Obama defends his drone strikes in new book

[Kyra]

The issue is, that we're not really justified in many of these situations. And when we are, we can only enter those countries with little power - not necessarily all of those that are committing atrocities.

I also wonder if we've created so much conflict that there's no easy way out now.

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The point is it doesn't matter who takes up the helm in this country. The body count is never going to be 0. So when do we declare victory? When it's less than 10000 50000? When we burn the country to the ground and build a better one that only kills 20000 a year? It's never going to be acceptable.

 

[Deleted member 4461]

If he is brought up unprompted, it's because his lionization perfectly captures liberal hypocrisy.



I don't think that those two things are the same.

Edited to be more clear.

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I phrased mine in a snarkier way, but it's literally because he's lionized. That's the trend.

As the other person said, if he were widely accepted as evil, there would be less convo.

But as I said, people bring it up specifically to show that they didn't lionize him.

My whole trend in this thread so far has been "I don't know what an American President does differently," so I think Obama is singled out for recency & because he's beloved.

The point is it doesn't matter who takes up the helm in this country. The body count is never going to be 0. So when do we declare victory? When it's less than 10000 50000? When we burn the country to the ground and build a better one that only kills 20000 a year? It's never going to be acceptable.

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Correct; I agree. I mentioned technology earlier, and I think the only way we succeed like this is if we gave tech that allows us to avoid targeting innocent people. Somehow.

But even then, there needs to be a better way.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

reading this thread it should come to no surprise to anybody why terrorism exists as a concept

 

[Mekanos]

Ironically Obama calls Bush a patriot and defends him in his new book:

Barack Obama's New Memoir Praises George W. Bush for Smooth Transition

Barack Obama reveals in his new memoir that he was so impressed with George W. Bush's leadership on the peaceful transfer of power that he pledged to do the same for his successor.

www.mediaite.com

There are also posters who have defended George W. Bush endlessly.

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I know I already commented on this but no matter how much I try I just cannot wrap my head around the idea that you find it shameful that people were protesting the previous President who was so unpopular by the end of it that voters delivered you a historic mandate and you literally ran on bringing hope and change after those last two terms. I don't think Obama is that stupid. I think he's incredibly craven and cynical, and all his messaging in the campaign cycle was a LARP because he knew it'd get him elected.

 

[The Masked Mufti]

All I have to say is that decades of dehumanising us through the media and the arts is working as intended (tell me the last time you've seen a positive portrayal of an Arab or a Muslim anywhere that is something other than somebody collaborating with US forces?).

I even had a Liberal American friend of mine accuse me of doing terrorism apologia for daring to criticise Obama.

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Americans love portraying their people, even their villains as the good guys.

Remember that movie American Sniper, by Eastwood starring Bradley Cooper. Now that movie portrays Chris Kyle as a hero struggling with PTSD, and not a cunt. Which is funny, because in his book, Chris Kyle definitely comes across as a cunt, considering he views the people he's killing as savages, wishes he killed more of them, and found it "fun". (Queue some "let's not criticise the deceased" response).

My point is, when American media is making a hero out of a racist, Islamophobic, psycho piece of shit like that, what hope do we have at genuinely thoughtful representation?

 

[Codeblue]

I phrased mine in a snarkier way, but it's literally because he's lionized. That's the trend.

As the other person said, if he were widely accepted as evil, there would be less convo.

But as I said, people bring it up specifically to show that they didn't lionize him.

My whole trend in this thread so far has been "I don't know what an American President does differently," so I think Obama is singled out for recency & because he's beloved.

Click to shrink...

I feel like you're implying that people argue this point to boost their own credibility or to brag about not lionizing Obama, and I don't think that's the case. It's not a self-serving endeavor.

 

[Codeblue]

Ironically Obama calls Bush a patriot and defends him in his new book:

Barack Obama's New Memoir Praises George W. Bush for Smooth Transition

Barack Obama reveals in his new memoir that he was so impressed with George W. Bush's leadership on the peaceful transfer of power that he pledged to do the same for his successor.

www.mediaite.com

There are also posters who have defended George W. Bush endlessly.

