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National "Do Not Kill Registry" Launched In Response To Drone Kill List
First time accepted submitter crtitheories writes "In response to the national kill list revealed by the New York Times a few weeks ago, an online "Do Not Kill" Registry has been launched where users can sign up to avoid being mistakenly added. From the Do Not Kill website: 'Through an active collaboration between the Do not Kill Registry, the brave pilots and operators of the U.S. drone program, and the American public, we believe that we can find the political and moral solutions needed to both protect the security of the United States while also satisfying the concerns of the broader global community'. "
Aren't you a little late for April Fools Day?
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Sounds legit. . .
After a quick WHOIS search, and a bit of googling, I found that this is registered to an individual who worked in 2009 as a San Francisco Art Institute teaching assistant.
It's a joke site.
We are not at war with another nation-state, thus we are not at war.
Good-bye
Because the Do Not Call list worked out so well
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It is almost ridiculous enough to be funny, but it also sounds just plausible enough to be real.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Not sure that this will work very well. If you accidentially end up on a kill list of an automated hunter-killer, any redress list probably won't appear in the phone book listing... ;^)
Eastasia has always not been a nation-state
As an European, let me say that the president of a democracy should not have a list of people he wants dead. Arrested, maybe, although such a list should better be established by Justice, but not dead.
Where reads: "Democracy and Free Enterprise"
Should read: "Demokrazy and Free Enterprize"
or: "Free Enterprize and Free Enterprize"
All lists should be Opt-In by default. So If I don't want to be teased, called, spammed etc I have to get on so many lists. Let's strike a deal and have One lust to rule them all -- "Don't put me on any List" list.
Can we have a "Please Kill" list as well. I have a neighbor with a dog that barks all night that's just itching for a drone attack.
Killing foreigners? Okay. Killing Americans? A violation of the president's oath to uphold Constituional Law: "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." A kill list may exist, but a kill list that includes Americans citizens is tyrannical.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I am required to smite the heretic and the infidel.
This is a deeply-held religious conviction.
As such, I must be accommodated by law.
Accordingly, a Do-Kill-List must be started.
BTW, it is a heresy not to use your turn signals. Let the slaughter begin. God shall know his own.
The site is blocked here at a major international corporation! Should I worry that my employer has blocked the site and I can't sign up? Does that mean they've pre-protected me and already signed me up with a special corporate agreement or that I need to start looking up and over my shoulder for funny looking planes orbiting my position?
Well, sure - in a European democracy that would not be good... they usually aren't supposed to have such powers. In the US, the President is also the head of the military (but in turn not connected to the legislature like a typical Prime Minister) - so naturally he would have final say over anyone the military is trying to kill, and in general this list should be restricted to people outside of the US courts' various jurisdictions (i.e. Yemen).
In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well, it is technically a democratic republic (not that it makes it any better).
it's a scam by the CIA, trying to tempt terrorists to fill in their name and whereabouts thinking they'll be safer.
also beware of the "do not steal my identity list", send name, address, SSN, mother's maiden name, bank details to apply
Nullius in verba
"No Kill I"
Killing foreigners? Okay.
This bit is absolutely right; but it doesn't agree with the bit of the constitution you claimed to quote. I think you must have done a misquote. The constitution actually reads:
"No person who is for sure 100% known to have American citizenship shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law (or being mistaken for a foreigner); nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation (except for foreign property)."
It's shocking the way that people make these kinds of basic mistake.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Due process doesn't necessarily mean courts, especially when we're talking about unlawful combatants in a war zone.
Yet Another List For Spy Agencies To Look At.
Officially there was a ban on political assassinations by the US starting with Ford but it was ended by Clinton.
Assassination was one of those things that "We just did not do anymore." and that we were morally past it, but realities changed and now it is necessary again.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Stop pissing everyone off to the point they want to attack you! It's not rocket science, if you keep walking into other countries ( or flying ) and pushing them around like the bully at school, then one day someone will come to school with a gun and your going to pay.
So you want the solution, just admit you've been a complete ass-hole to everyone, take what's coming and what you deserve and then play nice.
The most fucked-up thing is, that you think this is normal.
Brainwashing at its best.
-- A white hat social engineer
War did not exist before the Treaty of Westphalia?
>>>In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
What you SHOULD be concerned about is the President already ordered the execution of 3 U.S. citizens, including an underage minor. I didn't realize the death penalty could be applied without a right to trial (or against juveniles... I thought they were exempt). We live in dangerous days.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Actually, note that it says "person" not citizen. This was intentional (you can see to how many times they note "citizen" in the constitution), and so it applies to all people, including foreigners.
Let's keep this in mind for the upcoming election, and let's see what the two major candidates have to say about it. And don't complain that you didn't have a choice... there were primary candidates who strongly opposed these kinds of foreign adventures by the US government.
And a kill list that includes everyone else is not? The difference here is really that it's not unconstitutional to have a kill list with 5 billion people on it as long as they're not american, the tyrannical or amoral or just plain-ridiculous-as-expected-from-politics are determined by entirely different criteria than a text that pretends to be a law of nature in some book that is selectively ignored for most of the time.
"Don't kill me bro"
Which is like claiming that the US is the only nation that issues driver's licenses. There were states of various types before that, and they went to war. Just because there was a formalized treaty that recognized states doesn't mean they didn't exist before that. You might as well claim that time didn't exist until the first clock was made.
That part of the Constitution says 'no person', not 'no American citizen'. The right to due process does not depend on being a citizen of any particular country.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I know this is probably news to you, but the American civil war ended in 1865, which was 147 years ago. There should not be any American citizens being targeted by the US army, since we stopped fighting a war against American citizens 147 years ago. Yet here we are, looking at a list of American citizens to be executed without trial.
Palm trees and 8
You're right that Obama should be impeached for killing 2 American citizens without making the slightest attempt at due process. Anwar al-Awlaki was arguably a Bad Person, but his son Abdulrahman was also targeted and killed 2 weeks later for what I can only assume was the sole crime of being the son of Anwar.
Dick Cheney should also have been impeached and tried for war crimes: The United States declared that ordering waterboarding was a crime against humanity back in 1945-6, and Dick Cheney proudly proclaimed that he had ordered waterboarding on national television.
Basically, top officials of the US are now above the law, and know it.
I am officially gone from
Thank God the US isn't a democracy.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Unfortunately, due to some misplaced punctuation, everyone on the Do Not Kill registry was accidentally added to the Kill list. Our programmers are working hard to correct this error, and we extend our greatest sympathies to the relatives of those who have accidentally been killed already.
Who? You might as well finish your post.
:wq
What point are you trying to make? That killing foreign soldiers is a crime? What bullshit. For example: The moment the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they all forfeited their right to life (upto the day they surrendered). War is hell but to just rollover and refuse to fight when foreigners are shooting at you, or bombing you, is stupid. The president has the authority to order the military to kill these foreign persons from the moment war is declared, or the country invaded, until the end of the war.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Actually -- we are at war with North Korea -- just saying.
I've never understood this concept, that moral rights only apply to American citizens. May be I am not smart enough to grasp the idea.
It seems to be Ok to kill any non-american without due process or self-defense. Even to kill anyone including (or around) his family/kids. It seems also fine to detain and torture foreigners for an undetermined amount of time as long it is done outside USA soil.
Can someone explain it to me? Does it mean, for example, that I can own a slave, as long is not American?
MOD THE CHILD UP!
at least one person "100% known to have American citizenship" has been intentionally targeted and killed by a drone. it took them a month to figure out that they "could" kill him, and then apparently 1.5 years to seal the deal. and then they killed his son, also an american citizen.
also, your formulation is funny. how can the american gov't not be 100% sure whether someone is american or not? it's fairly simple. or are you saying that if i close my eyes and fire into a crowd, that this somehow mitigates my legal responsibility since i didn't really know whether i was shooting anyone?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
So why do american think the entire world should be in silence when a stupid american soldiers die like he deserved to ?
... though it has to be said, these rights originally did not apply to non-citizens such as black people, so it might be argued they don't fully apply to people who are not US citizens today. No doubt there is a rich body of case law on the topic.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The fact that Obama hasn't been impeached yet is the most damning indictment of our political system I could imagine. He has utterly failed in his oath to uphold the Constitution.
Pass the tea, please.
Seriously, people said this through 12 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, and 8 years of Reagan. The side not in power always whines that the President is not upholding the constitution while doing everything in Congress possible to prevent work from getting done. The reality is that most of the HSA, TSA and health care actions taken by this administration (by it's own choice) have origins in either the Bush administration or conservative thinkers. Suddenly it's against the Constitution because it's a Democrat wanting to do it.
I'm probably a little biased since I'm not an American, so forgive me if this comes off sounding rude, but fuck you.
I am concerned that the President has ordered a capture or kill order that will most likely result in kill, rather than capture, on three US citizens.
I am also concerned that there are three US citizens that most likely are dangerous enough to warrant such an order.
I am much less concerned by who makes this decision at the moment. Right now, for the first time in my life, the sitting President of the United States, an elected official, is personally reviewing the data on terrorists and personally deciding whether or not to attempt to take these people out. He's not handing the job to an analyst or to an assistant-to-an-undersecretary or some other unknown, non-elected bureaucrat. He is personally taking the responsibility and accepting the ramifications of these decisions.
These individuals are members of an organization that has successfully attacked us in the past and that has pledged to attack us in the future. There is no practical way to bring them to legal justice, as they operate as a de facto government in territory that they control. In that sense they nearly are members of a nation-state and the rules of war can be found to apply to them as lieutenants in that de facto government's military structure.
I think that the situation is a terrible, horrible one. But, I also have less qualms about how this is being run than I do about the entire detention/torture system that was in place before it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Who do I contact to have someone removed from that list?
Except that these are not all soldiers in a foreign military belonging to a hostile state. In some cases they are even our own Citizens. These people are by and large accused criminals, violent ones maybe but criminals not uniform soldiers.
We passed laws decades against our intelligence services assassinating people.
We are supposed to have rights, in the case of citizens at least, to face our accuser, have the decision on our guilt be made by a jury of our peers if we desire, have the burden of proof be placed on the state.
Some how we have let that slip, and now the President and some of his yes men get together in a room, and order the execution of whoever they want! If we are not fighting to protect our freedom and the rule of our law, why are fighting at all? The president has flaunted the law consistently since he was in office. The harm Obama has done to this nation is beyond measure. Bush made some bone headed moves, and the PATRIOT Act sucks, but at least he largely operated within our legal frame work. Obama is a dangerous criminal who should himself be on the execution block for treason, well after a fair trial and if convicted anyway
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Killing foreigners? Okay.
Perhaps American soldiers and politicians are also fully accepting to be arrested during holidays..Oh, they had this immunity contract protecting them. But then how can the US be a part of the UN since they clearly don't agree on the principles of the universal human rights? Questions, question..
Okay, I'll bite.
Please give me specific examples of where he has failed to follow the rules as set out in the Constitution.
Has he taken your guns?
Has he quartered any troops in your house or on your land?
Has he taken any more powers "reserved for the states" than his predecessors? If yes, I want specifics, including how the courts have ruled on the matter(s).
Has he prohibited assembly, or speech? Has he endorsed a state-sponsored religion?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Enlisting in a hostile foreign enemy is an automatic revocation of one's citizenship. Al Qaeda arguably is a de facto foreign power, a hostile foreign enemy.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You miss the point of the question. He appears to assume that war only exists between nation-states. Need I elaborate further.
When you live outside of the US and are actively being treasonous, I'm sure a FISA court or military court could hear the case without it being public. The media might not like it, and the evidence might not be exposed to the public, but it happens.
President is also considered to be the supreme commander of armed forces in many European countries, as well - France is a good example.
So what about all the prisoners of the "War on Terror"?
Doesn't being filmed eating pork with an official time-stamp every X hours accomplish the same thing?
And a kill list that includes everyone else is not? The difference here is really that it's not unconstitutional to have a kill list with 5 billion people on it as long as they're not american, the tyrannical or amoral or just plain-ridiculous-as-expected-from-politics are determined by entirely different criteria than a text that pretends to be a law of nature in some book that is selectively ignored for most of the time.
It's easy, it's a little bit like a Jihad.
The case of Michael Townly.
As an European, let me say that the president of a democracy should not have a list of people he wants dead.
That would depend on the circumstances. During WW2, leaders of democratic Western countries did not have any qualms about targeting high-ranged Reich functionaries. Sure, those that survived the end of the war were given some pretense of due process, but before that, do you think, say, Churchill wouldn't have ordered a bombing of the exact place he'd have known Himmler or Goring to reside in at that particular moment?
Citation please....
I've never heart about that. It's almost unbelievable, but then again, the Patriot Act was passed..
Right now, for the first time in my life, the sitting President of the United States, an elected official, is personally reviewing the data on terrorists and personally deciding whether or not to attempt to take these people out. He's not handing the job to an analyst or to an assistant-to-an-undersecretary or some other unknown, non-elected bureaucrat. He is personally taking the responsibility and accepting the ramifications of these decisions.
Unless he also created said data from the start to the end you cannot be sure he will make the right decision since that data might be wrong. What IS happening is they are giving him the responsability s.t. he will take the fall if shit hits the fan, i.e. he is the scapegoat as always was the case with presidents. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a choice, he only gets "instructions".
You will say that that is just a conspiracy theory, it might be but think about Bush, surely they knew how dumb he was yet they chose him as a candidate... They wanted him to be elected so he would get all the shit. It's his fault for the wars, the economy, etc. It's not the banks', the oil companies' or the weapons companies' fault.
ics
Not sure if your post is satirical, but it has been modded ‘interesting’.
I think it’s monstrous that anyone could consider that killing foreigners without due process is any less bad than killing ones own citizens without it.
Wars are a special case obviously— but INITIATING war is pretty fucking tyrannical in the first place.
The president has flaunted the law consistently
"Flouted", not "flaunted"
Who is John Cabal?
Just because Bush started Homeland Security does not make it a good thing.
The worst things Bush did during his presidency were The Patriot Act and the creation of DHS and its underling the TSA.
