Obama and the Targeted Killing Program: What Would the Godfather Say?

for f@#k sake, tell that to izzy, i was merely agreeing with him/her. and are you REALLY still trolling? don't expect any more from me...you will be wasting your time if you reply to anything i post hoping to get something out of me.

Don't pay any attention to Oralboy. He doesn't talk to me because he knows I don't engage in conversation with inbred hillbilly pigfucks.

I'm a he btw.

yeah well i'm done with him now...he aint worth getting mad over.

thanks for clearing that up...i almost assumed you were a she

oops!

like the avatar btw...roger mellie rawks!

Izzythepush is too obnoxious to pay attention to.





Are you still beating your wife?

I've never once engaged in trolling.





I'm fine with debunking your posts without you responding with more nonsense.

It is more time efficient that way. I can just respond to your initial falsehoods and be done.

'Izzy' could be either gender, Izzy the Push is a character in William Burroughs' Nova Express.

I'm a regular reader of Viz.

"You low-IQ types shouldn't run around falsely accusing your betters of your own stupidity. "

and in what way do you think to be my better?

He's capable of procreating with farmyard animals. That's something you can't do.

I don't. It is just a stock way of responding in situations when people falsely accuse me of their own shortcomings.

I calculate high odds that I am smarter than you (although that does not mean you are not also smart). That was enough for your allegation "that I am dense" to qualify.

It wasn't the most perfect fit, but it was the easiest response. And since an allegation that I am dense really doesn't warrant a lot of effort in responding, I went with easy.

Now, how about we drop the name-calling and check out the cool new weapons the Obama Administration is developing to counter China?

Well we disagree. The stories about him feeding people to dogs and literally putting them through meat grinders came after the first Gulf War.

In any case, marching to Baghdad to take down Saddam would have cost American lives. We went to war to get him out of Kuwait and bloody his nose, not to depose him.

Good Lord, haven't you argued that there was no real reason for WTO invade Iraq? Now you want to criticize his father for not doing what you don't think he should have done. Is it something about the name Bush that causes you see red?

If the Old Man should have spent American lives and treasure on taking down Saddam, I can think of no reason why someone would oppose the son's rectifying his father's mistake.

By the way, taking Saddam out was always a secondary, or even tertiary goal of Bush and his neo-cons. The primary goal was to establish an Arab democracy in the heart of the region. Unfortunately they didn't trust the intelligence of the American people and felt the need to play up the bogeyman and his WMDs.

Frankly, I don't think the American people were all that willing or capable of thinking about a war in terms of long range geo-political strategies, but that's not an excuse for trying to sell the idea rather than invoking fears of nukes in the Baltimore harbor.

Bush had about six years to make it work, because if he thought he could count on a Republican to follow him he never should have tried it.

From the outset they shot themselves in their neo-con foot, by allowing Rummy (not really a neo-con) to run most of the show. W, ever a proponent of loyalty just wouldn't kick him aside.

The initial military action worked as planned and was a good copy of the first Gulf War, but when the nation building started (a component Poppy clearly rejected) it all went to shite.

Could it have worked? I think so, but it would have taken a much more cohesive administration and a much more forceful president. This sort of combo doesn't come along very often and is a good reason why presidents shouldn't try this
stuff.

It's ironic that W bought into his Dad's aversion to nation building when he ran for the office, but was persuaded by the anti-Scowcrofts to try his hand at it after 9/11.

W is a good man and not anywhere near as dim as his critics suggest, but in the aftermath of 9-11 he was very succeptible to taking on Evil in a big way.

Because moral relativism is bullshit, and Islamist terrorists bound and determined to kill Americans and Brits and other infidels are not remotely the same as Chinese dissidents who are peacefully opposing their totalitarian government.

Unless you suggest the West sit back and just take the Islamist attacks in their collective nut-sack, it will fight back. The collateral damage of drone attacks is nothing compared to that of conventional war.

Try the ignore feature, it will preserve a healthy level for your BP, and spare those of us who are interested in your posts from your raging replies to someone you seem to disdain.