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I think the funniest thing about this is that it essentially promotes the same brand of unity that got him stonewalled for eight years in service of keeping the US from drifting too far left. It's no surprise that he would completely sacrifice justice in the name of peace.

 

[Deleted member 4461]

I feel like you're implying that people argue this point to boost their own credibility or to brag about not lionizing Obama, and I don't think that's the case. It's not a self-serving endeavor.

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Not in all cases, no. But I've seen it often enough as a response to goading from the right or as a meme to say it happens at least some of the time.

 

[MrNewVegas]

Americans love portraying their people, even their villains as the good guys.

Remember that movie American Sniper, by Eastwood starring Bradley Cooper. Now that movie portrays Chris Kyle as a hero struggling with PTSD, and not a cunt. Which is funny, because in his book, Chris Kyle definitely comes across as a cunt, considering he views the people he's killing as savages, wishes he killed more of them, and found it "fun". (Queue some "let's not criticise the deceased" response).

My point is, when American media is making a hero out of a racist, Islamophobic, psycho piece of shit like that, what hope do we have at genuinely thoughtful representation?

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This reminds me of the black mirror episode where the army people in the future had to go out and kill these infected savages but one of the soldiers removed his helmet to discover they were just regular starving people they were killing. The helmet tricked them.

 

[Rutti]

I can only hope that history will not be kind to Obama because we know he'll never be punished for what he has done along with everybody else involved with these war crimes.

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

youre literally countering things I never said, and you're surprised I don't want your words in my mouth?

As much as you'd like to bend reality for the sake of your argument, I've never once suggested any of this shit was justifiable, reasonable, necessary etc.

I came in here talking about the reality of American politics and how our fucked up cultural values empower only those who would enact violence on brown people. You are either willingly or stupidly choosing to read that as "Trup1aya thinks it's ok". but you'd be hard-pressed to find a single line that suggests I find it anything other than abhorrent. Learn to read to comprehend or shut the fuck up or both.

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Nah.

You might think you're being slick but you're not. You're just fortunate that this forum offers a great deal of latitude to the defence of US imperialism and the dehumanising of Muslims/Arabs because trying this "I don't agree with any of this but nevertheless I'm going to offer this great big list of reasons why he had to be evil over the course of a couple of hours" schtick when the victims are most other minority groups would get you banned double quick.

The point is it doesn't matter who takes up the helm in this country. The body count is never going to be 0. So when do we declare victory? When it's less than 10000 50000? When we burn the country to the ground and build a better one that only kills 20000 a year? It's never going to be acceptable.

Click to shrink...

Cool so why pay any attention to politics at all then.

Everybody is bad and things are gonna suck no matter who is in charge so why vote when you could just grill instead.

 

[Disco]

Obama is a terrible human being. And its pretty disheartening to see all these rumors of Rahm Emanuel getting a cabinet position under the biden administration now too.

 

[Truant]

I ended up just telling myself there's probably some reason that justifies this stuff on an ethical level that he just can't talk about due to confidentiality or national security. Either way you're programming a machine to risk killing innocent civilians for the chance to kill even more people who may or may not have done something bad. But faced with the decision of that or risking even more death and suffering due to your inaction, then what do you do really? Not saying each drone strike was beholden to some great ethical dilemma, but I doubt a person like Barack Obama is carelessly nuking stuff from orbit just to be sure.

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

This reminds me of the black mirror episode where the army people in the future had to go out and kill these infected savages but one of the soldiers removed his helmet to discover they were just regular starving people they were killing. The helmet tricked them.

Click to shrink...

The joke is that soldiers today don't need reality altering helmets they just kill the Arabs for fun.

Which reminds me the Haditha massacre happened 14 years ago this week I should make a thread on that at some point

 

[collige]

Not saying each drone strike was beholden to some great ethical dilemma, but I doubt a person like Barack Obama is carelessly nuking stuff from orbit just to be sure.