Good or bad national health care is unconstitutional.
As are many things that we as a people have allowed to continue.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
False. The UN Commander-in-Chief signed an armistice with the North Koreans and the Chinese back in 1953.
North Korea and South Korea are still at war with each other since South Korea wasn't a signatory to the armistice.
We passed laws decades against our intelligence services assassinating people.
You passed some little laws? Awwww. That's so cute! You're so cute when you vote! Who's a wonderful little citizen? You! Yes you are! You've got the moral right to self-government and everything! You've got representation in the House! And you're learning civics! You're so smart!
But don't bother Daddy right now, okay? He's gotta go to his office and kill some foreign citizens on foreign soil without a declaration of war. It's grown-up business. You wouldn't understand. Oh, and tell Mommy to order up some more napalm, okay? And we need to get the waterboard looked at.
Hee hee hee. Laws. They're so angelic at this age.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Obvious email address harvester...
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
What makes executing a suspect in country x any more objectional than executing a suspect in the US? Is there something inherently different in a person residing in another nation making them less deserving of the same right to due process as a person residing in your own country?
The world is full of bad actors, far more people are damaged, killed and terrorized by the drug trade than have ever been killed by al qaeda yet there are no drones invading Mexico airspace gunning down kingpins or carpet bombing Afghan poppy fields.
Okay, I'll bite.
Has he taken any more powers "reserved for the states" than his predecessors? If yes, I want specifics, including how the courts have ruled on the matter(s).
Do previous Presidents and congresses being absolute fucking bastards ruling over a bunch of sheep who allowed it make the federal government taking powers reserved to the States and the People?
Because I am not blaming Obama for it but let us get real honest.
Congress has usurped a shitload of power not given to it. With the Supreme Court playing dead and a people who will not stand up for themselves we have been raped.
And we will continue to get raped by them till we are done with it.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
So foreigners are not persons? Then americans are not persons either.
Simple logic.
You've been singing this tune for months now and never actually provide citations when people ask for them.
Now the number has increased to 3, *and* you've embellished it to include a minor.
Put up evidence or shut the fuck up.
I only know two of them.
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki
The work to get "Citizens United" overturned, and then continue from there.
Hell, push for an amendment that says, "Persons, as defined in this Constitution and in all supporting documents and common law, shall refer only to natural persons." That would end corporate personhood, which is the real problem in my opinion, as corporations have their shareholders interest in mind, to the exclusion of all else. Don't let corporations play in politics.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
We are at war with terrorist and the Governments/Nations that harbors,finance them. Iraq was first,Afghanistan is second. My guess Iran will be next.
Jack of all trades,master of none
He probably confused Anwar Al-Awlaki with a minor.
What I find hilarious is that people like CPU6502 have no problem with villagers in a random village being shot, because the Taliban showed their faces. They don't have a problem with people rotting in Gitmo, or being sent to various secret CIA prisons or even foreign governments for "interrogation". But god forbid that under Obama's watch, someone holding an American passport gets killed in a drone strike, and then all hell breaks lose.
You know people, you need to make up your mind: either we're at war with Al-Qaeda, AQ operatives and their supporters and allies, and we shoot them on sight. Or we consider AQ and Co to be thugs, and we send the police after them all. But you can't have it be a war against some people, and a police action against others.
For the record, I prefer police actions. But then again, SWAT teams exist for a reason. And they frequently shoot first as well.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The parent post has your high crime listed in it. He has deprived US citizens of their life with no due process. He doesn't even bother to deny it. It's pretty black and white.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Put us down for the Royal Dalton "Richard Burton" pattern, the Damascus steel steak knives, and the Mr. Felafel Shawarma rotisserie...
What do you mean, it's not *that* kind of registry?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And if it weren't for the fact that the GoP wants this power for their next candidate elected to the Presidency, there might even be an impeachment.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Due process for civilians while we're not in a declared war does in fact mean in a court of law. Only members of the military and "enemy combatants" are subject to military jurisdiction outside of military facility or area declared to be under martial law.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Democracy is often confused with the republic form of government. In some definitions of "republic," a republic is a form of democracy. Other definitions make "republic" a separate, unrelated term.
GP is correct according to his definition of "republic". You are correct according to your definition of "republic".
Now can we please get on with the actual discussion?
So. Let me get this straight.
If someone rapes your daughter you would respond with "Yeah, so what?" because of the citizens united case?
Since we have had the citizens united case you just intend to say fuck it too everything?
So before that case you were all up in arms over the power grabs by decades of bad congresses but now that this case has been decided badly "Fuck it"?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Technically, you're at war with China
Pass the tea, please.
No thanks. I'm a coffee drinker, and the tea partiers are straight up fascists.
Seriously, people said this through 12 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, and 8 years of Reagan.
Yes, we're going on 4 decades now without any accountability for unconstitutional actions by the executive. Doesn't that bother you?
The reality is that most of the HSA, TSA and health care actions taken by this administration (by it's own choice) have origins in either the Bush administration or conservative thinkers. Suddenly it's against the Constitution because it's a Democrat wanting to do it.
No sir. They are just as unconstitutional now as they were then. Bush absolutely made unprecedented grabs for executive power, but even he didn't have the gall to openly assassinate people.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
thank you, i hadn't thought of it that way before!
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
First off, Bush wasn't dumb. He just acted that way. He is a very rich man, not in spite of what he and his people did to the country but partly _because_ of it. Don't be duped into his act. He filed the first time he ran for governor of Texas (when he ran as an educated Northerner) and then reinvented himself as a "man of the people" and suddenly had a southern accent this time. And he won. He finally found a winning strategy, and ran with it all the way to the bank.
I don't know where the fuck you've been man, but they think that they're giving people due process!
As a libertarian-leaning Democrat (yes, we exist), Holder has been nothing but a walking, talking fuckup machine. First, the asshole seems to want to tell me who to spend my weekends with (4th paragraph), but then wants to brainwash people in his anti-Second Amendment campaign.
As a centrist Dem, I'm going to say right now to Obama: get rid of this shit stain or lose in November.. full stop. And don't get me wrong, Romney is going to be a disaster, but Holder is evil incarnate.
No person who is for sure 100% known to have American citizenship
We can't know for absolutely certain whether a person has American citizenship or not unless we actually arrest him.
You can't tell someone's citizenship from a drone camera thousands of feet up in the air.
Have a look... continue reading until you reach Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki was killed at the age of 16
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The US is at war with sanity, and has been for quite some time. And sanity is loosing.
It is true that without a full chain of custody of the information one is basing a decision on, it is impossible to wholly know that the decision is correct.
It is also true that even if one has a full chain of custody on the information one is basing a decision on, it is possible to still make the wrong decision due to still not having all of the data.
Bush is not nearly as dumb as people think. It's funny when he spoke of "misunderestimating" him, as honestly I think that's true. This man, born in Kennebunkport Maine to a rich, as-close-to-aristocratic-as-possible family with generations of high ranking political "service" managed to not only convince a whole bunch that he's a Texan and "one of us", but managed to do so despite obviously political machinations to keep him out of real military service, get out of trouble for substance abuse including while driving, and other protections he received from on high. He attended Ivy-league schools, and while he didn't excel there, he certainly participated in the culture with his extracurricular activities like cheerleading. He managed to facade himself over and a whole lot of people bought it hook, line, and sinker.
I won't dispute that he became President with lots of help. Hell, his Rolodex of cabinet and government officials strongly correlated to previous power brokers under his father's and under Reagan's administrations. If anything they figured they'd run the country business-as-usual, ready to hop back into the private sector when Bush's Presidency ended. Then September 11 happened and the whole plan got shot to Hell. People like Cheney and Bremer and Ashcroft and Rumsfeld probably didn't want to be massively publicly scrutinized like they became, but suddenly there was newfound interest in non-politicos paying attention.
Obama didn't have these advantages. I'm not going to make a sob story out of his life, because there's no point. The point is, he got there a whole lot more based on his own than based on others propping him up, and he's willing to make the tough calls. His Vice President isn't doing the work for him. He's even hamstrung by a Senate that can't confirm a number of his appointees because of rules gridlock. He's still taking on the job himself. I respect that.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
how can the american gov't not be 100% sure whether someone is american or not?
The American government doesn't know the name of everyone born in the United States.
The American government doesn't know all the possible future names of everyone born in the United States.
The American government doesn't know the birth parents' names of every foreign person on Earth.
So is North Korea . . .
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Ive never herd what you have told us, Citation please... And yes we live in dangerous times not telling the full truth is a major cause of it.
Jack of all trades,master of none
And one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter which is the problem in a nutshell. With something as nebulous and ill defined as "terrorism" frankly ANYBODY can be labeled a terrorist. Considering how some of the PMC like Blackwater and corps like Halliburton have behaved in those countries i would certainly have a hard time labeling anyone fighting to get the USA out of those places to be terrorists but I'm sure that is what they'd be labeled, just as those that fought against the carpet bombing and slaughter of entire villages in Vietnam would have been labeled terrorists then even though we know now that it was a shitty and unjust war.
But in the end wars on ideas simply give the government a blank check, you can fit damned near anything you want under a 'war on terrorism" banner, as we have seen with warrantless wiretapping, rendition rides, waterboarding,anything you want can be excused because it all fits under the umbrella.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think this counts as a case in the land or naval forces (and if you don't think it counts, I don't see how even a fully declared war would count, which would be absurd).
Thank God wars or acts short of war aren't horrific enough for people to call for an end to them. Thank God we don't carpet bomb cities in hopes of destroying a ball bearing factory. Thank God we don't use gas, nukes, cluster bombs, mine fields, or biological weapons. Cuz if war was hell we'd all fight to stop it. Since war is remotely controlled or at least "civil" enough for our tastes we can tolerate it. Kind of reminds me of the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon). Of course I don't want to see people suffer, but if wars are too clean and tidy we have no incentive to end them quickly. Drones are the worst way to execute a war...distant and clinical.
But then again, SWAT teams exist for a reason. And they frequently shoot first as well.
I'm fairly sure this is incorrect. SWAT teams are not military, they're police. While they look military, and are pretty well-armed (but again, not like a military fire team; they don't have any squad machine guns, for instance, and perhaps a submachine gun), their tactics are quite different; their goal is usually to bust into a place and secure it, and disarm anyone there. That doesn't mean "shooting first", unless someone actually is holding a weapon and pointing it at them.
If SWAT teams were running around shooting people willy-nilly, I think we wouldn't hear the end of it. Occasionally, they do shoot an innocent person, but that's because the innocent person had a gun, and (rightfully) was holding it because they thought some violent thugs were breaking into their house; they of course had no idea it was a team of armed police who had mistakenly gone to the wrong house in pursuit of the "war on drugs". But even so, this is pretty rare.
On an unrelated note, people have began disappearing from their homes with no warning. They all seem to have gone to a website called, "DoNotKillRegistry".
More on the story as we know it.
Nice Straw Man...
Citizens United is the most recent high-profile change that needs to be undone. There are many other changes that are needed as well.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yeah, keep shedding crocodile tears for those guys.
So when do we invade Florida and clean out the nest of Gusano terrorists headquartered in Miami? They've been there since 1959, even the CIA could probably locate their headquarters by now. Past and present leaders of that government should be treated the same as those of Iraq, complete with kangaroo courts and public hangings. I personally would make my first-ever pay-per-view purchase to see Jeb Bush's end.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Yeah, but most US citizens don't seem to consider foreigners to be persons, or even human, or deserving of the most basic human rights. Many probably don't even comsider most of their fellow US citizens to be. The US governement certainly doesn't.
At least that is what it looks like from outside.
It's about time the US started to realize how sad, sick and twisted they have become. That they don't have the moral high ground they feel entitled to. That they have just become another bully, another rogue terrorist state for people in the civilized world to have nightmares about.
US, the terrorists have won. And you are them.
If good national health care is unconstitutional then obviously you need to ammend your constitution.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Really? Brave Pilots? Of Drones? These are the world's biggest cowards, blowing up women and children from half a world away like its a vidya game. Pussies.
The U.S. doesn't respect all U.N. resolutions, only the ones we like at a particular moment in time. If we did, we'd be obliged to do something about the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians, and we'd be telling them to return the West Bank as well as the Golan Heights.
Just sayin... don't track me, and don't drone on me.
Your first article lists a third man, Samir Khan, and Shrub had Kamal Derwish murdered in Yemen in 2002.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Ah, but serving in a foreign military can cause one to lose one's citizenship, especially if that foreign military is in conflict with the United States.
I would argue that since Al Qaeda controlled territory at one point and has committed attacks against the country, a US Citizen's allegiance with Al Qaeda constitutes an action that would nullify one's citizenship, in the same fashion that serving in a foreign military would. Since a major goal of Al Qaeda is to set up a Caliphate and their own religious theocracy nation (in their own concept of what that means) then they're essentially declaring themselves to be a foreign power.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You're forgetting the best detail: With the increasing automation of our military the 1 percent will in the very near future be able to exert physical force against the 99 percent without need of popular support nor staff large enough to harbor disloyalty.
And what about the Declaration of Human Rights?
Ah, no, sorry, non-US citizens are not human, we are all just heathen sub-human djinns and demons and should be eternally thankful the US has been so generous as to let us live our miserable worthless existences for so long.
I keep telling people these "dumb" politicians are the alpha sociopaths, but people keep choosing to believe they are so much smarter.
Hey, they know how to install a Linix distro and write program in C++! Let's see some idiot politician do that, huh? Amirite? Yeah! Stupid politicians! Bunch of old dudes who can barely work a phone! Ha!
Meanwhile, the politicians are laughing their asses off at the "useful idiots", raking in the power and the money, and partying it up like there's no tomorrow.
...I'm pissed off at all this hand-wringing.
Killing U.S. citizens actively engaged in treason without a proper trial? You know, Abraham Lincoln and the civil war kind of settled that - about 140 years ago.
It's never been this bad ever before? No, actually. It's never been this good, as the book Winning the War on War explains. We are, today, in a golden age of peace, where the media gets upset at literally a handful of people in Yemen doing bad things.
