Kraichgauer
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18 Oct 2012, 1:57 am
RushKing
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Kraichgauer
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Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
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Posts: 49,751
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
03 Nov 2012, 5:42 pm
Kraichgauer
Veteran
Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 49,751
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
03 Nov 2012, 5:44 pm
03 Nov 2012, 6:00 pm
Kraichgauer wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
He's our current President. Even if you don't believe it.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
The murderous two-faced hypocrite?
So he killed a few terrorists (some admittedly with American citizenship), with a minimal of collateral damage. But what's two faced about him?
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
^Terrorists like this?
Not only was that boy only 16 when he was killed, he was an American citizen too. Wanna hear how the Obama administration justified it, plus about that "minimum of collateral damage"?
Conor Friedersdorf wrote:
How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American
By Conor Friedersdorf
Oct 24 2012, 7:02 AM ET
Asked about the strike that killed him, a senior adviser to the president's campaign suggests he should've "had a more responsible father."
Cornered by reporters with video cameras, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to President Obama's reelection campaign, attempted to defend the kill list that the Obama Administration uses to determine whose body should next be blown apart. American drone strikes have resulted in hundreds of dead innocents in the last four years, even as the program has killed a number of high-level al Qaeda terrorists. There are two remarkable things about the ensuing exchange, which eventually turns into a discussion about a dead 16-year-old kid:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KtG4n6Ci8w[/youtube]
First, it's vital for the uninitiated to understand how Team Obama misleads when it talks about its drone program. Asked how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs replies that "When there are people who are trying to harm us, and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we've taken that fight to them." Since the kill list itself is secret, there's no way to offer a specific counterexample. But we do know that U.S. drones are targeting people who've never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States. Take Pakistan, where the CIA kills some people without even knowing their identities. "As Obama nears the end of his term, officials said the kill list in Pakistan has slipped to fewer than 10 al-Qaeda targets, down from as many as two dozen," the Washington Post reports. "The agency now aims many of its Predator strikes at the Haqqani network, which has been blamed for attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan." The vast majority would never make their way to New York or Washington, D.C., and the Obama Administration would never agree to rules that permitted only the killing of threats to "the homeland."
The second notable statement concerns the killing of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Tom Junod gives the back story:
He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country -- they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. When he was killed, on September 30, 2011, President Obama made a speech about it; a few months later, when the Obama administraton's public-relations campaign about its embrace of what has come to be called "targeted killing" reached its climax in a front-page story in the New York Times that presented the President of the United States as the last word in deciding who lives and who dies, he was quoted as saying that the decision to put Anwar al-Awlaki on the kill list -- and then to kill him -- was "an easy one." But Abdulrahman al-Awlaki wasn't on an American kill list.
Nor was he a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninusla. Nor was he "an inspiration," as his father styled himself, for those determined to draw American blood; nor had he gone "operational," as American authorities said his father had, in drawing up plots against Americans and American interests. He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years, since his father had gone into hiding. He was a boy who knew his father was on an American kill list and who snuck out of his family's home in the early morning hours of September 4, 2011, to try to find him. He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
How does Team Obama justify killing him?
The answer Gibbs gave is chilling:
ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.
GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.
Again, note that this kid wasn't killed in the same drone strike as his father. He was hit by a drone strike elsewhere, and by the time he was killed, his father had already been dead for two weeks. Gibbs nevertheless defends the strike, not by arguing that the kid was a threat, or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists. Killing an American citizen without due process on that logic ought to be grounds for impeachment. Is that the real answer? Or would the Obama Administration like to clarify its reasoning? Any Congress that respected its oversight responsibilities would get to the bottom of this.
By Conor Friedersdorf
Oct 24 2012, 7:02 AM ET
Asked about the strike that killed him, a senior adviser to the president's campaign suggests he should've "had a more responsible father."