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They had a "double tap" policy

 

[spam musubi]

I ended up just telling myself there's probably some reason that justifies this stuff on an ethical level that he just can't talk about due to confidentiality or national security. Either way you're programming a machine to risk killing innocent civilians for the chance to kill even more people who may or may not have done something bad. But faced with the decision of that or risking even more death and suffering due to your inaction, then what do you do really? Not saying each drone strike was beholden to some great ethical dilemma, but I doubt a person like Barack Obama is carelessly nuking stuff from orbit just to be sure.

Click to shrink...

You have a hard time thinking of Obama as someone who doesn't take droning innocent people seriously?



This is what he's joking about:

 

[dabig2]

The point is it doesn't matter who takes up the helm in this country. The body count is never going to be 0. So when do we declare victory? When it's less than 10000 50000? When we burn the country to the ground and build a better one that only kills 20000 a year? It's never going to be acceptable.

Click to shrink...

The Obama admin isn't some ignorant child with no sense of agency here. They were warned repeatedly throughout their admin, that their entire strategy would lead to unnecessary bloodshed and ill consequences. A horrible strategy that I want to emphasize only just includes drones as a side story.

reposting from 2015:

Obama's love of the "Yemen model" sums up his disastrously shortsighted foreign policy

Why the Obama administration kept insisting that Yemen was a model counterterrorism operation, even after the country had collapsed into a civil war that could benefit al Qaeda.

www.vox.com

This is hardly the first time the Obama administration has employed this counterterrorism model, only to find that it buys short-term solutions at the cost of long-term disaster. In Iraq, the administration for years backed former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Though Maliki was helpful in managing short-term problems, he was very clearly building an authoritarian, sectarian Shia state that marginalized Sunnis and set up Iraq for catastrophe, which then duly occurred.

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In Libya, a slight variant of the same fundamental model has also turned out very poorly. There, the US had special operations forces on the ground working with Libyan rebels to topple Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi, along with US and NATO air power. That was successful in achieving the Obama administration's short-term goals: it prevented the mass atrocities that Qaddafi was rumored to be planning in Benghazi, and it led to Qaddafi's overthrow.

But as proxy war expert Erica Borghard has put it, "The long-term implications, the second- and third-order effects, have not been so dandy." After Qaddafi's overthrow, Libya was left with a power vacuum and has become an attractive destination for militant groups, including an ISIS affiliate. In the long run, that situation "could potentially undermine American and allied security more than Qaddafi did."

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But it's a bit peculiar to assume, as the present leader of the free world appears to have done, that you are being graded only on your actions, not on overall results. The Obama administration may think it has a successful track record of identifying and averting specific threats to the interests of the US and its allies. But what it actually has is a track record of identifying and averting specific threats, but doing very little to address the root causes of those threats — and then being caught unawares when those root causes lead to catastrophic chaos. Which, in turn, proves to be far worse than the threats the administration was trying to address in the first place.

One would have to grade on quite a curve to call that a success.

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All of the above isn't inevitability, it's just inept psychopathic shit that they then lie about constantly to fool the American public that they have any idea of what the hell they're doing. Or worse, that the evil that they're doing is actually having any kind of positive effect and even bad ends justify the means.

We literally helped Saudi Arabia turn Yemen into the world's worst humanitarian disaster, and Obama was actually fighting Congress every step of the way as it was happening. And as he was helping the genocide, the admin was lying to both Congress and the American public.
A familiar story, but honestly one that should make us all pissed off at our leaders who keep promising and then lying as they plunder and kill on our behalf the behalf of the military industrial complex and rich corporate interests who actually determine and control our foreign policy and why it happens.

 

[Equippedwithtowel]

It's like you read a completely different post. I'll respond to you more seriously when you actually respond to my post instead of making vague assumptions.