If you want to know about real war, we still have a few here and there. The Second Congo War (a.k.a. the Great War of Africa), from 1998-2003 had over 5.1 MILLION casualties. To put that in perspective, there were more casualties in a single week of that war, than all the deaths (PLO/Hamas terrorist and Israeli overreaction) attributable to 40 years of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. But you didn't know about this war, did you? Because, of course, it's just black Africans dying. So nothing that anyone in the U.S. cares about.
Seriously. Having the President personally decide the fate every single person to be killed? That's a vast improvement. I'm not even sure Stalin, or Lincoln for that matter, could even count all the people who were killed by their more generalized orders. It takes forever to count that high.
Assassination was one of those things that "We just did not do anymore." and that we were morally past it, but realities changed and now it is necessary again.
I do hope you are being sarcastic, but there are plenty of people who think like this. I am sick of hearing "post-9/11" and terms like this
Reality has not changed. US was subject to one (major) successful terrorist attack. In some countries, terrorist attacks are not an uncommon occurrence. Somehow their reality does not shift on regular basis.
9/11 may have been used as an excuse by US politicians to do a bunch of crap to "combat terrorism", but the world hasn't actually changed outside of what our actions are causing to happen in the world.
Actually, the president does have the power to do this:
For a targeted killing to be carried out, three conditions must be met...
First, the government has to determine that the individual being targeted "poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the U.S." That evaluation would consider the "relevant window of opportunity to act," the possible harm to civilians and the likelihood of heading off future attacks.
Second, "capture is not feasible."
Third, the operation has to be conducted in a manner consistent with four fundamental rules of war: The target must have military value; the target must be lawful, such as combatants or civilians engaged in hostilities; collateral damage must not be excessive; and the weapons chosen must not "inflict unnecessary suffering."
Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/05/world/la-fg-holder-awlaki-20120306
Have to disagree. The worst things that Shrub did were 1) invade two countries that had not attacked us, had no intention of attacking us, nor had any method to attack us with, 2) withdraw from or otherwise abrogate the bio-weapons treaties, nuclear test ban treaty, ABM treaty, chemical weapons treaties, anti-money laundering accord, and the Geneva Conventions, 3) deliberately crash the economy.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
These individuals are members of an organization that has successfully attacked us in the past and that has pledged to attack us in the future. There is no practical way to bring them to legal justice, as they operate as a de facto government in territory that they control. In that sense they nearly are members of a nation-state and the rules of war can be found to apply to them as lieutenants in that de facto government's military structure.
Uh-oh, I think you just proved the validity of jihad. Better keep one eye pointed up, imam...
Pretty much.
Bureaucracies are similar all over, be they government or corporations. A CTO can be someone that takes credit for you doing your job, even if they have absolutely no idea what your job is, how you accomplish it, or how to replicate it in others.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Hey, does this make Obama a black hat?
Waits for the predator drone to hit his house... conveniently located at an airbase less than 50 miles away....
the only really relevant one is the first, and i'm sure it would be very easy for them to find out. at any rate, it wasn't an issue in this case; they knew.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Not being a US citizen IS actively being treasonous, according to most US citizens. So is being a US citizen, according to the US government.
You raise an interesting point: "...not uniform soldiers"
So, since no members of al-Qaeda wear uniforms, we are powerless to act against them?
Just think: if the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on casual Friday, they could have won the war.
One problem with this thread is people confusing criminal acts with acts of war. They are two different things, with very different rules.
Who is paying for this waste of money? I never agreed to it nor do I support "taxation without representation".
Aren't we allies to South Korea though? Meaning that we could enter a state of war with NK very easily (ie if they launch an attack on South Korea).
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Well, DUH.
Only polititians and corporations are persons!
The source of that entire argument is Eric Holder, who serves at the pleasure of the man we're accusing. It would be sort of like asking Tom Hagan if Michael Corleone had killed anybody.
Here's the counterargument: ... be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law;"
"No person shall
I am officially gone from
#2: An American citizen could move aboard and live under a different name.
#3: American citizenship can be obtained by being born in a foreign country to American parents.
I wasn't addressing this case. I don't even fully agree with GP's point. I was simply answering your question.
Officially there was a ban on political assassinations by the US starting with Ford but it was ended by Clinton.
Assassination was one of those things that "We just did not do anymore." and that we were morally past it, but realities changed and now it is politically convenient again.
Fixed
r major presidential candidate in the last 30 years has cared for the rule of law.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Don't let corporations play in politics.
I understand where your coming from wrt the indutrial-military complex, but had we done what you suggest from the begining the Magna Carta would never have been written, let alone agreed to by the monarchy. It was wealthy merchants who forced the king to devolve some power to the people by refusing to fund his costly wars. To a lesser and more subtle extent, most of todays multi-nationals are also using their influence on politics to keep nations at peace in order to protect their own interests.
The reason corporations, governments, and society in general "don't work" is that humans (like many other predatory mammals) evolved to live in extended family tribes and throw turds at outsiders. 10K years ago we inveted agriculture which quickly lead to civilizations which requires massive 'tribes' to get thing done (or undone in the case of war). Evolution has had very little time to alter basic human nature to cope with this behavioural shift in our species. As an example most of us identify strongly with our own nations 'tribe' but every day thousands of members of that tribe die and we couldn't give a flying fuck about them unless we know them personally (ie: within our extended family tribe).
Problem is, even if one understands that, one is too busy throwing turds to do anything about it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
FTFY.
Yes, it's nice that things are getting better, but they are getting better because people are paying more attention to just these kinds of questions. And the fact that people in the Congo are killing each other really has little bearing on what policies are proper for us to adopt. And, frankly, that the president is not as bad as Stalin is not exactly a reassuring comparison.
There is no reason why the president needs to decide these cases by himself. The US could hold a trial in absentia where the executive branch presents evidence to judges; that would allow two of the branches of government to have input into the cases, and it would provide much better documentation for why they were killed and what the evidence was.
Obama is the engineer of exactly fuck all, as was Bush and those before him, as will be the next president. They just put a face on it.
You could say the same about any mafia boss, so what exactly is your point? Signed, not a derp.
PS: It's also the reason reality shows and soap operas are so popular, the actors become part of the viewer's family tribe.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Can someone explain it to me? Does it mean, for example, that I can own a slave, as long is not American?
Yup. That's the exact, correct reasoning that you've stumbled on. But, to own a slave they must not be a U.S. citizen or the government can persue you overseas to some extent. And if you bring a foreign slave onto U.S. soil they either get deported or taken away from you - since you're a U.S. citizen and slavery was abolished here.
Law of the land, or out of sight out of mind. Having a slave in a part of the world where slavery exists is possible. At least until enough Americans get noticed doing it that laws get created. Those future laws would probably revoke the slaver's citizenship, or some similar penalty. Not to mention quite a few other Americans might not tolerate people who own slaves (vigilante justice, public humiliation, etc).
I bet there currently are U.S. citizens who own slaves. Just because it's possible.
Social engineering at its very finest. Yes I wish to give my real name and an email address to [whomever].
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
how about we drop you in there with a puppy and have you pick up your friends. you see, son, just because you and your ilk don't want to face responsibility for your actions, does not mean that the adult will just sit around and wait to die.
No. did you actually read the link you provided? That is a cease-fire. It is not a peace treaty. It does not end the war. (It is true that South Korea never signed the cease fire.)
here's a longer explanation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/05/are_we_at_war_with_north_korea.html
we never asked everyone in a German outfit if he was really an American who supported the fascist state (Prescott bush for example) In short, grow up.
Article 3
Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties in territories now under their respective administrative control, or hereafter recognized by one of the Parties as lawfully brought under the administrative control of the other, would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.
POTUS can enable military aid to South Korea, but he can't declare war. According to our "constitutional processes" only the Senate can declare war.
Of course this whole discussion about "war" is moot because we've had at least a dozen "wars" that were technically "armed conflicts".
why don't you just admit the truth instead of insulting your betters by pretending you have any sort of intellectual or moral basis for your hatred.
how you feel about black haven't you.
armistice is not technically an end to a war. it's an end to hostilities, but it is not permanent.
What we SHOULD be doing is working to get everyone and their dog onto the "kill" list, to the point that one of three things happens:
1. A few perfectly innocent people get targeted and all hell breaks loose, or
2. The people relying on that list are forced to abandon it as completely polluted, or
3. It remains officially in existence, but nobody actually uses it. They rely upon a separate list which may or may not be a subset of the polluted list.
Option 1 will force changes and most likely would result in a rather thorough rolling of heads at the top. That's why it is unlikely to happen.
Option 2 would be little more than inconvenient, but the replacement list had better be relatively vetted and secure or it too will get polluted.
Option 3 will reduce the list to being merely an embarrassment to those in power. All but a few paranoid types (justified or not) will forget about it.
It's like putting "kilo nuclear uranium jihad" in your signature file to crap up the ECHELON system.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
All the Germans had to do was place a bunch of Nazi sympathizers in the pillboxes at the beach, and we'd be unable to invade, less we hurt anyone's feelings.
The commander in chief of the most powerful army, navy, and air force in the world has a list of people he wants dead? STOP THE PRESSES! Targeting specific people is not news... it's war. People die when they're killed. Derp.
Pres. Ford issued Executive Order 11905 banning political assassination
Pres Carter: EO 12036 banning US involvement in assassinations
Pres. Regan: EO 12333 No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
Pres. Obama: DoD Directive 2310. Incorporates prohibitions against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Bans Water boarding.
Drone assassinations are apparently OK. In fact a "kill list" is perfectly acceptable during an election year...
...for the first sitting president to be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Something's really fucked up here.
The killing of the 17 year old was unintended damage as the missile was fired at al-Qaeda leader Ibrahim al-Banna and the minor happened to be there. By the way, even in the US 17 year olds have been tried and executed as adults.
To those who say innocent people are being killed as collateral damage is unacceptable I say that they or their parents/guardian chose to be close to a known target of the US government and thereby chose to put their life in danger. No one put a gun to their heads and forced them into a building with an al-Qaeda leader. It was their choice and they bore the grave consequences. Do we really want to encourage al-Qaeda leaders to use children as human shields?
Sixteen is a minor, at least in all 50 US states.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
He probably confused Anwar Al-Awlaki with a minor.
No, I am pretty sure GP was referring to Al-Awlaki's son. here. I guess he was killed by accident. Then again, since the deliberations are secret, maybe he was killed on purpose.
US citizen Kamal Derwish might disagree with you, except that he's dead. Shrub had him and a carload of other people murdered in Yemen in 2002.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
if i close my eyes and fire into a crowd, that this somehow mitigates my legal responsibility since i didn't really know whether i was shooting anyone?
Obligatory Simpsons:
Nelson: Shoplifting is a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark.
The Nobel prize winner? I find that hard to believe..... OK, everyone know the previous statement was just a lie. If Obama has a kill list (And quite probably he has it), just goes to prove that is just another murderer with a big army of hit men. So much for the US being a beacon of freedom and justice. First train terrorists and once they are not useful, just get someone to kill them. And some people still wonder why the US does not earn the respect of the world.....
Those camper vans are terrible.
This power for the President to order hits on individuals exists. Not sure where it came from, but it exists. The President has the Big Red Button (TM). This was true during the days of the Cold War. That doesn't seem to have changed.
I wouldn't necessarily blame the President for it though. If you want to blame someone, blame congress, for allowing the power to exist. Or blame congress, for not taking the power away.
We should indeed be thankful that Obama is pressing the button and not someone else, because that's what leaders do, instead of hiding behind his chief of staff. We should equally be incensed no one's taken it away yet, or even mentioned taking it away.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The internet exposes people to a disproportionate number of loud, partisan hacks. The reality is, anyone with any bit of independent thinking condemns the Obama administration as harshly (or more harshly, since we thought he would know better) as GWB. Or maybe it's just the people I keep company with. Either way, I'm done playing this game, "none of the above" will be getting my vote this fall. Electing the least bad of two terrible choices just slows our downward spiral, we're still going the wrong direction and we may be better off hitting rock bottom as soon as possible so the oblivious masses take notice, until then nothing will change.
most of todays multi-nationals are also using their influence on politics to keep nations at peace
You might take a look at Shell's actions in Nigeria, Coca Cola's anti-union massacres of union representatives on Colombia, Exxon's hiring of mercs to slaughter Ecuadorian native peoples, BoA and CitiCorp's deliberate destruction of the Argentinian economy leading to starvation in the planet's third-largest food exporter, the propping up of Myanmar's brutal junta by the multinationals, etc. etc. ad nauseum...
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
what your references are saying is that he thinks its disappointing that while most Americans will mix during work and work related functions at the weekends America is still segregated along racial lines pretty much the same as in the 1950's.
The 2nd amendment attacks you refer to are that maybe it isn't a great idea for people to be carrying guns routinely. Not banning guns but discouraging people from having them.
I can understand your feelings in a country where you have to look out for you and yours with no safety net sure puts you at a disadvantage and defenceless if you don't have a gun (but the criminals still have guns). If everyone was equal there would be nobody to look down upon and be able to have the comfort of saying at least i'm not black. Oh and that superior attitude you have because your not black also can come back to haunt you now you have no guns but the black dudes still have them.
It is strange that the most powerful nation on earth will bankrupt it's citizens with private health care supply cheap food to it's people but not tell them whats in it (and that cheap crud is destroying the health of the nation). Seems the only way to get health care in your declining years is to have fought for your country. America as a country has some great achievements but at what cost to its citizens. How much of a nightmare is it if you were to lose your job next month with the current number of jobless Americans how long could you last if you didn't get rehired quickly?
America is a great place to be if your high enough up the ladder to have some stability in your life but that could easily be taken away from you by cancer a heart attack or even a simple car wreck just to name a few.
