About them doggone drones.

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

I think we should adopt her logic. The people in the "tribal areas" of Pakistan aren't being killed by US Predator drones. It is an elaborate hoax, perpetrated by Al Qaeda and the Taliban to kill people who disagree with them. They just blow up people's homes and cars, point at the sky and say "Predator"!!!!

Who knows, maybe Zawahiri and Mullah Omar are hoping to make a fortune selling real estate once all the tribal folks move out in fear of the "predators".

Oddly enough, we actually do KNOW that after some U.S. drone strikes, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have gone out, and killed civilians, and then put their bodies near the target of the drone strike, and claimed that they were innocent victims of the U.S. drone strike. Such is the ugliness of modern warfare.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

So accessibility (along with lat. and long.) determine if it's murder or not?

If we killed Awlaki in the U.S it would have been murder.
If we killed Awlaki in Yemen (which we did), it's not murder because of location and accessibility.

Coming from a land of "innocent until proven guilty", this seems a bit shakey to me. And yes, I'm being an idealist here.

Hopelessly idealistic, yes. Are you going to tell us what you think we should have DONE about Anwar Al-Awlaki? Just 'put up with' his terror plots and his death threats and fatwas against American citizens? Did you know that there are STILL several U.S. citizens who are in hiding, and living under assumed identities, because of Anwar's death threats? And they may very well have to remain in hiding for the rest of their natural lives......

 

[middleview]

I do not deny or hide from the truths of History

Really? One small example. You linked to a document of US military interventions. One of the events listed was the Berlin Airlift. Care to explain how that was a military intervention? Serveral others were when the US evacuated our civilians from countries where there was civil unrest or even outright civil war.

Then, of course, there is your wholesale dismissal of the holocaust and six million dead in the camps of Nazi Germany....

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

I do not deny or hide from the truths of History

Really? One small example. You linked to a document of US military interventions. One of the events listed was the Berlin Airlift. Care to explain how that was a military intervention? Serveral others were when the US evacuated our civilians from countries where there was civil unrest or even outright civil war.

Then, of course, there is your wholesale dismissal of the holocaust and six million dead in the camps of Nazi Germany....

Our Queenie is a bizarre mish-mash of crazed conspiracy theories: Global warming isn't real, planes didn't fly into the towers on 9/11, we never went to the moon, Freudians are controlling our minds, Al Qaeda does not exist, the Holocaust never happened, there was something 'fishy' about the SandyHook massacre, and on and on. I have never encountered an individual who subscribes to so MANY different conspiracy theories. An interesting psychological case study.

 

[CatsEye]

Hopelessly idealistic, yes. Are you going to tell us what you think we should have DONE about Anwar Al-Awlaki? Just 'put up with' his terror plots and his death threats and fatwas against American citizens? Did you know that there are STILL several U.S. citizens who are in hiding, and living under assumed identities, because of Anwar's death threats? And they may very well have to remain in hiding for the rest of their natural lives......

So basically what you are saying is that our principles mean shit. That we're just a bunch of phony fucks when we talk about how great America is. We murdered Al-Awlak because we could and we did it out of pure self interest. Can we at least agree on that?

BTW, in the end are we gaining anything with these attacks? Are we creating as many future terrorist as we are killing? Is Obama (and then the next president) just trying to run the clock until his watch is over?

 

[Dino]

Hypocrisy in a most overwhelming form.

No due process, just "Death from above!"

All it took was Obama getting elected to sway liberals' minds like this?

Torture was 'evil', and 'didn't work'. Blowing people up with no trial or proof of wrong-doing being offered? Yup, works much better.

 

[Saladin2]

The Queen.....Is confused and delusional.....Babbling on about some non-sense one would hear in a after hours Night Club or a dingy coffee shop....Sad really...That Folks out there subscribe to such things....But the crazed ideology of the Far Right....and The Far left believes this stuff...and then goes out and tries to convince others

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

So basically what you are saying is that our principles mean shit. That we're just a bunch of phony fucks when we talk about how great America is. We murdered Al-Awlak because we could and we did it out of pure self interest. Can we at least agree on that?

BTW, in the end are we gaining anything with these attacks? Are we creating as many future terrorist as we are killing? Is Obama (and then the next president) just trying to run the clock until his watch is over?

