kill have to go before expanding the occupation in Afghanistan.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

I don't generally see much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans re US foreign policy, so the Dem/Republican thing doesn't affect me as much as you likely believe it does.

I did find Bush to be such a terrible disaster, and the extreme right seems to be so ascendant in current Republican policies, that it's likelynI am more affected by the meme than usual, though.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

I don't generally see much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans re US foreign policy, so the Dem/Republican thing doesn't affect me as much as you likely believe it does.

I didn't really have you in mind. The "lesser evil" meme is prevalent in American politics and pretty much any liberal thinks that electing a Republican would be worse. This election I'm campaigning for liberals to reject the Democratic party because I think the "lesser evil" rationale is itself the greatest evil in American politics.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

If you are going to prioritize your moral complaints about Obama the assassinations and the use of drones to kill have to go before expanding the occupation in Afghanistan.

Good thing nobody in this thread mentioned an expansion of the "occupation" of Afghanistan in this thread till now, I guess.

All along we've been talking about the escalation of killing, of which the bulk is precisely the drone killings you think we should be talking about.

In other words, the discussion pretty much is about what you say it should be about, and nobody has mentioned what you say it actually is about until you showed up.

Why is it, that only 5% of the people on this site can demonstrate basic reading comprehension?

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

Why is it, that only 5% of the people on this site can demonstrate basic reading comprehension?

Good question. Would you like to take another stab at post 4,820,220

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Having just humored you I can tell you that your exercise was not any more edifying than the first time around.

Edit: I know you are trying to point at that post's inclusion of invasion as a mention of occupation but they are not the same thing and you are grasping at straws and wasting my time. The thread is about the drone escalations that you said it should be about, and now that we have you finally with us let's see if it can continue to be about that.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Do you agree with Obama's decision to start killing more people?

No I don't. Indeed, I started a thread on how his policies are echoing Bush's weeks after his inauguration, when America was still in her honeymoon with Obama. (The thread started on the issue of people trying to sue the US over their abductions by the CIA, then broadened about the more general similarities.)

Robert Gentel wrote:

Then why do you support him?

"Support" is a little stong for the way I feel about him right now. Still, I wish him well for a number of connected reasons:

American politics is a two-party cartel
I don't know how to make it a more competitive market of more parties. If I did, I' be happy to help.
Within the cartel, all the candidates for the other party are even worse.
Within the Democratic party, nobody's running against Obama. If Nancy Pelosi chose to run against him in the primaries the way Edward Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter in 1980, I'd support her.

It's a matter of desperation, not choice.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Edit: And parados is incorrect about this being limited to drone killings. The overall level of killing is higher than when he took office.

And even if it was, what difference does it make? Are the victims of drone killings less dead than the victims of ground-troop killings?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

No. Dead is dead. Maybe the supposition is that ground troops are likely to be more discriminating, but if that's the proposition, it seems somewhat doubtful to me.

2 Replies

@roger,

There is also the concerns about multiple assassinations of people not even within the boundaries of the country with which was originally invaded.

How would you feel about drones taking out US leaders, and quite large numbers of people as collateral damage?

We tend to take a dimmish view of such behaviour when it is done to us.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

I think we knew that we were in trouble when we sent our military to kidnap Noriega in Operation Nifty Package....we as early as 1989 did not respect national borders nor what had been to that point the customary standards of international law. We saw here what we see the US government do with their own citizens, which is make up "law" as they go which allows them to do what they want to do.

The US claiming that torture and secret prisons in foreign lands are legal is just more of the same of what we have seen out of the US government for decades. So are the perp walks, charge shopping, and loading up on charges in the attempt to drive a plea bargain more favorable to the state that we see so often now when the government goes after the citizens...the US government has been pulling this **** for a long time, and they will continue to escalate the injustice so long at they think that they can get away with it.

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

At present they CAN get away with it, as long as the citizenry support it or acquiesce.

And maybe even when they really don't.

0 Replies

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Yes.....he's more evil re killing than Bush was at the end of his presidency.....but I doubt he'd be reaching Bush's overall level?

He won't even hit the same order of magnitude that the Bush administration reached in the Cheney era. I'll give him that.

Quote:

From what I gather of the candidate you mention from this thread (I've decided to eschew following the US election at all right now, since I cannot affect it) I gather he is not going to be a serious contender, so I'd not see voting for him as meaningful. I also gather a number of his views are odd, to say the least.

It's popular to dismiss him as a joke (because he is an ideologue that is inflexible), but his polling numbers are actually higher than the person who will win the Republican nomination right now. He's comparable to a Nader, someone who won't win but can influence the ticket by being a consistent dissenting voice. If he ran as a third party he'd get about 6%-8% of the vote by my reckoning.

In American politics, if you don't line up to being a mainstream Democrat or Republican you are just dismissed as a "fringe" or a "lunatic". It's part of the way they maintain their cabal.

0 Replies

Do you agree with Obama's decision to start killing more people? Then why do you support him?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know