Jobs get exported oversea's for better profit margins and cheaper toys from china. The sad thing is i doubt there is anything anyone could do to change things in the US now, you just have to ride the roller coaster and hope you don't get flung off. Maybe I have the wrong impression of the usa and don't get me wrong of all the Americans i have met i wouldn't say i'd met anyone other than decent hard working people. If anything the internet has shown me is that we are all generally decent people with similar ethics and values.
http://atlanticreview.org/archives/434-Murder-Rate-in-the-United-States-and-Germany.html
is an interesting page comparing murder rates between germany and the the usa.
maybe this comment explains things quite well.
"Perhaps it is just a cultural gulf, and I do think that Americans in general place a lot more faith in self-reliance than they do on collective solutions such as giving the police a monopoly on the use of force to deter criminal conduct. And yes, when it comes to defending yourself against thugs, nothing works so well as a gun. Even a small woman can turn a 250 pound would be rapist into a corpse if she has a pistol and knows how to use it.
It may be a cliche, but an armed society does tend to be a polite society. In the more rural areas of the US where the rate of gun ownership tends to be high, the crime rates tend to be low, mainly because of the willingness of the local folks to deal out their own rough justice to people who attempt to victimize them."
As an American you may well say as a European it is no concern of mine of how America treats it's people but much as you can feel sympathy for kids in African countries with no clean water it is also easy to feel sympathy for the many Americans let down by their own nation.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
The Emir of Kuwait was rather peeved that the US made him free his slaves after handing him his country back.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Precisely - SWAT teams are police called into action when it is unlikely that the suspect is going to surrender peacefully. They are fully equipped and prepared to shoot to kill. IE there is some information that so-and-so did something bad, and is waving a gun around, possibly with a hostage. What does the police do? Call in the SWAT team, who can and have killed people without a trial. Generally it was because they were being shot at.
How different is this really from what we're doing to people like al-Awlaki? Instead of sending in a SWAT team, we just send in a drone. Presumably, we could ask him to come down to the station, but since we're pretty sure how that's going to turn out (either with dead messengers, or a general finger to the messengers), we figure we cut short the charade and just shoot him.
I don't really see the problem. Unless you think that Americans somehow deserve more protection than some random schmoe on the street, in which case I would recommend all non-Americans to immediately leave the country, because they are clearly second-class citizens and can be killed for not much reason at all.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
CIA prosecuting an undeclared war at the direction of the President. That didn't work out too well for us the last time we tried it, now that I think of it.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
If you join a foreign army and attack US soldiers, you are an enemy combatant, and should be treated as such - citizenship is irrelevent at that point. We shouldn't rush to apply that label in this asymetric war we're fighting by any means, but it can possibly apply. I can certainly believe it's been true 2 or 3 times.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No, you simply misinterpret the comment by taking it literally/applying it to history in an invalid manner. There are but very few city states in existence these days, and none of them are warlike. Sure, to be more precise, he could have said that the US was not at war with a group, but a tactic and been more correct, but non-pedantic people understood perfectly well what he was getting at.
So is capitalization and punctuation.
Good or bad.
But health care is not an enumerated power.
Therefore it falls to the State of the People.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Ahh.
You are one of those people.
Ok then. I will realize that there is no way to have a conversation with you and leave it at that.
Good luck.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
>>>In the US, I'd be a lot more concerned if the President were not the one with final say over what the military is up to.
What you SHOULD be concerned about is the President already ordered the execution of 3 U.S. citizens, including an underage minor. I didn't realize the death penalty could be applied without a right to trial (or against juveniles... I thought they were exempt). We live in dangerous days.
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
You have started down the path where arbitrary murder by the state is sometimes acceptable. You can still turn back, but you need to turn back right now, in relation to all human beings.
It will be interesting to see how the US reacts when, with its power in decline, China or India or Russia start killing civilians in other countries because they are on some "kill list" or other.
Read Pynchon.
Killing foreigners? Okay. Killing Americans? A violation of the president's oath to uphold Constituional Law
I hope this is a joke. In case it's not, I assume you agree that by parity of reasoning, other countries have the right to launch missiles into US territory to kill US citizens if they decide they are beyond the reach of those countries' domestic legal systems?
Read Pynchon.
This is starting to sound like the "if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?" or "is a virus alive?" type questions, which are incredibly stupid because people act like they're talking about actual things, when in fact they're just arguing over definitions of words ("sound" and "alive", respectively).
The question isn't "can war exist without nation-states"; the question is whether hostilities between non-nation-states should be called war or not. The answer doesn't change the fact that group A is trying to kill group B, and you can reasonably expect group B to try to prevent that.
Now possibly it has legal ramifications because the word "war" has been used sloppily in treaties, etc, but none of that changes the reality of people killing and/or defending. Besides, there isn't a clear definition of "nation-state", so even if we can't redefine "war" we'll just re-define "nation-state" to mean whatever we need it to mean in order to fit the offensive / defensive actions we think are appropriate into whichever subset of the treaties we'd like to continue to pretend matter.
Dunno if you've noticed, but even "permanent" ends to wars aren't really permanent. WWI ended definitively with the Treaty of Versailles (not some "temporary cease fire"), but that didn't stop WWII from happening.
All wars that aren't actively being pursued have "ended" in some sense, and any war that has "ended" (in any sense) can restart at any time. The various types of "ends" to wars may be of interest to people who publish dictionaries, but they have no real-world significance.
That's how solid thinking is done! If the sound rules get in the way of something I think is right, the rules must be wrong!
No, the point was that the 5th Amendment makes no mention of citizenship.
If it's legal for the US government to do it to an Iranian, it's just as legal for them to do it to an American.
Now either campaign to change the constitution, or shut up and live with it.
There's a world of difference between shooting at a suspect because he's armed and has already taken shots at you, and shooting a suspect while he's walking to the store or whatever just because you think he's not going to surrender peacefully.
In theory, the police (except when breaking policy somehow) NEVER kill anyone without a trial; when a death happens, it's because the officer was exercising self-defense because a suspect was attacking them, and that self-defense unfortunately resulted in the suspect's death. When someone shoots at you, you're allowed to shoot back to neutralize the threat; otherwise, you can't.
A drone attacking some guy as he's driving down the street, blissfully unaware that anyone is out to get him at the moment, isn't remotely the same.
The Beethoven ones are the bomb.
Got your education from the same place you got your political indoctrination I see.
A Do Not Kill list only needs one entry: American citizen.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Another of our problems is that one person's simpleton is another's genius.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. This video shows some clips of Bush's speeches back when he was running for governor. He comes across as intelligent and articulate. Now, the video's voice over concludes that Bush has some sort of early onset dementia. But I think the far more likely answer is that he concluded, correctly, that most Americans would rather vote for "someone they can have a beer with" than someone who sounds smarter than they are.
You don't get to be president, or attain any other position of power, by being a moron.
drone kills generally follow years of intelligence surveillance, so these corner cases have truly negligible probability. but thanks for your thorough categorization.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
What is war, if not killing human beings without charge or trial? What defines the borders of a war zone? During WWII, Japan floated balloons full of bombs over to the American Pacific coast, with the obvious intent of "killing human beings without charge or trial", even though no one would have considered California to be an active war zone. That is, unless you define war zone as "a place where our enemies live", in which case the targeted killings by the US lose all meaning.
Personally, I prefer targeted killings to the alternatives. If there is person Y in country X planning to kill citizens of country Z, there are only so many ways to handle it.
Country Z can try to defend its borders and keep the killers out, but that's simply not practical. Homeland security is just theater. Terrorists can always, if nothing else, slip into the country as a tourist, acquire a weapon, and kill some people. Look at the guy who shot up the summer camp in Norway, or the stabbings of school children in China a while back. Both of those were native attackers, but they could just as easily have been outsiders.
Country Z can demand that country X's government intervene, but most terrorists are based in lawless countries.
Country Z can go to war, as the US did in Afghanistan, but I think we all agree that that leads to far more death and destruction.
Country Z can sit back and let its people die, but those people will respond by voting out the current government. Complain all you want, no people on Earth will respond to repeated terrorist attacks by turning the other cheek.
Or finally, Country Z can try to kill person Y, and only person Y. To me, that seems like the least bad of a bunch of bad options.
I am chuckling at all the comments whizzing around taking that site seriously.
Best joke so far this month...
Insert
Because it's better to murder people than to hold them and make them uncomfortable, afterall.
Which is what this and all that "elected official" and "personally reviewing" and "personally taking the responsibility" hand-waving about is really about.
Michelle Obama called: Said she wants some time with Barry's cock too, ya know?
Don't know about the juveniles but Google does return some results for citizens targeted in drone strikes.
User-agent: Predator
Disallow: mother
Disallow: father
Disallow: wife
Disallow: son
Disallow: daughter
# Disallow: mother-in-law
Have gnu, will travel.
You're using logic, that isn't allowed on Slashdot.
An armistice does not end a war.
newspeak
No one put a gun to their heads and forced them into a building with an al-Qaeda leader.
I'm amazed at how cheaply some of you value human life, and assume the Moon to justify your beliefs.
"Dad, are you an Al Quaida leader?"
"What?!? Who've you been talking to?"
I seldom knew what my dad was doing most of the time when I was his age. He could have been robbing banks for all I knew. The Mafia make a point of keeping family separate from "business." Teenage civillians snuffed as collateral damage, and you just blow it off as simply another raghead who should have known better.
No wonder they hate you.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I don't agree but I think one argument is that outside of the U.S. the government seems to no longer have jurisdiction over itself. So you can target an American on foreign soil but you probably couldn't target a non-citizen on U.S. Soil.
I'm a bit confused. Aren't drones operated remotely from somewhere generally pretty safe? Just how much bravery do they require?
Militarization of the police is a big thing going on, and to me it's a really disturbing trend. Where you'd send a cop or two twenty years ago to safely arrest someone on the street, they now send in assault team dressed in black to bust the door down, with guns drawn, who shoot the dogs and anything or anyone else that looks remotely threatening. The worst part of it is I don't think we've even begin to see the beginning of it.
Government agencies not typically associated with the policing of -anything- are developing paramilitary squads. Example: recently the IRS put together a SWAT style team team. The DoE (education, not energy), Customs, the Department of Agriculture and EPA also have their own dedicated jackbooted goon squads, whereas in the past they'd bring in the FBI SWAT team if it were thought to be really necessary. Hell, the California Dept of Food & Agriculture sends in their own police squad to arrest...hippies dealing in raw foods. So, why the redundancy; are existing teams so occupied that it's necessary? Or is it because they're trying to get under the DHS umbrella, and have money bleeding out of their asses?
Some features of one of my jobs place me adjacent to local police, SWAT teams in particular. These teams draw in a lot of veterans retiring from the military, and many of the younger guys are newly-former special operators. They're naturals at every demand the job can throw at them, they've been there and done that, know how to operate as a team, and once they go though the police schools they naturally gravitate there. To say they're not becoming 'military' is wishful thinking. I don't have the data to back it up, but I'm sure it's a national trend.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
And when given the opportunity to defend it, they specifically said that the president's thinking real hard about it before deciding qualifies as "due process", an explicit admission that he was still a citizen and still qualified for due process. So, Obama has literally and explicitly claimed the right to kill any US citizen, any time, any place, as long as he feels the circumstances warrant it. Your right to due process now means that you have the right to be duly processed into cat food.
Did you even bother to read the GP's post before replying to it? He dislikes the tea party and agrees that this unconstitutional stuff has been going on for decades. His only complaint about Obama is that it has continued and in some ways worsened under his watch. How in the world does that makes him a racist? Oversensitive much?
I have no doubt there are many people that dislike Obama for stupid reasons like the fact that he's black. Those people are idiots. Disliking him because he is taking liberties with the rule of law, however, isn't any less legitimate or reasonable than it was with white presidents.
For some reason, I am more frightened of handing my email address over to a "government agency" with a gmail account than I am of the "Kill List". Does that make me too paranoid, not paranoid enough, or just poorly prioritized?
"and Shrub"
isn't the President and doesn't matter, no matter how many times you and the current administration try to pretend otherwise.
Well, sure - in a European democracy that would not be good... they usually aren't supposed to have such powers. In the US, the President is also the head of the military
I am not sure this is an oddiity. The French president is also head of the military, for instance. In any democratic country, there should be an army oversight by persons representing the people.
It's taken me a long time to come to the realization that the only war that can be justified is if you are fighting on your own land directly against invaders to repel them. The reason is the same as in your personal life. You can use force to defend yourself. But you have to be careful in that you only use force against those attacking you. If someone attacks you and the runs into a crowd you aren't justified in firing into the crowd hoping to hit that person. But that is what war is once you go into another country. You are punishing and killing innocent people in the hopes you might hit a few of the guilty. There is no moral argument for this.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
He's still dead, and it was still done by a president-ordered attack. In this case, the Obama Sadministration uses the killing of Derwish as a precedent to justify its own program. I don't give a crap if it was Warren Harding creating the kill order, US presidents do not have the right to order murders. End of story.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Impossible! Blasphemy! The Constitution is the divine word of Jesus, handed down to George Washington on stone tablets atop Mount Sinai. Nothing it says can ever, ever being wrong!
It's not the "end of story" just because you say it is.
I think it is quite reasonable to allow the President - who presides over both the CIA and the military - to make these kinds of decisions. If Yemen had a functioning government that could actually arrest and try or deport a wanted criminal in a known location, this would be a whole different conversation.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Consider me slightly less ignorant - didn't know that about France...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What defines war?
Under our constitution, a declaration of such by Congress. That alone.
This space available.
What is war, if not killing human beings without charge or trial?
Assassination is not a just or legitimate part of war. In war, a person must be engaged in combat in order to be considered a legitimate target. Any person who is a danger when not engaged in combat is either a criminal—and should be treated as such: attempt to capture for trial—or an important military or political figure—and should be treated as such: attempt to capture for the duration of hostilities. This is an important moral and practical boundary, and it was devised to help to prevent abuse of force and to encourage international affairs that produce improved results. It may be that there is a better moral or practical arrangement that includes assassination, but it is not in evidence. The outcomes of military strategy without rules are well known and atrocious and we should all be prepared to reject them; and when we pick and choose rules according to what the public and the international community is willing to accept without effective resistance, the difference is only a matter of degree.