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I felt like i read a post where someone entered the thread making the point that they don't know what a "perfect progressive" would have done differently. And my response is that if you can't see how it could have been handled differently you clearly aren't sufficiently informed on the subject because there were many chances to rein in the brutality but the administration chose deflection and rationalization instead.

it's not a vague assumption, it;s a specific observation. You don't know what you are talking about well enough to make the sweeping claim you are implicitly making that anyone would have been forced into similar actions.

 

[dhlt25]

American people never really give a shit about human life in other countries, Obama is no different.

 

[The Masked Mufti]

Obama is a terrible human being. And its pretty disheartening to see all these rumors of Rahm Emanuel getting a cabinet position under the biden administration now too.

Click to shrink...

Biden's worse than Obama

Joe Biden Was Talking Up War With Iraq Five Years Before Invasion

At a 1998 Senate hearing, Biden argued that “taking Saddam down” was the only way to guarantee Iraq’s disarmament.

theintercept.com

 

[gcwy]

I can't believe people would defend bombing brown countries.

 

[RocketKiss]

Does he talk about when he pretended to drink the delicious water in Flint in the book? Pretended to be a Marxist in college to get laid too. Barack The Great Pretender Obama. The only thing he doesn't pretend about is killing innocent brown people.

 

[dhlt25]

I can't believe people would defend bombing brown countries.

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it happen every time one of these threads come up, with the straw man comparison to communist regime etc. and how it's necessary for the US to be world police and protect everyone freedom.

 

[Codeblue]

I ended up just telling myself there's probably some reason that justifies this stuff on an ethical level that he just can't talk about due to confidentiality or national security. Either way you're programming a machine to risk killing innocent civilians for the chance to kill even more people who may or may not have done something bad. But faced with the decision of that or risking even more death and suffering due to your inaction, then what do you do really? Not saying each drone strike was beholden to some great ethical dilemma, but I doubt a person like Barack Obama is carelessly nuking stuff from orbit just to be sure.

Click to shrink...

Stop trying to comfort yourself by rationalizing atrocities and start demanding better.

 

[Dennis8K]

American people never really give a shit about human life in other countries, Obama is no different.

Click to shrink...

It is pretty shocking to see otherwise supposedly progressive people just shrugging off drone-killing innocent people "It can't be helped *shrug*"

I guess the non-stop war propaganda in American media is super effective even on people who think of themselves as "progressives"

 

[Otnopolit]

Stop trying to comfort yourself by rationalizing atrocities and start demanding better.

Click to shrink...

People are having trouble because they have idolized Obama. I struggle not idolizing him too, but this thread kinda brings me back down to earth.

 

[RocketKiss]

Anyone who has an Obama avatar is a war criminal murderer supporter. Is that against the era TOS?

 

[Adrifi]

Obama is a terrible human being. And its pretty disheartening to see all these rumors of Rahm Emanuel getting a cabinet position under the biden administration now too.

Click to shrink...

Biden has been a pro-war racist piece of shit for decades and this board was saying so in March and around that time, now that he has won he's suddenly a saint, apparently.

 

[Kyra]

Cool so why pay any attention to politics at all then.

Everybody is bad and things are gonna suck no matter who is in charge so why vote when you could just grill instead.

Click to shrink...

If you choose to. It's all the same form of harm reduction. You try to do better than you did last time. Which is what everyone actually does when the engage. But there isn't anyone that is ever going to be what people imagine a person can be. Biden will have blood on his hands like Obama and Trump and everyone afterward and this is why comparisons aren't really preposterous. This is why that hypothetical Trump thread about the same subject would actually be supremely fucked up.

 

[Stellares]

There is some scary rationalization in this thread. Why is this acceptable behavior? Surely it could be actionable by the mods when people downplay and defend drone strikes on brown people.
This isn't a moral gray area, this can only be hand waved by party loyalists.

 

[Ocarina_117]

I can't believe people would defend bombing brown countries.

Click to shrink...

A mod on this forum wanted to lock up a brown teenager, who was groomed and radicalised, and throw away the key.

It's easier to dehumanise brown people, it seems.

Absolutely pathetic from a seemingly "progressive" forum.