NO. We did not abandon ANY of our principles when we killed Anwar Al-Awlaki. He was the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an organization of terrorists with which we are at war. Killing an enemy soldier in wartime has never been considered 'murder'. By your standards, Abraham Lincoln 'murdered' more than 100,000 Confederate soldiers. That's how silly your argument is.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

The Queen.....Is confused and delusional.....Babbling on about some non-sense one would hear in a after hours Night Club or a dingy coffee shop....Sad really...That Folks out there subscribe to such things....But the crazed ideology of the Far Right....and The Far left believes this stuff...and then goes out and tries to convince others

Clint Eastwood: If you go far enough to the left, you meet the same loonies coming from the right.

LeRoy: Truer words were never spoken.

 

[Saladin2]

I have No sympathy for Anwar Al -Awlaki...Either do most of the people in Yemen who wish to be free from these foreign "jihadists" ...Who distort the Koran and it's teaching with their crazed idealogy....Good Riddance....and Beware to all those that wish to follow in his footsteps

 

[Gramps]

Unfortunately, International law is a matter of convenience for those who respect it as a means of defense but rarely as a tool to govern offensive goals. You need not look any further back than WWII with its Hitlers etc. to recognize that fact. The word "retaliatiion" is also and accepted word among international leaders.

Gramps

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

Hypocrisy in a most overwhelming form.

No due process, just "Death from above!"

All it took was Obama getting elected to sway liberals' minds like this?

Torture was 'evil', and 'didn't work'. Blowing people up with no trial or proof of wrong-doing being offered? Yup, works much better.

Torture is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention, to which the United States was one of the first signatory nations. Killing enemy soldiers during wartime, or targeting enemy leaders, is not in violation of ANY treaty, or ANY international law. That's the difference that you don't seem to 'get'. But we get that you don't give a flying French fart about the treaties the United States has signed. Apparently, in your view, we can violate them any damned time we please.

 

[CatsEye]

NO. We did not abandon ANY of our principles when we killed Anwar Al-Awlaki. He was the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an organization of terrorists with which we are at war. Killing an enemy soldier in wartime has never been considered 'murder'. By your standards, Abraham Lincoln 'murdered' more than 100,000 Confederate soldiers. That's how silly your argument is.

But it would be murder if we had killed him inside the U.S?

So all our drone attacks killed people who were without doubt soldiers of war against the United States?

 

[NightSwimmer]

Dino: Thinks "treaty" is a doggy biscuit.

 

[NightSwimmer]

But it would be murder if we had killed him inside the U.S?

So all our drone attacks killed people who were without doubt soldiers of war against the United States?

Were he in the US, or any other civilized nation, he would have been apprehended and tried in a court. He wasn't in the US, was he?

Your question is a moot red herring.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

But it would be murder if we had killed him inside the U.S?

So all our drone attacks killed people who were without doubt soldiers of war against the United States?

Do you have any doubt----ANY DOUBT AT ALL----that Anwar Al-Awlaki was waging war against the United States?

If so, why do you think we have numerous sermons of his, that were once freely available on the Internet, in which he was urging Muslims to "kill as many Americans as possible"?

 

[Queen Titania]

But it would be murder if we had killed him inside the U.S?

So all our drone attacks killed people who were without doubt soldiers of war against the United States?

http://livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Stanford-NYU-LIVING-UNDER-DRONES.pdf

 

[CatsEye]

Do you have any doubt----ANY DOUBT AT ALL----that Anwar Al-Awlaki was waging war against the United States?

If so, why do you think we have numerous sermons of his, that were once freely available on the Internet, in which he was urging Muslims to "kill as many Americans as possible"?

So your principles are all built on one example (N=1)? Give Al-Awlaki a rest. In general do we know without a reasonable doubt that all those killed by our drones were planning to wage war against the U.S?

 

[CatsEye]

Were he in the US, or any other civilized nation, he would have been apprehended and tried in a court. He wasn't in the US, was he?

Your question is a moot red herring.

LeRoy said this in responding Arkady:

(3) Your 'suspicion' is idiotic. If Obama were to order the execution of a suspected terrorist in our custody, here in the United States, without a trial, then he would indeed be guilty of murder, and should not only be impeached and removed from office, but actually prosecuted for murder. But he hasn't done that, has he?

So in USA = murder. Outside USA != murder.

I agree in the USA it would be murder. But tell me why? Why is it murder?

 

[middleview]

So your principles are all built on one example (N=1)? Give Al-Awlaki a rest. In general do we know without a reasonable doubt that all those killed by our drones were planning to wage war against the U.S?

What war in the last two hundred years only resulted in the deaths of combatants?