Personally, I prefer targeted killings to the alternatives. If there is person Y in country X planning to kill citizens of country Z, there are only so many ways to handle it. [Snip your list of alternatives]
There is another alternative, but it requires a sobering, honest appraisal of the grievances motivating person Y (or those who support or appease person Y). Given such an appraisal, it is often, maybe usually, possible to address the grievances in a productive manner and undermine person Y's motivations. Given the actual outcomes of the approaches you listed, the approach I'm suggesting should be pretty attractive. It's impossible to predict the future, but it's difficult to imagine that the outcomes of the approaches you listed will differ from those of previous applications of those same approaches. We shouldn't forget that the events which precipitated our war in Afghanistan-Pakistan involved nearly 3,000 civilian deaths in surprise attacks. We also shouldn't forget that those attacks, just like the ones which are no doubt being planned now, didn't occur in a vacuum.
We should end our support for the colonization of Muslim societies and land (Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Palestine were detailed in explaining the 9/11/2001 attacks; we can add Afghanistan and Pakistan to the list now, and while we're at it all of the other little dictatorships and fiefdoms we support). Not to appease terrorists, but because in an honest and moral analysis, it's the right thing to do, for ourselves and for those Muslims who are so enraged by it. It would truly advance our own security, and it would be a much more moral choice than even the naive picture of "kill person Y, and only person Y", especially when considering the murder and misery of our broader foreign policy.
That such an approach isn't even considered betrays the fact that none of our approaches are aimed at security, but rather at an agenda that sacrifices security in favor of hegemony and global privilege.
You're right, we should remove all of the amendments to the US Constitution, then change the rules to disallow further amendments. Wait, I think one of us is confused.
Not even kings have had the right to order the murder anyone they wanted for the last several centuries. When did the president get that privilege? Where in the Constitution or the Legal Code does it say that the president is above the law? If he's allowed to murder with impunity, can he also take bribes? Maybe act on insider information to play the stock market? The latter two are generally considered less offensive than the former. Where do you draw the line?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Here's the counterargument: ... be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law;"
"No person shall
Read that part of the constitution again until you understand it.
It says *without due process of law*. If the law says that a presidential nod is the process for depriving someone of their life, then the process has been there.
How and where is "due process" defined?
Comprehension and thought really aren't your strong points, are they?
unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury
Cool, so what's unconstitutional about the list again?
It would be entertaining, in a Monty Python sort of way, to see our soldiers running across the battlefield, yelling the Miranda rights... :)
But you are confusing criminal acts with acts of war.
These people were "combatants." "someone who takes a direct part in the hostilities of an armed conflict." ...and can be killed.
You may also want to brush up on the Geneva Convention, Protocol I, Articles 43 & 44, which requires combatants to dress in a way to be recognized as an enemy force. Additionally, by fighting out of uniform, they are subject to execution.
Historically, during WWII, there were six Germans, captured in the US, who were deemed saboteurs, even though they had not yet had a chance to kill anyone or blow up anything, and were all executed.
Where in the Constitution or the Legal Code does it say that the president is above the law?
It doesn't - it provides a framework where congress can give him that authority. Specifically, congress set up and funds the CIA and the various branches of the US military - and those institutions fall under his oversight.
If he's allowed to murder with impunity,
He is not allowed to "murder with impunity". Try a drone strike inside the US and see where that gets him. There certainly are limits.
Where do you draw the line?
Holder laid it out like this: 1. Geography: congress must authorize the use of force in the area, and in his opinion they have done that. 2. Does the country in question have the will and/or capacity to capture/kill a suspect. In his opinion, Yemen did not have the capacity to capture or kill Awlaki itself.
I think that is a pretty reasonable standard. Provision 1 means you can't do this in peacetime and without congressional approval and provision 2 means you can't do this when there is an alternative involving some kind of justice system somewhere. We are in a shooting war with loosely defined boundaries, and Yemen has no control over much of it's territory, let alone the ability to bring a suspect living in those areas to justice.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"A drone attacking some guy as he's driving down the street, blissfully unaware that anyone is out to get him at the moment, isn't remotely the same." -- These guys who are on the target list have all been put on notice (at least de facto notice, if not de jure) that the drones are out to get them all the time. They can get off that list by turning themselves in -- then they at least have an argument to get legal protections. Until then they are on the battlefield that they chose and eligible to be off'ed without further warning. That's the real world judicial process in action. Anyone who wants to change it needs to get the American public to give a rat's ass about the civil rights of guys who have publicly stated their goals to kill as many Americans as possible -- good luck with that.
Terrorist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, , in U.S. death threat video - 8 Nov. 2010
Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki's Killing A 'Major Blow' To Al Qaeda
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
Semantics? That is "the heart of what is wrong with your country"? "Wrong with your country" is what... pretentious motherfuckers who post online?
There are many problems in the world and many problems in our country. The only problem identified by your post is you.
Do you seriously believe that the president reviews this himself. I think it is more likely that some analyst prepares the list with a short motivation, the president approves.
I'm glad that you think it is a horrible situation, but do not understand how one can have less qualms about this. In the past 20 years the US has taken some pretty misguided actions, based on very thin evidence and for ulterior motives. This government has alienated itself so much from its purpose, it is no longer a government by the people.
I am deeply worried about the state of this country. I am equally worried to see most slashdotters joking around about this. It's shocking and sad. Everyone should be outraged.
Wars are a special case obviously— but INITIATING war is pretty fucking tyrannical in the first place.
Free clue: Bin Laden's Fatwa
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If the US constitution indicates that it is ok to kill foreigners and no one sees anything morally wrong with this, then anyone who does not hold a US passport better side with the terrorists to be honest. Shocking to see the moral decline in your country.
Do you see other nations executing US citizens on American soil? This is what the US is/has been doing.
If all of this is about keeping the industrial complex going, just start a couple of wars at home. Leave the rest of the world alone. You will no longer have a problem with muslim terrorists, I figure.
I've never understood this concept, that moral rights only apply to American citizens. May be I am not smart enough to grasp the idea.
It seems to be Ok to kill any non-american without due process or self-defense. Even to kill anyone including (or around) his family/kids. It seems also fine to detain and torture foreigners for an undetermined amount of time as long it is done outside USA soil.
Can someone explain it to me? Does it mean, for example, that I can own a slave, as long is not American?
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
To your first point, do you know what the Fourteenth Amendment is?
Why do you think we needed to add this text?
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
We had to add that explicitly to protect UNITED STATES CITIZENS residing in the UNITED STATES from state governments. Before that one of our own states could legally fuck you up the ass! So why would the Constitution apply to foreign nationals residing waaaaaaaay the hell out of our jurisdiction? If our laws applied everywhere, then ours laws apply everywhere... isn't that self evident? Do I need to explain why other parts of the world would not like that?
As far as I can tell buddy, you can even own an American slave as long as it's in a place that allows it and you have enough drone repellant. Good luck with that.
If good national health care is unconstitutional then obviously you need to ammend your constitution.
That's how solid thinking is done! If the sound rules get in the way of something I think is right, the rules must be wrong!
You're both wrong, and right.
Of course, good health care should not be unconstitutional, but Obama's legislated solution to implement it, is wrong. Forcing individuals to buy health insurance? Who does that help but insurance companies?
As for your Constitution, yes, it's inadequate for the times and does need to be amended for many reasons. If you disagree, you're either asleep or delusional. Of course, how to get your psychopathic legislators to think of YOUR interests instead of their deep pocketed benefactors may be a big problem in the way of that.
I'm just a Canuck looking in, hoping you'll meltdown sooner instead of later in order to just get it all over with. The suspense is nauseating.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
These people were "combatants." "someone who takes a direct part in the hostilities of an armed conflict."
Taking direct action in hostilities requires that the party be engaged in offensive maneuvers ( see also PMC vs mercenary ).
Geneva Convention, Protocol I, Articles 43 & 44, which requires combatants to dress in a way to be recognized as an enemy force
These individuals do not consider themselves to be an enemy force; the USA does. Should they don uniforms accordingly?
during WWII, there were six Germans, captured in the US, who were deemed saboteurs
Respective acts of war existed between Germany and the USA. None apply in the circumstances we are discussing.
There should not be any American citizens being targeted by the US army, since we stopped fighting a war against American citizens 147 years ago.
I guess it's news to you but German Americans serving in the German Army in WW1 & 2 were killed or captured by the American army. Italian Americans serving in the Italian Army in WW2 were killed or captured by the American Army. Iraqi Americans serving in the Iraqi Army in the two Gulf Wars were killed or captured by the American army. Muslim Americans who have joined Al Qaeda to make war on the United States are . . . guess what? Yes, they are being captured or killed by the American army. Pretty consistent pattern, yes?
Yet here we are, looking at a list of American citizens to be executed without trial.
What you are looking at is a list of Americans who have joined with a foreign power to make war against the United States. They are being target as enemy combatants. And they are quite valuable to Al Qaeda with their knowledge of the workings of American society and how it might be attacked. They aren't being executed, they are being killed as would be any other combatant. It is completely proper. If they want a better deal, they can surrender.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Al-Awlaki wasn't "blissfully unaware that anyone was out to get him". He had openly and loudly proclaimed himself to be at war with America. He had insisted that it was every Muslim's duty to kill Americans. He had declared death sentences against people for drawing pictures of Mohammed, forcing them to spend their lives in hiding or face the same fate as Theo van Gogh. Most importantly though, he had been behind multiple attempts to set off bombs in the US.
Lots of people criticize the United States. It's a more popular international pastime than soccer. We don't go around killing them. Al-Awlaki was different. He actively and repeated tried to kill American citizens. It would have been nice to bring him in for a trial, but that wasn't possible. So we can either sit back and let people die, or we can defend ourselves.
As you said: "When someone shoots at you, you're allowed to shoot back to neutralize the threat." What does it matter, whether we're shooting bullets or bombs?
Yeah, he totally missed the Wars on Crime, Poverty, Drugs, and the rest. 'Wars' against nation-states? No, those aren't wars, they're police actions/executive actions/regime changes/etc. Carlin was right, the US government is really big about declaring 'war' on anything that'll grow a new bud of bureaucracy and siphon off a few billion in tax money to finance their buddys' campaign contributions.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Black people were not considered people then, just animals and at the time animals had no rights. Europeans were considered persons so would have had those rights, at least some Europeans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Try a drone strike inside the US and see where that gets him.
Just curious - where would that get him?
Hypothetical:
US citizen A joins enemy army.
US citizen A takes action against US while in enemy army.
Is Citizen A guilty of treason?
Yes, he's guilty of treason. Given sufficient evidence for action against the US, Citizen A may even be convicted of treason without a trial.
Traitors are killed. Treason is the only law in the US Constitution that defines its punishment. Technically, they should be hanged, but somehow I don't think it really makes a difference.
Don't drone me bro!
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
If good national health care is unconstitutional then obviously you need to ammend your constitution.
Or you need to choose a different structure to use to provide good national health care, if the particular one you're running with because it's easy or because it's giving payoffs to the right people (ie HMOs) is unconstitutional.
Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki was killed at the age of 16 in an American drone strike on Friday, October 14, 2011, in Yemen, along with alleged al-Qaeda members.[243] Nine other people were killed in the same CIA-led attack.
You are right. You have to wait 10 turns before you can declare war again after making peace.
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
The fact that you are more concerned that your President is killing US citizens without charge or trial outside of a warzone than that your President is killing human beings without charge or trial outside of a warzone is at the heart of what is wrong with your country.
Semantics? That is "the heart of what is wrong with your country"? "Wrong with your country" is what... pretentious motherfuckers who post online?
There are many problems in the world and many problems in our country. The only problem identified by your post is you.
American exceptionalism is the problem I am referring to. More traditionally known as 'hubris'. There are some good plays about it, you should check them out. The Greeks had the concept nailed down about 2500 years ago.
Your government and many of your citizens operate on the basis that there are "Americans" and "others". You regard yourselves as special, privileged, the chosen people. You have failed to register that this is obviously not true, nor have you registered that your supposedly permanent hegemony of only a few years ago is already gone.
Once you decide that some are "more equal than others", you lose the ability to impartially assess any situation. The concepts essential to a just, democratic world become unworkable, because they rely on the opposite view, that no-one person or group should be more privileged than any other.
The GP's comment exemplifies the (majority) American mindset - murdering people is only problematic if it offends your constitution. Well, guess what? Fuck your constitution. It's problematic because it's fundamentally wrong, not because it offends some American document which you guys tend to ignore most of the time anyway.
Hence you cannot understand (a) your immense economic problems (b) your immense geopolitical problems or (c) your immense problems with groups of angry foreign men wanting to hurt you. None of it makes sense to you because you cannot see that you are not special, and therefore that there will be no automatic Hollywood ending to these dramas.
Bill Clinton made a speech towards the end of his presidency where he argued strongly that the US should strengthen international institutions and human rights standards as much as possible. His reasoning was that America's time in the sun wouldn't last forever, and that when some other power - China, for instance - was dominant, America would be grateful for strong and liberal democratic international governance. Sadly Bush II and Obama haven't heeded that warning, and have contributed to a world of unilateral murder and mayhem as a result. The precedent of the powerful being entitled to murder the weak instead of pursuing them according to law will have terrible consequences for all of us, I fear.
Read Pynchon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0E2Pn0orZU
We are not at war with another nation-state, thus we are not at war.
Well, bad luck for you. It turns out that the US Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force against the perpetrators of 9/11, and the US Supreme Court has previously held that sort of document as legally equivalent to a declaration of war. The US is at war despite the nonconformance of reality with your declaration.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Taking direct action in hostilities requires that the party be engaged in offensive maneuvers ( see also PMC vs mercenary ).