Cornered by reporters with video cameras, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to President Obama's reelection campaign, attempted to defend the kill list that the Obama Administration uses to determine whose body should next be blown apart. American drone strikes have resulted in hundreds of dead innocents in the last four years, even as the program has killed a number of high-level al Qaeda terrorists. There are two remarkable things about the ensuing exchange, which eventually turns into a discussion about a dead 16-year-old kid:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KtG4n6Ci8w[/youtube]
First, it's vital for the uninitiated to understand how Team Obama misleads when it talks about its drone program. Asked how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs replies that "When there are people who are trying to harm us, and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we've taken that fight to them." Since the kill list itself is secret, there's no way to offer a specific counterexample. But we do know that U.S. drones are targeting people who've never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States. Take Pakistan, where the CIA kills some people without even knowing their identities. "As Obama nears the end of his term, officials said the kill list in Pakistan has slipped to fewer than 10 al-Qaeda targets, down from as many as two dozen," the Washington Post reports. "The agency now aims many of its Predator strikes at the Haqqani network, which has been blamed for attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan." The vast majority would never make their way to New York or Washington, D.C., and the Obama Administration would never agree to rules that permitted only the killing of threats to "the homeland."
The second notable statement concerns the killing of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Tom Junod gives the back story:
He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country -- they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. When he was killed, on September 30, 2011, President Obama made a speech about it; a few months later, when the Obama administraton's public-relations campaign about its embrace of what has come to be called "targeted killing" reached its climax in a front-page story in the New York Times that presented the President of the United States as the last word in deciding who lives and who dies, he was quoted as saying that the decision to put Anwar al-Awlaki on the kill list -- and then to kill him -- was "an easy one." But Abdulrahman al-Awlaki wasn't on an American kill list.
Nor was he a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninusla. Nor was he "an inspiration," as his father styled himself, for those determined to draw American blood; nor had he gone "operational," as American authorities said his father had, in drawing up plots against Americans and American interests. He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years, since his father had gone into hiding. He was a boy who knew his father was on an American kill list and who snuck out of his family's home in the early morning hours of September 4, 2011, to try to find him. He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
How does Team Obama justify killing him?
The answer Gibbs gave is chilling:
ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.
GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.
Again, note that this kid wasn't killed in the same drone strike as his father. He was hit by a drone strike elsewhere, and by the time he was killed, his father had already been dead for two weeks. Gibbs nevertheless defends the strike, not by arguing that the kid was a threat, or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists. Killing an American citizen without due process on that logic ought to be grounds for impeachment. Is that the real answer? Or would the Obama Administration like to clarify its reasoning? Any Congress that respected its oversight responsibilities would get to the bottom of this.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... an/264028/
Do I really need to explain to you all the ways in which Obama has been two-faced? The Most Transparent Administration in History™ launches the largest crackdown on whistleblowers in US history? Shutting down Gitmo? Use of National Security Letters and Executive Privilege to shield administration actions from scrutiny (a practice denounced by Obama when it was W doing it)? Any of this ringing any bells for you?
Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 49,751
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
03 Nov 2012, 6:26 pm
03 Nov 2012, 7:08 pm
Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 49,751
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
03 Nov 2012, 7:45 pm
Dox47 wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
I think Obama is still far preferable to Bush. And just how do you think Republicans would have handled the situation? Do you seriously expect them to behave any better? If anything, you could expect them to try threading a needle with a sledge hammer by committing more troops. And as tragic and indefensible as that boy's death is, accidents do happen. As for transparency; I think the Obama White House is still a helluva lot more transparent over anything Bush had going.
By the way, that kid looked like to me he was going to rip that poor frog in half! Vengeance in the name of amphibians!
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
By the way, that kid looked like to me he was going to rip that poor frog in half! Vengeance in the name of amphibians!
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
I don't care how the Republicans might hypothetically have handled things, I care about how Obama actually has, and how the left actually has let him.
"Accidents happen"? Really? That's what you're going with to justify the death of a 16 year old American Citizen? How about the all the other innocents killed?
TBIJ wrote:
"TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 - 881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 - 1,362 individuals," according to the Stanford/NYU study.
176 other "accidents" just counting the children?
If this was being done under a Republican you'd be in the streets calling for his head, along with all your friends that have also given Obama's atrocious policies a pass because of tribal loyalties. I know partisanship is a hell of a drug, and what sounds like childhood IWW indoctrination probably didn't help in that regard, but come on, no one is really even disputing what is going on here and you're still DEFENDING policies you should abhor on so many levels.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
04 Nov 2012, 2:11 am
Kraichgauer wrote:
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
Kinda says a lot, doesn't it?
04 Nov 2012, 4:17 am