 

[Adrifi]

I ended up just telling myself there's probably some reason that justifies this stuff on an ethical level that he just can't talk about due to confidentiality or national security. Either way you're programming a machine to risk killing innocent civilians for the chance to kill even more people who may or may not have done something bad. But faced with the decision of that or risking even more death and suffering due to your inaction, then what do you do really? Not saying each drone strike was beholden to some great ethical dilemma, but I doubt a person like Barack Obama is carelessly nuking stuff from orbit just to be sure.

Click to shrink...

You really saying this with an Andrew Ryan avatar? Like for real?

 

[Mekanos]

There is some scary rationalization in this thread. Why is this acceptable behavior? Surely it could be actionable by the mods when people downplay and defend drone strikes on brown people.
This isn't a moral gray area, this can only be hand waved by party loyalists.

Click to shrink...

A mod on this forum wanted to lock up a brown teenager, who was groomed and radicalised, and throw away the key.

It's easier to dehumanise brown people, it seems.

Absolutely pathetic from a seemingly "progressive" forum.

Click to shrink...

It's the core contradiction of American liberalism - to uphold their way of life (in their mind) the American Empire must be allowed to churn the bodies of "terrorists" through its gears to oil the machine, and if innocents get caught in that, it's a necessary evil because this is how the world works to them. A lot of it is working backwards, too - they start with the opinion that Obama/the Democrats are good, and have to work backwards to justify it, even though there's no way you can actually believe that when you look at all the data points unless your measure of "good" is "less bad than the Republicans."

 

[Trup1aya]

Nah.

You might think you're being slick but you're not. You're just fortunate that this forum offers a great deal of latitude to the defence of US imperialism and the dehumanising of Muslims/Arabs because trying this "I don't agree with any of this but nevertheless I'm going to offer this great big list of reasons why he had to be evil over the course of a couple of hours" schtick when the victims are most other minority groups would get you banned double quick.



Cool so why pay any attention to politics at all then.

Everybody is bad and things are gonna suck no matter who is in charge so why vote when you could just grill instead.

Click to shrink...

your just an idiot at this point bro... Slick about what? Show me supporting any of this shit. I'll wait.

I said the American electorate gives political capital to political leaders who do it. That's a fact.

saying the same thing about other minority groups wouldn't get a ban because it's also true. Americans empower politicians who kill Arabs under the guise of "national security" just like they empower law enforcement to kill black people under the guise of "law and order" / "war on drug", just like they brutalize Hispanics under the guise of "border security".

talking about the political realities that lead to the atrocities American leadership perpetuate isn't the same as trying to justify those actions... the actions are unjustifiable, as I've said countless times... you are either incapable of reading or your a moron who enjoys countering points that no one is making. In either case, your sentiments about me have no basis in the text being written to the page. Fuck you bro.

 

[ThLunarian]

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

You might say that the existence of this dilemma makes America a failed state that needs to be destroyed. But that just sets up another trolley problem. How many innocent lives would be lost by destroying America? Probably far more than Obama is responsible for.

 

[Xaszatm]

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

You might say that the existence of this dilemma makes America a failed state that needs to be destroyed. But that just sets up another trolley problem. How many innocent lives would be lost by destroying America? Probably far more than Obama is responsible for.

Click to shrink...

If he wanted to make the "least bad choice" than he could have not done shit like publicly joke about drone strikes or change combatants so that civilians were suddenly justified killings.

 

[The Masked Mufti]

unless your measure of "good" is "less bad than the Republicans."

Click to shrink...

That's exactly how a lot of the people on this board view it.

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

Click to shrink...

I'd have an easier time believing that if Obama didn't find it so easy to joke about it, as has been mentioned plenty of times in this threads. Then there's the fact that he's now calling Bush a patriot.

 

[Equippedwithtowel]

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

You might say that the existence of this dilemma makes America a failed state that needs to be destroyed. But that just sets up another trolley problem. How many innocent lives would be lost by destroying America? Probably far more than Obama is responsible for.