Uh, yeah... other than:
1.1 February 1993 World Trade Center
1.2 1994 Bojinka, Philippine Airlines Flight 434
2 1998 U.S.-embassy bombings
3 2000 USS Cole bombing
4 September 11, 2001, attacks
5 November 2003 Istanbul attacks
6 February 2004 SuperFerry 14 bombing
7 March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings
8 May 2004 Khobar massacre
9 July 7, 2005 London transport bombings
10 July 23, 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks
11 April 2007 Algiers bombings
12 June 2, 2008 Danish-embassy bombing
13 June 2009 Little Rock recruiting office shooting
14 December 2009 Northwest Airlines Flight 253
15 Dec 30, 2009
16 October 2010 cargo plane bomb plot
17 Iraq attacks
17.1 August 2003 Imam Ali Mosque bombing
17.2 February 2004 Irbil bombings
17.3 March 2004 Iraq Ashura bombings
17.4 April 2004 Basra bombings
17.5 July 2005 Musayyib bombing
17.6 September 2005 Baghdad bombings
17.7 November 2005 Khanaqin bombings
17.8 April 2006 Buratha Mosque bombing
17.9 November 2006 Sadr City, Iraq bombings
17.10 February 2007 Baghdad market bombing
17.11 March 2007 Tal Afar bombings
17.12 April 2007 Baghdad Iraq bombings
17.13 August 14, 2007 Yazidi community Iraq bombing
17.14 August 2009 Baghdad bombings
17.15 October 2009 Baghdad bombings
17.16 April 2010 Baghdad bombings
17.17 May 2010 Iraq attacks
17.18 November 2010
17.19 January 2011 Iraq suicide attacks
You might have missed it. It wasn't in the news or anything.
the list is secret and the evidence is secret - and the evidence is presented by guys who buy their information from people who tell them things in exchange for money. in secret. people who are not in a warzone, are not soldiers(by definition of the us government no less..).
it's fucked up. basically, it also gives anyone free moral freedom to place the president on a kill list (actually there's plenty of evidence of him being in a chain of command which breaks international conventions so free game to put on a list like that from that point too).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Arrogance and stupidity in one efficient package.
You get a Nobel prize for actions you took during the year prior to getting it. It's not a "life time achievement award". Sadly, they don't come and take it back even if you later start assassinating people with drones.
Not that I disagree with you though.
Trust me, if Anyone wearing a black mask breaks into my house, they are dead, cop or not.
Wear a mask, you are up to no good, and need to die. Good guys don't wear masks or need to.
Which is what makes me suspect it's a joke site, and that there's a heavy touch of sarcasm.
"...., the brave pilots and operators of the U.S. drone program...."
Damn brave, risking their lives shooting someone down from their heavily fortified bunker located a completely different country to the actual battle.
That's a bit too simplistic.
You could also go to war inside another nation if a significant majority of the population there wanted you to do so, being explicitly invited in to help defend.
There is a very clear argument for assisting in defense of another nation if you have an alliance treaty with them, having previously agreed to do so.
You could go to war outside your own nation if there was a serious enough threat to your own population from something other than direct invasion.
Yes, each of these reasons has been abused many times to start an unjustified war, but that does not mean there aren't times when they are valid.
A speech can be planned in advance. How do you tell the difference between a useful idiot being manipulated by intelligent people, and an intelligent person pretending to be an idiot?
"So when do we invade Florida and clean out the nest of Gusano terrorists headquartered in Miami?"
As you might know anti-Castro terrorists are considered to be on our side - as testified by the fact that the arrested Cuban intelligence agents (the "Cuban five") who had infiltrate the Gusano's, have received more severe sentences than murderers or rapists - so that's never going to happen.
"Personally, I prefer targeted killings to the alternatives."
Where "target" is defined as "anyone present in the target area at the time of weapon deployment".
For that to matters, you'll need a better electing system, where "None of the above" could matter.
Like for example, a 2 round election like in France. (Note: I'm not french)
Otherwise, your vote will get lost among a sea of other people who end up choosing the "Least bad of 2 terrible choice".
In a 1 round system, there are too many people who are affraid that, by voting for a 3rd party, there will be less vote ending up for the Least Bad.
Not only their candidate has a very tiny chance of getting elected, but then the Worst bad could win instead.
That's why over time, most 1 round election systems end-up in a bi-partisan configuration.
With a 2 round system, you spend the first round voting for the candidate you like the most, and post-pone all "least bad" thinking for the second vote. In countries like France, the 1 round has results a lot less skewed in favor of only the same two parties. Which sometime brings surprises for the 2nd round (some time, bad surprises like the 2nd round being moderate right-wing candidate vs. right-wing extremist, but hey, at least it's not always the same 2 parties ending up on the 2nd round).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Al Qaeda arguably is a fictional foreign power, a hostile make believe enemy.
FTFY
"What! will you never cease prating of laws to us that have swords by our sides?" - Pompey
If Yemen had a functioning government that could actually arrest and try or deport a wanted criminal in a known location, this would be a whole different conversation.
That's a reasonable stance - but how about if the US was also harboring a wanted criminal in a known location in exactly the same way as Yemen? That would also make their extra-judicial murdering appear in a different light?
So say a couple of South American leaders want to get their hands on the terrorists the the US is harboring - and the US still refuses (as is actually the case btw) - you would be ok with the South Americans just sending a drone into Florida to get them?
No person employed...
Drones aren't people. This is the same legalese that Nixon will get around to become president again, albeit with a robot body.
So as long as the Cuban congress gives Raul Castro the authorization you have no problem with Cuba sending a drone to attack the headquarters of the Gusano terrorists living in Miami? And if the missile should take out the rest of the offices in that building that's just collateral damage, right? After all, it's well-located geographically (the address is on their frelling letterhead), and after over half a century of attacks we've pretty well proven that there is no justice system in the US with the will/capacity to hand them over. (BTW, did you know that the Gusanos were the first terrorist group in the world to use biological weapons?)
So do you support Cuban drone attacks in Miami? Or are drone attacks only for rich white people?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
You need to read the Laws of Armed Conflict. It can be summed up as "Use the minimum force necessary to kill only those that you intend."
So why the hell did Shrub invade Iraq?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
So as long as the Cuban congress gives Raul Castro the authorization you have no problem with Cuba sending a drone to attack the headquarters of the Gusano terrorists living in Miami?
Nice straw man. The two situations are not analogous and you know it.
Let's pretend for a moment that your scenario were analogous... Cuba has a terror suspect hiding in a specific Miami hotel and they ask the US to get him. The US agrees to the request, but says that they have no capacity to get into a Miami hotel and make an arrest/kill. Instead the US authorizes a drone strike and Cuba uses a missile to blow up the hotel.
That actually does not seem unreasonable. The problem with your analogy is that Cuba is not a representative democracy and the US is not Yemen. And of course, the sour US-Cuban relations add a whole extra layer to the situation.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
you would be ok with the South Americans just sending a drone into Florida to get them?
That's a whole extra layer that we don't have to deal with in this situation - here the governments of Yemen and Pakistan are complicit.
Now perhaps we should shift to the operation to fetch Osama Bin Laden... :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Impeachment.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
He is allowed to take bribes, it's just that they are called "campaign contributions".
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
It used to be that kids went into the military and came out with some sort of profession. Electronics repair, automobile maintenance, construction, whatever group you ended up being assigned to. Even Beetle Bailey did enough KP that he could have worked in a restaurant. Now that's all farmed out to contractors, and the only thing that they learn is how to kill people. I see a LOT of these guys coming back from Iraq with no usable skills and becoming security guards and the like, because the only thing that they have learned is how to carry a gun and dominate people.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
In my personal opinion? Because he thought he could get away with it.
So why would the Constitution apply to foreign nationals residing waaaaaaaay the hell out of our jurisdiction? If our laws applied everywhere, then ours laws apply everywhere... isn't that self evident? Do I need to explain why other parts of the world would not like that?
As far as I can tell buddy, you can even own an American slave as long as it's in a place that allows it and you have enough drone repellant. Good luck with that.
OK.... but you do understand that in nations where your laws don't apply, there are other laws that do apply, and they would prevent the US from carrying out the murders (if the US followed them).... So all we're asking is that you either follow our laws within our countries, or at least abide by your own ideals and apply the same protections to foreigners as you do to your own.
Basically just don't step off the massive island you have mostly to yourself and we'll all be alright with each other. :)
So the US gets to "agree to the request", but the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. have no say in the matter. I suppose they forfeit that right by being citizens of the wrong country. The gusanos don't "hide in a Miami hotel", they have business offices in Palm Beach. Any particular day you can sit outside and watch known terrorists enter and leave the building. Rather obviously the US doesn't have the capacity to stop them.
Cuba is much closer to the ideal of a representative democracy than the US has been for quite some time. They invite international observers to their elections, while the US absolutely refuses to correct known deficiencies that lead to widespread fraud every election cycle. Not that this has anything at all to do with your hypothetical situation or whether innocent people deserve to get massacred because they happen to be in the same building as someone who speaks badly of the Untied States.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Ah, but serving in a foreign military can cause one to lose one's citizenship, especially if that foreign military is in conflict with the United States.
I would argue that since Al Qaeda controlled territory at one point and has committed attacks against the country, a US Citizen's allegiance with Al Qaeda constitutes an action that would nullify one's citizenship, in the same fashion that serving in a foreign military would. Since a major goal of Al Qaeda is to set up a Caliphate and their own religious theocracy nation (in their own concept of what that means) then they're essentially declaring themselves to be a foreign power.
The thing is, it is not up to the executive branch to decide if someone has given up their citizenship. Such a thing can only be done via a legal court type of thing - you know, due process. Legislation stripping individuals of their citizenship for whatever reason has been repeatedly struck down by the courts as something the legislature does not actually have the power to do.
http://www.americanlaw.com/dualcit.html
"As a result of several constitutional decisions, 349(a) of the current Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") provides that U.S. nationality is lost only when the U.S. citizen does one of the specified acts described in INA 349, voluntarily and with the intent to give up that nationality. If any one of these requirements is lacking, nationality is not lost. "
You cannot lose your citizenship unless you actually intend to do so (or the courts find that you had that intent even if you later deny it.) Thus, serving in a foreign military does not automatically qualify, as much as we might think it should.
Nice straw man. The two situations are not analogous and you know it.
Let's pretend for a moment that your scenario were analogous... Cuba has a terror suspect hiding in a specific Miami hotel and they ask the US to get him. The US agrees to the request, but says that they have no capacity to get into a Miami hotel and make an arrest/kill. Instead the US authorizes a drone strike and Cuba uses a missile to blow up the hotel.
That actually does not seem unreasonable. The problem with your analogy is that Cuba is not a representative democracy and the US is not Yemen. And of course, the sour US-Cuban relations add a whole extra layer to the situation.
My personal opinion is that claiming to be on the moral high ground, while at the same time actively supporting terrorism that fitted the US global strategy brought us into this whole mess.
It isn't even an exception but more of a trend. It is getting better now, but the enemies made during these campaigns still remember quite well. Just remember who trained and equipped certain afghan fundamentalist while they were still conveniently fighting the Russians.
If you want to set an example then play by your own rules and don't make exceptions whenever it seems convenient.
Enlisting in a hostile foreign enemy is an automatic revocation of one's citizenship. Al Qaeda arguably is a de facto foreign power, a hostile foreign enemy.
That is not actually true - intent to give up citizenship is necessary:
http://www.americanlaw.com/dualcit.html [americanlaw.com]
"As a result of several constitutional decisions, 349(a) of the current Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") provides that U.S. nationality is lost only when the U.S. citizen does one of the specified acts described in INA 349, voluntarily and with the intent to give up that nationality. If any one of these requirements is lacking, nationality is not lost. "
You cannot lose your citizenship unless you actually intend to do so (or the courts find that you had that intent even if you later deny it.) Thus, serving in a foreign military does not automatically qualify, as much as we might think it should.
seconded
I would be much less concerned if you were on his kill list.
Any list you can make I can make faster.
Any list I can make faster than you!
Where is the form to apply for this kill list?
Also: I don't see why anyone would want to risk being involved in this drone stuff, surely it just sets you up as a potential target?
Because when they are manipulated and told what to say, they often run out of words and look rediculous. See Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, etc. It is much easier to play the idiot part than to go into a debate and know nothing about the topics other than your cue cards.
>Arrogance and stupidity in one efficient package
Excellent tags for the parent and GP in one fell swoop
Al-Awlaki wasn't "blissfully unaware that anyone was out to get him". He had openly and loudly proclaimed himself to be at war with America.
There's no shortage of nutjobs here on US soil saying the same thing. When the government murders them instead of properly apprehending them, it's a PR disaster: Waco, Ruby Ridge.
And if you can't manage to apprehend him, that's your problem. You managed to apprehend all kinds of other people and take them to Gitmo, so how's this guy any different? The CIA can't handle nabbing one guy who has a few goons when he's out and about?
You're even stupider than the tea partiers. I would love to have a black man in office. Someone like Cornell West would be an amazing president. Barack Obama is a straight up authoritarian.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I don't know if you have kept up with the last few decades of law because the law (the constitution actually says the President's executive orders have the force of law) clearly defines that the US Government can do whatever the fuck it wants to do regardless of the rest of the constitution:
Patriot Act ...
DMCA
no-fly list
DHS
COINTELPRO
SAR
Military Commissions Act of 2006
Bybee memo
Ensuring Lawful Interrogations
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
A Do Not Kill list only needs one entry: American citizen.
We've had clues that this has indeed been US policy for some time. If they're not American citizens, they can be killed with impunity.
That is what you meant, right? ;-)
The main problem with this policy is that other nations are likely to respond with a similar policy, but with the proper name changed.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Name a country that experiences terror attacks that does not retaliate.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Somebody told me a few minutes ago that they would like the option to ADD some names to the kill list.
Yes, but AFTER a trial. If I say you have committed treason, can we kill you now? Is that enough? That's the point here, there was no trial.
So why the hell did Shrub invade Iraq?
In my personal opinion? Because he thought he could get away with it.
And he was right, wasn't he?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
As far as I can tell Executive Orders are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, and they very clearly do **NOT** have the force of law. They are orders from the Chief Executive to the members of the Executive Branch of the government. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the president the right to bypass Congress, which writes the laws, or the Judiciary, which enforces them. We do not have a 'unitary executive', at least not legally we don't (practically is another issue).