No, I have always argued that Saddam Hussein should have been taken out at the time of Operation Desert Storm. I have said that from day one. My criticism was of the later invasion. We didn't do it right the first time, there was no valid excuse for Dubya's invasion all these years later. The claim that Saddam had WMDs was a canard on the face of it. The charge that Saddam was, somehow, mixed up in the 9/11 attack was absurd. AlQaeda hates people like Saddam Hussein, secular Muslims who don't observe the strictures of the Quran and allow all sorts of evil crap, such as sale of alcohol, to go on in their countries. AlQaeda has no use for the Saddam Husseins and Hafez Assads of their world.

I have always maintained that G.H.W. Bush made a serious mistake in leaving Hussein in power. And I disagree that the anti-Hussein propaganda came out only after the Gulf war. I was aware long before that fracas just how totalitarian that regime was, and I don't think that I was any more knowledgeable than anyone else who follows world news. I don't know anything about feeding people to dogs but I was well aware that a journalist traveling in Iraq had to get a special permit to carry a portable typewriter, otherwise his possession of the machine would be treated just the same a carrying a concealed weapon. Just one small example. None of this was exactly classified information.

George Bush the Elder was one lousy president. It's why he served only one term. The Gulf War debacle was just one of many screw-ups.

I doubt that's how the Chinese see things. What about the 'terrorists' who encourage ordinary Tibetans to self-immolate? Don't you think parallels can be drawn?

We've only got the CIA's word that their targets really are Islamist terrorists (bound and?) determined to kill yadda yadda yadda.

Unless there's transparency and real political oversight America's in danger of setting a precedent.

I've no doubt that the Chinese government sees it differently but that hardly makes the issue morally ambiguous.

A terrorist in Yemen encouraging and aiding an American Muslim army office to go off on a murderous shooting spree at an American military base is hardly the equivalent of someone in Tibet who might encourage a monk to self-immolate in protest of an oppressive regime that has tried, and is likely still trying to erradicate the Tibetians' religion...no matter how the CHinese government sees it.

I've already stated that there should be congressional oversight of the drone program, but some (perhaps even the Chinese government) will see this as the fox watching over the hen house. I personally don't care.

I fail to see how you can fault Bush Sr for not taking out Saddam, but fault Bush Jr for doing so. The WMD issue was a cock-up which some will attribute to lousy intelligence and others to plain mendacity, but if you thought it was worth American lives and treasure to take Saddam down during the first Gulf War (and that is exactly what it would have cost to do so), I simply can't understand why you weren't OK with W doing so.

Seems to me you want to have it both ways.

yeah sorry about that, i should have just ignored him, but i don't like the ignore feature. everyone's opinion is valid no matter how much i disagree. i overreacted, and shouldn't have.

apologies.

I agree with you on this. I am not sure I really understand the memo exactly. Is it saying that in the US, the US can just kill people if they think they are guilty of terrorist acts or plotting? Or is this overseas or what?

I really don't have time to get into this, going through some personal things, but on the surface, what I have gleaned here and there, it does not sound good to me.

You don't think it's morally equivalent. Yours is just one opinion. It could be argued that he killed combatants in America's war against Islam. I know you call it a war against terror, (which elevates criminality to that of legitimate struggle, and is a mistake,) but others, who are not of your opinion see it as a war against Islam.

So killing soldiers who threaten your very existence, is far more legitimate than persuading an innocent individual to kill themselves.

r.e. the difference between the bush senior and the dubya wars against saddam, i think the crucial differentiating factor is that in the first gulf war, saddam actively attacked kuwait, giving grounds for the U.S to do something. they didn't kill saddam when they had the legitimate chance. dubya based his war on dodgy, probably fake intelligence, and tried to link him to 9/11. both were totally ungrounded, therefore rendering the invasion morally wrong, dare i say even reprehensible using 9/11 as a tool.
you can't take the law into your own hands when it suits you kinda thing.
but to get back on track of what my point actually is lol, after the first gulf war, saddam not being killed allowed him to carry on his nefarious ways, pretty much unchallenged, till daddy's little boy had to finish the job for him, as a legacy.
dubya's was an immoral vanity strike based on dodgy evidence, making his actions no better than saddams.

it gives obama personal authority to order the assassination of anyone he accuses of being a terrorist or linked to a terrorist organisation, anywhere in the world, including u.s.citizens on u.s. soil, even when capture is possible, without needing to produce evidence, or even show the legislation proving it's legality.

and the memo was leaked so we shouldn't even know this much!