Click to shrink...

the point of the trolley problem example in political discourse is to highlight how removed formulations like these are from the real choices leaders have in front of them. Why would someone who ran on closing Guantanamo and who killed osama bin laden have their reelection hinge on killing a bunch of no name "threats" who no one in the electorate has any reason to know about. Why not just do better pr and not kill all those innocents.

 

[dodo]

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

You might say that the existence of this dilemma makes America a failed state that needs to be destroyed. But that just sets up another trolley problem. How many innocent lives would be lost by destroying America? Probably far more than Obama is responsible for.

Click to shrink...

genuinely what the fuck are you talking about

 

[Rosebud]

If Era can be this imperalistic, can't even imagine what other sites are saying.

You must not spend much time in other countries because that's pretty common everywhere

Click to shrink...

Sure, but most countries aren't killing people like US.

Nah:

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How the hell saying that US (a country) don't see foreigners as people like them is the same as "everyone who voted for him is a bigot piece of shit?"

He was obviously the best option. It doesn't mean it's ok to kill people because they live far away from your eyes.

 

[ThLunarian]

If he wanted to make the "least bad choice" than he could have not done shit like publicly joke about drone strikes or change combatants so that civilians were suddenly justified killings.

Click to shrink...

With the information I have available, those do sound like bad decisions, yes.

 

[Deleted member 31817]

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

You might say that the existence of this dilemma makes America a failed state that needs to be destroyed. But that just sets up another trolley problem. How many innocent lives would be lost by destroying America? Probably far more than Obama is responsible for.

Click to shrink...

Wait so Obama killed all those people using drone strikes because he thought that would keep Republicans out of power? Lmfao

 

[ThLunarian]

genuinely what the fuck are you talking about

Click to shrink...

Here is a description of the trolley problem, for anyone who hasn't heard of it

Trolley problem - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

.

 

[Mekanos]

The subject of Obama's drone strikes is just a giant trolley problem. Obama supposed that if Republicans were given the opportunity to gain power, many people would die. He felt he could reduce the chance of that by implementing drone strikes, which would still kill some people, but fewer than the alternative. I believe that he genuinely thought he was making the least bad choice. He could have been wrong, but I don't think that choice makes him a bad person.

You might say that the existence of this dilemma makes America a failed state that needs to be destroyed. But that just sets up another trolley problem. How many innocent lives would be lost by destroying America? Probably far more than Obama is responsible for.

Click to shrink...

Obama could have just not expanded drone warfare and done work to actually scale back US presence overseas, but enough people here believe that we have to bully other countries to not do bad things even though we know Obama's overseas actions spurred radicalization, death, destruction, destabilization, and genocide. We know all of this. Nothing good came out of the drone warfare, not for those countries, not for America, anybody.

Also, America doesn't have to be "destroyed," its overseas occupations can be scaled back peacefully, but if the people in power refuse to do so, don't be surprised when more people radicalize against America and more countries turn on them.

 

[ThLunarian]

Wait so Obama killed all those people using drone strikes because he thought that would keep Republicans out of power? Lmfao

Click to shrink...

If you're going to simplify the issue, that's the wrong way to do it IMO.

Obama made the decision to use drone strikes that would kill innocent people because he believed that not doing so would lead to worse death and suffering.

 

[dabig2]

It's the core contradiction of American liberalism - to uphold their way of life (in their mind) the American Empire must be allowed to churn the bodies of "terrorists" through its gears to oil the machine, and if innocents get caught in that, it's a necessary evil because this is how the world works to them. A lot of it is working backwards, too - they start with the opinion that Obama/the Democrats are good, and have to work backwards to justify it, even though there's no way you can actually believe that when you look at all the data points unless your measure of "good" is "less bad than the Republicans."

Click to shrink...

It's ridiculous too, cause that shit don't even work - in terms of actually accomplishing foreing policy goals and helping people out there, and in fighting against the Repubs back at home. Republican lite but with a smile just doesn't work!