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
"and Shrub" isn't the President and doesn't matter, no matter how many times you and the current administration try to pretend otherwise.
Actually, the entire US media does this. It's common in the US to refer to ex-presidents as "president", with no qualifiers. Thus, Bill Clinton is routinely referred to as "president Clinton". Sometimes you hear this preceded by "former" or "ex-", but it's more common to not bother with such qualifiers. The two Bushes often have suffixes like "one" and "two", or "senior and "junior", to distinguish them, but no prefix to indicate that they're no longer president.
Similarly, in news stories about Mitt Romney, it's common for writers to call him "governor Romney", although he hasn't been a governor of any state for some years. I'm not sure when this practice started, but it's fairly standard in US news reports now.
This terminology does assume that the audience knows a bit about recent political history, of course, and is sometimes confusing to those who haven't been keeping up with who is in or out of which offices. People have occasionally complained about this, but it doesn't do any good.
As for the current topic, it actually makes a bit of sense. We're talking about the "right" of the current US president (whoever that may be) to order the execution without trial of anyone in the world. Examples of this by the current and/or any previous presidents are all relevant to the discussion. Just stopping the current president from killing people at random without recourse won't stop when Obama leaves office 0.5 or 4.5 years from now, just as the problem didn't end when Bush (either one) left office. If we Want To Do Something About It, we need to deal with the fact that it's a power that any US president currently has.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I don't give a crap if it was Warren Harding creating the kill order, US presidents do not have the right to order murders. End of story.
Actually, yes, they do. And it's probably not at all the end of the story. Several recent US presidents have ordered such murders, and they've all gotten away with it. Obama is even using it successfully as campaign material. Even the professional comedians have picked up on this, characterizing Obama's campaign approach as "I killed Osama bin Laden", and little else. There isn't the slightest chance that Obama will be charged with any crime for this action. So it's clear that US presidents do have the "right" to order murders.
A couple of centuries ago, one of the many reasons that the US declared independence was to end the right of monarchs to order summary (without trial) punishment, including execution, of people charged with crimes. Supposedly the US Constitution put an end to this, requiring "due process" before punishment. But this is no longer applicable, as the US legal system has clearly reinstated summary execution, when ordered by the president. We just need to also reinstate inheritance of the presidency (by primogeniture?), and we'll be back where we started.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
The U.S. doesn't respect all U.N. resolutions, only the ones we like at a particular moment in time.
The U.S. also doesn't respect WTO resolutions unless they go in their favor.
Come to think of it, they don't respect any international body.
They do respect force though, so it may pay off to be a Chinese national.
I'm a big fan of pragmatism. Our ideals should guide us, but we shouldn't let them get in the way of reality.
I think that Clinton and (especially) Bush II hurt us internationally, and I think that Obama is probably over-using drones... not that I object to their use, but I think they are a propaganda loss for us.
People seem to romanticize the US of the past. Perhaps I'm just old and cynical, but I look at US history and see all sorts of things that are at least as bad as drone strikes: basically our entire Native American policy until very recently, our "pacification" of the Philippines, our involvement in post-WWII China, Vietnam, Iran, Panama, Cuba, Grenada, Jim Crow, interment of Japanese citizens during WWII, the KKK, use of military and police to put down labor strikes, etc. I'm sure you get the idea. People craft this narrative in their heads where the US is becoming less free, less neighborly, and more aggressive...
I just don't think that is true. I contend that, especially for minorities, the US is a much better place to live than ever before in terms of freedom. There was some movement in the wrong direction shortly after 9/11, but I believe that was a one-time overreaction, and it seems to have largely abated. I see a troubling trend in local police using disproportionate/inappropriate force to control peaceful protesters, but nothing that would indicate that it is a concerted national effort. And while Occupy Oakland went horribly wrong, Occupy Philly was resolved without any violence at all.
I think the US is far more neighborly than it has been in a long, long time - for about 100 years the US treated everything in the Western Hemisphere as it's own domain. We finally stopped the overt interference in internal conflicts, and if we could chill out on the whole "war on drugs", we'd be almost benign.
Aggression is still a problem - Iraq? Though I've long contended that it is hard to go through history and find an example of such overwhelming military power that was as restrained as the US has been. There have been no territory grabs, for example, despite about 20 years of uncontested military dominance.
Wow, I'm full of hot air - I'll stop.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Get on the Do Not Track List. A drone that can't Track can not Kill.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
You, cpu6502, are not in any way "concerned" that the President claims these powers, because you want him to have them and to use them constantly. You are obligated to admit this publicly.
So the US gets to "agree to the request", but the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. have no say in the matter.
Who says they have no say? I thought we were talking drone strikes, which are endorsed by Yemen. Pakistan won't publicly endorse them, but someone in Pakistan is letting the US fly drones out of bases there (or at least was).
Any particular day you can sit outside and watch known terrorists enter and leave the building.
We're back to Cuba again? Look, Cuba may be your pet cause but it ain't mine. Cuba-US relations are nothing like Yemeni-US relations, or Pakistani-US relations for that matter.
Cuba is much closer to the ideal of a representative democracy than the US has been for quite some time.
That is so detached from reality that I wonder if I am wasting my time.
Not that this has anything at all to do with your hypothetical situation or whether innocent people deserve to get massacred because they happen to be in the same building as someone who speaks badly of the Untied States.
No one deserves to get massacred - war is hell. And it was not MY hypothetical, it was yours.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Even if that list is generated through a democratic voting process whereby people write in the names of those they need killed?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Our tax dollars payed for most of the weapons and training that the gusanos use to kill Cuban civilians and foreign tourists, we aid, harbor and abet them and have for 52 years. I think that even you might agree that makes us 'complicit', and in fact we're considerably more deeply involved with the gusanos than either Pakistan's or Yemen's governments.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
This post sounds like treason to me. Nice knowing you.
and did you ever notice if you follow this policy, only attacking obvious invaders, then well, you don't piss off anyone really, and noone ever invades, at least in a modern society with cross-border news and the world watching? And if someone attacks me and runs, well then, they better watch their back at night when they're sleeping.
What is your allies are attacked?
Of course you go into another country. Germany wouldn't have stopped if we weren't allowed to attack Germany.
Japan wouldn't have stopped if we didn't invade and drop atomic weapons on them.
we can have a discussion about specific wars, and specific incursion, but your premise that there is never a reason to go into another country is preposterous.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It wasn't Bush that wanted it, it was Cheney; who pretty much called the shots. As an added plus, Bush got to show his daddy that he to could do war.
Of course, had he read his fathers book, he would have known why going into Iraq was stupid. Quagmire was the word he used.
As a side note, I didn't like the man, but lets note use churlish word games on the name, It's hard to take you seriously.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, they do.
What do you think the ultimate job of the military is?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Really they shouldn't be killed. It's an archaic petty idea of justice.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So horrible, most people have never heard of them.I can't even fnid a wiki page for "gusanos"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Interestingly, the media often calls Obama "Mr. Obama" and not "President Obama"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
>>>Black people were not considered people then, just animals and at the time animals had no rights
Careful.
In 8 of the original 14 States (I'm including the Vermont Republic), blacks were considered human beings with rights equal to whites. And in 2 states even women had rights equal to a man. It is a mistake to look back at 1789 and conclude that all the states were like the backward slave south. When slaves escaped they fled to the more-progressive Federalist/Republican north since that's where they could be free.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
"Precisely - SWAT teams are police called into action when it is unlikely that the suspect is going to surrender peacefully. "
That is a gross over simplification. SWAT team perter peaceful resolutions. But sometimes you will need a precious strike so that things will end with no one getting hurt.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
>>>I've never understood this concept, that moral rights only apply to American citizens.
While I agree human rights are universal, the Constitution is not. The president swore an oath to uphold constitutional law, and that only applies to U.S. territory and U.S. citizens. The law which grants a "right to jury trial" does not extend to Canada or Mexico or any other non-U.S. land.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>I can understand your feelings in a country where you have to look out for you and yours with no safety net sure puts you at a disadvantage and defenceless if you don't have a gun (but the criminals still have guns).
Yeah it would like living in the UK where the criminals routinely rob citizens without fear of getting shot. (No thanks.) As for the "safety net"..... we have tons of them. SSI for old people, Medicare for old people, Medicaid for poor people, SCHIP for kids, welfare for the poor/kids, food stamps for the poor, housing assistance for the poor, and unemployment for those who lose their jobs.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>First, the government has to determine that the individual being targeted "poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the U.S."
Fail. Anwar al-Alaki was equivalent to a guy who made youtube videos. Furthermore even if he was a threat, he's still a U.S. citizen and has a right to be captured, and then face his accusers to defend his innocence in a court of law. And finally: What threat was a 16 year old kid? Obama should be impeached on that last one.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>other countries have the right to launch missiles into US territory to kill US citizens if they decide they are beyond the reach of those countries' domestic legal systems?
If we are at war? Yes. It's happened several times already, such as the War of 1812, the War with Mexico, the Spanish-American War, WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the Libyan War, and of course the current war(s).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
When Benedict Arnold committed treason, General Washington did not order his execution. He ordered his ARREST, so he could be brought to trial. Even traitors have a right to trial to defend themselves in case (1) they really are innocent of the claim crime or (2) the wrong man was captured. We wouldn't the President to be guilty of executing the wrong man, as has happened twice in Texas courts (oops).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
>>>If good national health care is unconstitutional then obviously you need to ammend your constitution.
This is the first time this year I've agreed with a Democrat. (Though I'd oppose such an amendment, just as my grandparents opposed the Prohibition amendment, but this IS the proper procedure to give Congress new powers.) As the law stands now, the power to provide healthcare is reserved to the Member States of the Union, according to the Constitution.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Nope, that's a stupid thing to do.
Taking it further on to enemy land to ensure they won't do it again is also fully justified.
Which is why I support US presence in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq.
While I agree human rights are universal, the Constitution is not.
I have heard it argued that the founding fathers intentionally specified persons and not citizens because the British government used to revoke citizenship in order to deal out harsher sentences, or something to that affect.
The president swore an oath to uphold constitutional law, and that only applies to U.S. territory and U.S. citizens.
Absolutely correct, although I suspect it was by accident. Constitutional law applies to US citizens, and it applies to US territory (ie, anywhere the US has jurisdiction) regardless of the citizenship of the people involved.
The law which grants a "right to jury trial" does not extend to Canada or Mexico or any other non-U.S. land.
Also correct, although again I suspect it was by accident. The US law that grants a "right to jury trial" in no way forces Canada or Mexico or any other non-US jurisdictions to operate jury trials. But if the accused is within the jurisdiction of the US, they damn well do have a right to a jury trial.
When you say A, say the B as well.
At the time you are referring to, the merchants were a progressive force within feudal society, however, today they aren't - in fact, to a lesser extent , the banks and multinationals are behaving a lot like the royalty did for example back in the times of the French Revolution.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. This video shows some clips of Bush's speeches back when he was running for governor. He comes across as intelligent and articulate. Now, the video's voice over concludes that Bush has some sort of early onset dementia. But I think the far more likely answer is that he concluded, correctly, that most Americans would rather vote for "someone they can have a beer with" than someone who sounds smarter than they are.
You don't get to be president, or attain any other position of power, by being a moron.
though his performance in businesses don't show much in terms of intelligence.
>>>As a libertarian-leaning Democrat (yes, we exist),
Really???
Tell me more.
Or give me a website link.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
What point are you trying to make? That killing foreign soldiers is a crime? What bullshit.
Oh it is. "without due process of law". There is a very specific due process of law in the US which makes it okay in general. That is the proper declaration of war by Congress. There are other situations which also make it okay; for example self defence. Outside of those, your constitution clearly and directly requires "due process of law" which means, for example, a proper court case. It never ceases to amaze me how, with your frankly excellent constitution, you are coming to so completely fail at both democracy and law. Whilst the English fuck up of a system manages to more consistently deliver freedom, democracy and common sense. Someone who is able to read the words "No person shall" and understand the words "No person (except a foreigner) shall" is a real problem.
Think about the two stage process which has already been proposed. 1) declare the person's citizenship invalid; 2) kill the person as an enemy combattant.
Many great Americans have fought and died for your freedom. The freedom of other people too. The US constitution belongs somewhat to the past, but if you ignore the wisdom in it so gratuitiously then you are betraying them and your own country.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
He didn't prove the validity of jihad, he proved at most that jihad is valid when run under the rules of war, and used to attack military targets without a trial. Needless to say, jihadis don't run jihad under the rules of war or attack just military targets, so this is irrelevant.
And actually, he didn't even prove that--it exempts the targets from being members of a nation-state, but it doesn't exempt the attackers. So it doesn't apply to jihadis as attackers. A gang member may not claim that the gang has been successfully attacked by the police and so they can kill police under the rules of war.
This particular person we are discussing was repeatedly summoned to court, he made it clear that he did not want to come in to be tried.
How is this any different than "Wanted dead or alive" from the wild west?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
>>>Anwar al-Alaki was equivalent to a guy who made youtube videos.
..as were Hitler, Hirohito, and Kaiser Wilhelm II. They never actually attacked us personally, they just advocated others to do so.
>>>has a right to be captured
"For a targeted killing to be carried out, three conditions must be met... ...Second, 'capture is not feasible.'"
Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/05/world/la-fg-holder-awlaki-20120306 [latimes.com]
>>>What threat was a 16 year old kid?
Ha, ha, ha. You apparently don't know any 16 year-olds!
With all due respect: Your government is trying to protect you from people who would like to kill you. (See: September 11, 2001) The people trying to kill you are using unconventional methods, and not wearing military uniforms. And, as in any war, things get messy and people die. If you think every enemy soldier, uniformed or not, is entitled to a court trial before being targeted then you have a fairly unrealistic view of warfare.
As with other comments in this thread; some people confuse criminal acts, with acts of war. There are very, very, very different rules for each.
How do you "summon" someone to court when they're in a foreign country? I don't think standard service of process rules work there.
