Posted on 06/03/2012 9:31:33 AM PDT by Whenifhow
A very strange story, that 6,000-word front-page New York Times piece on how, every Tuesday, Barack Obama shuffles “baseball cards” with the pictures and bios of suspected terrorists from around the world and chooses who shall die by drone strike. He even reserves for himself the decision of whether to proceed when the probability of killing family members or bystanders is significant.
The article could have been titled “Barack Obama: Drone Warrior.” Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign. On-the-record quotes from the highest officials. This was no leak. This was a White House press release.
snip
So the peacemaker, Nobel laureate, nuclear disarmer, apologizer to the world for America having lost its moral way when it harshly interrogated the very people Obama now kills, has become — just in time for the 2012 campaign — Zeus the Avenger, smiting by lightning strike.
A rather strange ethics. You go around the world preening about how America has turned a new moral page by electing a president profoundly offended by George W. Bush’s belligerence and prisoner maltreatment, and now you’re ostentatiously telling the world that you personally play judge, jury and executioner to unseen combatants of your choosing and whatever innocents happen to be in their company.
This is not to argue against drone attacks. In principle, they are fully justified. .... But it is to question the moral amnesia of those whose delicate sensibilities were offended by the Bush methods that kept America safe for a decade — and who now embrace Obama’s campaign of assassination by remote control.
Moreover, there is an acute military problem. Dead terrorists can’t talk.
Drone attacks are cheap — which is good. But the path of least resistance has a cost. It yields no intelligence about terror networks or terror plans.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Where is Bill Maher now? Giving $1 million dollars to the Drone Warrior.
Strikes me this has a good deal in common with those who like to eat meat but aren't willing to kill animals themselves.
I wonder to what extent the apparently growing hatred of America has to do with this element of asymmetrical warfare.
You know, I fully understand the POV of those who think we should always kill our enemies by the most efficient method, the one that is least dangerous to our own troops.
But I still can't help thinking there is something dehumanizing about a "warrior" who slaughters his enemies in Yemen while sitting in his bedroom in his pjs, with no risk at all to himself.
Don't forget our unwillingness to kill in a humane way those we think are undeserving of continued life.
Instead we starve and dehydrate them to death, pretending we aren't killing them, they're dying a natural death.
1. They're an enemy BECAUSE they can hit and have every intention of doing so.
2. "Fair fight" only matters to those for whom survival is not paramount. Those for whom survival is not paramount won't survive.
3. You miss the point of "asymmetric warfare": no matter how technologically advanced you are vs. how primitive your enemy is, he CAN hit you (or someone you value with your life). Even if it means a plane ticket and a rock.
Don’t forget our unwillingness to kill in a humane way those we think are undeserving of continued life.
Instead we starve and dehydrate them to death, pretending we aren’t killing them, they’re dying a natural death.
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Like abortion, we lie.
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