Obama's drone war a 'recruitment tool' for Isis, say US air force whistleblowers

Special report: Four former service members – including three sensor operators – issue plea to rethink current airstrike strategy that has ‘fueled feelings of hatred’ toward US

www.theguardian.com

From its inception, the drone program has been troubled by reports of mistaken targeting. Classified government documents leaked to the Intercept revealed that up to 90% of the people killed in drone strikes may be unintended, with the disparity glossed over by the recording of unknown victims as "enemies killed in action".

In one of the most widely publicised errors, the US government was accused by one of its own officials of making an "outrageous mistake" in October 2011 when it killed the US citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader who was also a US citizen and was killed by a CIA drone two weeks previously.

Click to shrink...

But the former drone operators argue that the strategy is self-defeating, as the high number of civilian casualties and the callousness of drone killings merely propagates anti-US hatred. "Right now it seems politically expedient," said Cian Westmoreland. "But in the long term the bad side of a Hellfire missile and drones buzzing overhead is the only thing that a lot of these people know of the United States or Britain."

Bryant accepted that there was no negotiating with extreme, violent terrorists of the type that carried out the Paris attacks. "But you have to prevent such people being created," he said. "We validate them, we keep this cycle going. Their children are afraid to play out in the sun because that's when the drones are coming."

Click to shrink...

We just create more terrorists. The obama administration's own internal records talk about how the drone warfare just hurt them than help them, and not all of it was hindsight. They were warned since a month after obama first took office. Senate hearings and all that on the future failed strategy they were about to employ.

We've failed virtually every objective, and all that money and death spent has just brought this country closer to the brink of fascism, and those fascists then used what Obama expanded with his own damn self (hello NDAA and mass expansion of refugee/immigration abuse), and went to town with the keys to the murder car.

There is a reality where this isn't inevitable. Where we're not sacrificing lives and wealth to the military industrial complex to satisfy some apparent bloodlust unique to Americans to explain why we keep punching ourselves in the crotch and lighting it on fire.

Can't even call out a murderer who excuses themselves and their murdering because there's some grander strategy at play here with all the lies and human atrocities committed. It's beyond fucked to pretend that better things were never possible, and that constructive criticism is counterproductive to us not murdering the fuck out of innocents, destabilizing entire regions, and making situations worse all around - and all in the midst of biosphere collapse too. Yemen didn't have much of a chance before, but we stamped out their ability to exist as a country after this decade.
And no amount of "bu bu bu white american electorate be crazy" is going to bring that country or any of the others we helped ruined from the brink of hell we deliberately and purposefully gave them.

 

[Xaszatm]

If you're going to simplify the issue, that's the wrong way to do it IMO.

Obama made the decision to use drone strikes that would kill innocent people because he believed that not doing so would lead to worse death and suffering.

Click to shrink...

Ok, do you have proof of this? Cause we know what he has done in front of us. How he's made jokes of drone civilian deaths. How he changed the rules to justify drone civilian deaths. Do you have proof that Obama secretly saved lives?

 

[Chikor]

If you're going to simplify the issue, that's the wrong way to do it IMO.

Obama made the decision to use drone strikes that would kill innocent people because he believed that not doing so would lead to worse death and suffering.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much every war crime in history was done by people who believed that doing so will advance the greater good or achieve some important goal.
You can justify literally everything like that.

And I got to say, when it comes to the drone war, I seriously struggle to see anything good that came out of it, so we really just killed a whole lot of civilian pretty much for nothing, and we created a whole generation of people who hates America.

 

[Equippedwithtowel]

If you're going to simplify the issue, that's the wrong way to do it IMO.

Obama made the decision to use drone strikes that would kill innocent people because he believed that not doing so would lead to worse death and suffering.

Click to shrink...

but the mechanism for the worse death and suffering is a republican getting his job right? i feel like that comment was dead on

 

[danm999]

So he justifies his drone killings as not wanting to look soft on terrorism?

Even if you suppose there's some necessary killing a US President has to do as part of the job, how can the motivation he's talking about there be anything but monstrous and criminal.