People evade service all the time here. Does that mean the police are allowed to summarily execute them too?
Note that that counterargument also applies to almost any military operation.
Interestingly, the media often calls Obama "Mr. Obama" and not "President Obama"
The obvious temptation is to treat this as some sort of reverse racism, showing that they're being respectful of a black man. But I suspect what's at work is different than that.
If you look back at the media's treatment of the last two presidents, you'll find a lot of the media calling them nicknames. "Bill", "Dubya", and so on. This was clearly because they both really pushed the "good-old-boy" image, someone that you'd be comfortable having a beer or three with, so using their first names seems normal. Obama, OTOH, comes across as a quite serious, informed, take-charge sort of guy. He's not a share-a few-beers sort of fellow. So it's natural to use "mister" and his last name. I suspect that it's really nothing deeper than this.
Of course, if you want subtle (or unsubtle) racism about Obama, you can easily find it. You can also easily find Arkansas-hick characterizations of Clinton, and equally insulting disparagement of many other US presidents based on their backgrounds.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Personally, I will disagree with DHS being a bad thing. Some of how it was done may be, but the intention was to increase intel sharing between the intel agencies. The reasoning behind this is that there was intel showing that 9/11 was going to happen before it did, but because the different TLAs didn't routinely share intel, the pieces were not put together in time to prevent the attack.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You have more faith than I in
Actually you might want to read former POTUS Hoover's book, because he was right there with FDR at the start and while you can argue the ends justified the means he makes it quite clear that FDR KNEW what he was doing was gonna start a war the American people DID NOT WANT and did it anyway. In fact he might as well have dropped his trousers and waved his dick in the face of the emperor of Japan, doing things he KNEW would insult the living shit out of them, such as making their ambassador wait in the lobby every day for 3 weeks before he would even talk to him.
So read Hoover's book, its free online in several places, its a real eye opener. In a LOT of ways WWII the pre stages were like the Iraq mess or Vietnam, with a POTUS being told very clearly the American people don't want war and completely ignoring them. Personally I'd argue that FDR was one of the worst presidents in American history, with his openly threatening the SCOTUS until they caved (the stitch in time that saved nine), twisting the laws to fit giving him power the POTUS never had (the twisting of the commerce clause) and by blatantly starting a war that not only the American people didn't want but even his own advisers said would lead to Stalin ruling half of Europe.
so I really wouldn't use WWII as an example friend, because if you read the actual history and not the propaganda it was a president causing the deaths of countless Americans for his own selfish ends. FDR didn't give a shit about Hitler or Japan, he wanted America to be the new British empire.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
What is really fucked up here, is that you were so gullible in the first place. You don't think any of those EO's were more than political grandstanding do you? You don't really believe that the pentagon, CIA, NSA, DoD, ETC would just stop killing people they really really want to kill... do you? What most of us have figured out is that it's a harsh world, and sometimes the best thing for our "peace and prosperity" (which is not a subject for this thread), is to kill some guys. We have, through most of the history of this country, killed those guys. Sometimes openly. Sometimes not. EO's to the contrary is simply proof of the disconnect between real governance and politics.
It seems your argument is against patriotism. There are several who take patriotism to an extreme leading to hubris. It's happened before in many societies, and still exists today in more parts of the world than just America.
As an American citizen, I want my government to put my well-being above that of others in the world. Just as, I'm sure, that Canadians want their government to primarily look out for the interests of Canada. This should, however, be tempered with a good neighbor policy towards the rest of the world. It's not about thinking of yourself as special, its about acting in your own best interest.
Bringing it to a more local level, I tend to buy girl-scout cookies from my neice rather from some random people camped out in front of some business. It's not that she is special or chosen above her fellow scouts, but she is more special to me. When comparing my well-being to that of some random people around the world, I want the government to have the same attitude.
That being said, I do believe these should be capture missions instead of kill missions whenever possible.
If another country is invaded it would be the same as if a neighbors was attacked. You would be justified helping them defend against the attack. But you wouldn't be justified attacking the neighbors of the attackers.
The same with countries. If France is invaded by the Germans and they ask for your help. You can go there to help them defend themselves. But you wouldn't be justified in killing any civilian Germans. That mentality is just another form of collectivism. Just like after 9/11. Bush said he was going to get the people that attacked us. Well the people that attacked us died in the attacks. What he meant is that we are going to attack and kill innocent people that look and sound a lot like those that attacked us and that will quench our thirst for vengence.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
But who gets to say the person you intend to kill is guilty and deserves to die? If you kill any innocents you should be charged with murder or manslaughter the same as if I went on a shooting rampage to avenge a family member and killed innocents.
Again I am talking about morality not legality. Like in all cases they are usually at odds.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I'm amazed at how cheaply some of you value human life,
I value human life very highly though I value the lives of soldiers and civilians more highly than that of a known terrorist. I also believe that someone who advocates, has planned and carried out terrorist attacks which have put hundreds of lives at risk needs to answer for their crimes. Since al-Qaeda has moved to a lawless area of Yemen and militarized it I am not willing to risk the lives of hundreds of soldiers and create even more innocent deaths during a battle in an attempt to capture the al-Qaeda leadership. It may not even work as the target may fight to the death. In one scenario a drone strike kills the target and 37 other people. In the second scenario hundreds of soldiers are killed or wounded along with hundreds of civilians. Both scenarios may end up with a dead al-Quada leader.
If you want to bring up the assault that killed bin Laden that was a completely different scenario. bin Lanen was attempting to hide by keeping a low profile and residing in a civilian neighborhood where no one would look. There were no guards at all in the bin Laden compound. al-Banna lived in a militarized camp with a large number of armed guards. Any assault on the Yemen camp would have been much more bloody. There is one interesting point though; even though the US puts boots on the ground with capture orders, bin Laden, his son and and two al-Qaeda couriers were killed.
Abdul Rahman, the 17 year old who was killed, was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki who had already been killed by drone attack months before. A simple Google search would bring up articles like this or this (page 23). Do you really think that a 17 year old could not put the following information together and not come up with the possibility that al-Banna might be al-Qaeda and maybe ask?
1. al-Banna wrote anti-American articles that were published by "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula"
2. al-Banna was friend with his father who is a known al-Qaeda leader.
3. al-Banna lived in a military style outpost in Yemen when he had enough money to live elsewhere.
Comparing al-Banaa and al-Awlaki with you father is irrelevant as there in much more information available on al-Qaeda than your father.
al-Banna knew he was targeted by the US and still allowed "innocent" minors to be in his presence despite the possibility of drone attack. The death of the minor is on al-Banna head for not protecting him.
In summary, there are two ways of decreasing the possibility of collateral damage;
1. If one is not al-Qaeda then do not visit know al-Qaeda leadership or their friends.
2. If one is al-Qaeda then do not allow innocent people to visit.
Innocent people should not be uses as human shields and those who do are cowards and lower than scum.
You misunderstand, or I was not clear - Yemen and Pakistan are complicit in the drone strikes.
I really have no knowledge about these Cuban matters, not sure why you keep bringing them up.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I would tend to agree, but who has a Democracy? Not us here in the USA, we never did.. We here have had a ( now somewhat perverted ) representative republic
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ah, misunderstood. I thought you were talking about the Pakistani ISI (their equivalent of the CIA) being complicit in supporting the Taliban operations in Afghanistan.
It's an apples-to-apples comparison. Terrorists operate from bases in our territory, and our government seems unable (unwilling actually) to stop them. Does Cuba have the right to send a drone to fire missiles into civilian areas mostly occupied by non-combatants because they know that the gusano leadership is meeting at their Palm Beach headquarters? (I'm just asking about their right to do so, they obviously don't have the capability.) You're claiming that the Untied States does, why would we have that right, but not them?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Gusano is Spanish for 'worm', and what Cubans call the cowardly drug-running bastards based in Miami that periodically attack civilian targets in Cuba. Not going to bother looking up their official name at the moment.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Soldiers killing enemy soldiers is not the same thing as you going on a rampage. If you want to talk morality, learn how those two are not even remotely the same situations.
Are you claiming no innocent people are killed in war?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Interesting, I know that slavery was not as popular in the North in colonial America and especially in the 17th century they often could become free but as I understand they couldn't do simple things like testify against a white person and after the Bill or Rights they couldn't invoke Habeas Corpus (sp?) as would have been guaranteed by the Constitution if they were persons. Of course even today I see a lot of Americans interpreting person to mean American citizen which of course would make me, a non-American not have any rights and even my son, who is guaranteed by treaty all rights of a US citizen besides voting would be considered non-human by many Americans as he isn't a citizen nor has any American citizens in his ancestry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It's an apples-to-apples comparison.
I guess we'll just have to disagree. The Cuban-American relationship is so different from the American-Pakistani or American-Yemeni relationship that I'm not even really sure how to respond.
On the broader issue of "rights" - any country has a right to self defense. If another country is harboring a dangerous enemy and will not help you deal with the problem, of course you have the "right" to use force. I honestly have no idea whether the US is harboring Cuban terrorists or not, but it would be extremely foolish for Cuba to carry out an attack on American soil. Whether they have a "right" to do so or not is academic.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What other nations do is up to them. I'm not a globalist, so I wouldn't let them have an influence over what we do.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Ummm, I'm not a democrat, and the reason I said "your constitution" is that I'm not an American either. Having said that, I did get an email signed by Michelle Obama telling me I could "own a piece of the democrat convention" for as little as $5.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I've few quibbles with your reply, and I thank you for your insights. However, ...
I'm amazed at how cheaply some of you value human life, ...
Do you really think that a 17 year old could not put the following information together and not come up with the possibility that al-Banna might be al-Qaeda and maybe ask?
1. al-Banna wrote anti-American articles that were published by "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula"
I think I've written things which might be construed as "anti-American", and they were "published" on far more visible fora (/.). Additionally, I think you're expecting *way* too much from a seventeen year old. I was a doofus at that age, barely out of diapers in my mind.
Comparing al-Banaa and al-Awlaki with [your] father is irrelevant as there [is] much more information available on al-Qaeda than your father.
Perhaps, yet I've never heard of al-Banaa before this. I would've needed to look him up before this to know about him, yet I've never heard of him. Yesterday, he was as obscure to me as my dad is to you.
Innocent people should not be [used] as human shields and those who do are cowards and lower than scum.
Strongly agree.
However, targetting seventeen year old kids for drone strikes? I think that's a waste of a perfectly good bomb. YMMV.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The Emir of Kuwait was rather peeved that the US made him free his slaves after handing him his country back.
Interesting, do you have a source for this? I couldn't find anything from a traditional news source.
Absolutely not. I'm claiming that the selection of weapons for effectively waging war cannot effectively prevent at least some innocent deaths but are necessary to prevent a larger number of deaths if not used. This is a distinct issue from intentionally killing known innocents for no further purpose. The Law of Armed Conflict recognizes this issue and is an attempt to reduce unnecessary deaths. Your rampage is specifically designed to inflict unnecessary deaths.
Are you saying that those men were the only ones involved in the 9/11 plot? They didn't have accomplices that weren't on the planes or others helping to direct them?
Who cares? It's Eurasia we've always been at war with, not Eastasia.
I think I've written things which might be construed as "anti-American", and they were "published" on far more visible fora (/.).
Have you written words like the following from al-Banaa?
“And although we are punishing America and its Kuffar allies with one-millionth of what they are committing against our Muslim Ummah—just as WikiLeaks website scandalized—and in spite of that we are impacting them economically, security wise, intelligence wise and we are horrifying and terrorizing them, with the grace of Allah.”
"Anti-American" statements fall on a spectrum and I doubt very much you ever want close to that far. There is a huge difference between "I don't like what America does" and "Death to America". I bet that your statements were closer to the former rather than the latter.
Perhaps, yet I've never heard of al-Banaa before this
Considering al-Banaa was the media head for al-Quada and Abdul Rahman's father was a planner for al-Quada in the same area it is probably valid to speculate that they know and met each other. Since Abduk Rahman knew what his father did it is reasonable to assume he knew al-Banaa was also al-Quada. You are not the son of a recognized al-Qaeda leader. You were not taken to militant protected safe areas in Yemen. You are completely different than Abdul Rahman. Do you really think a 17 year old who's father was killed by a drone strike is as oblivious to the situation as you; who's biggest concern was probably "Does she like me?" ? I give Abdul Rahman much more credit than that.
However, targetting seventeen year old kids for drone strikes?
They did not target Abdul Rahman. The drone targeted al-Banaa and the seventeen year old was close enough to be caught in the blast.
False. Armistice isn't peace. War was declared, it has never been terminated by any treaty or act of congress.
Understood. But when you find you're dealing with people who have no moral or social objections to murder, sometimes you can sway them by suggesting that they think of how others will react to having their friends and relatives killed by remote strangers.
OTOH, some people aren't capable of empathy for others, and your only remaining tool is to convince them that there's an all-seeing alien being ("God") in the sky watching their every move, and they'll be judge by what that invisible watcher sees. And even that doesn't work with some people.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Did you actually read the link you provided?
"Despite the fact that there is no official peace treaty between North Korea and the United States, it's not quite correct to say that we're at war (even in a technical sense) because, technically, we weren't at war to begin with. The 1950-53 conflict was conducted under the aegis of the United Nations and was dubbed a "police action" by President Harry Truman. Congress never actually declared war, nor did it authorize a military engagement."
What I am saying is that if others were in on the plot you have to prove it in court and you can't just bomb thousands of innocent people just because they live near the suspects.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
It doesn't have to be proven in court. There is no court with the proper jurisdiction. That is why we have bombs that are big enough to kill the terrorists and hopefully there won't be innocent people around when it explodes. Should we just send them cyanide pills in the mail with a polite letter asking the terrorists to quietly kill themselves?
The US has courts. We can capture them and bring them to trial.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
None of the 'traditional news sources' were on the Internet in 1992, unfortunately the archives of the NYT and Wall St Journal are pay-walled for that far back.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
> And sanity is loosing.
So is spelling.