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President Barack Obama has decided to deal with revelations about the Justice Department’s spying on journalists and other scandals by changing the subject. In a major national security address last Thursday, he announced the phase out of the Guantanamo prison facility and the CIA’s oversight of the drone program. But these are cosmetic changes that can’t conceal the biggest scandal: His record on the war on terrorism, which is arguably even more draconian than George W. Bush’s, his angst notwithstanding
The question is whether liberals will protect their principles or their man.
What was remarkable about Obama’s speech was its complete disconnect with his own actions in office. In a textbook example of Orwellian doublespeak, he declared that America would be haunted by the civilian casualties produced by drone attacks — without noting that these attacks were the defining feature of his war on terror.
As atonement, he pledged to transfer oversight of the drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon. But the problem with the program is not who runs it but what it does.
The theory behind transferring the program is that lawmakers will be able to offer more effective oversight given that Congressional defense committees have more power to extract information from the Pentagon than intelligence committees from the CIA, explains Cato Institute’s Benjamin Friedman, a defense expert. But the ingeniousness of the drone program is that even if Congress can provide more oversight, it will have little incentive to actually do so.
Why?
Invasion of foreign countries — like Bush’s misadventure in Iraq — risk American blood and treasure and therefore invite domestic scrutiny. Not so with the drone program that has made the war on terror virtually costless to Americans; drones, after all, are cheap and unmanned.
This has enabled the administration to vastly expand both the size and scope of the program without raising an eyebrow outside of civil libertarian circles.
It has escalated drone strikes against alleged militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. According to the liberal AlterNet, the Bush administration conducted 52 drone strikes in this region killing 438 people, including 182 civilians. This administration ordered 300 strikes in just its first term, killing 2,152 people, including 260 civilians. The constant buzzing in the sky traumatizes the local population — and violates Pakistani sovereignty — all of which has caused America’s popularity in Pakistan to plummet from 36 percent under Bush to 24 percent under Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner Obama.
Drone strikes are like killing an ant in an ant hill who is in the company of a thousand ants. It is the shot gun approach. What the administration does not care about is who is killed in the attack...If they kill ten innocent people while trying to kill one suspect - they are fine with that...every time there is a drone strike it create one more terrorist who bound and determined to get their revenge. The more they kill with drones the more terror they create...It's cowardly and done mostly for sport...Powerful people are thrill seekers and the taking of human life is the greatest thrill for them....It's an absurd mentality...Obama is a thrill seeker....at the expense of others.
One of Obamas traits is to talk about government bungling/scandals/ misdeeds as if he is an outsider and not part of the root cause.
And so many buy it.
President Obama has alienated one of our best allies - Pakistan - by authorizing drone strikes that kill Pakistani citizens, and going over Pakistan's head to assasinate Osama bin Laden.
OBL needed to go, but there is zero reason why the Pakistani government should not have been informed of our action.
President Obama and his adminisitration is a failure through and through.
I can hardly wait until 2016 when the GOP takes back this republic and returns the United States of America back to sanity.
President Barack Obama has decided to deal with revelations about the Justice Department’s spying on journalists and other scandals by changing the subject. In a major national security address last Thursday, he announced the phase out of the Guantanamo prison facility and the CIA’s oversight of the drone program. But these are cosmetic changes that can’t conceal the biggest scandal: His record on the war on terrorism, which is arguably even more draconian than George W. Bush’s, his angst notwithstanding
The question is whether liberals will protect their principles or their man.
What was remarkable about Obama’s speech was its complete disconnect with his own actions in office. In a textbook example of Orwellian doublespeak, he declared that America would be haunted by the civilian casualties produced by drone attacks — without noting that these attacks were the defining feature of his war on terror.
As atonement, he pledged to transfer oversight of the drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon. But the problem with the program is not who runs it but what it does.
The theory behind transferring the program is that lawmakers will be able to offer more effective oversight given that Congressional defense committees have more power to extract information from the Pentagon than intelligence committees from the CIA, explains Cato Institute’s Benjamin Friedman, a defense expert. But the ingeniousness of the drone program is that even if Congress can provide more oversight, it will have little incentive to actually do so.
Why?
Invasion of foreign countries — like Bush’s misadventure in Iraq — risk American blood and treasure and therefore invite domestic scrutiny. Not so with the drone program that has made the war on terror virtually costless to Americans; drones, after all, are cheap and unmanned.
This has enabled the administration to vastly expand both the size and scope of the program without raising an eyebrow outside of civil libertarian circles.
It has escalated drone strikes against alleged militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. According to the liberal AlterNet, the Bush administration conducted 52 drone strikes in this region killing 438 people, including 182 civilians. This administration ordered 300 strikes in just its first term, killing 2,152 people, including 260 civilians. The constant buzzing in the sky traumatizes the local population — and violates Pakistani sovereignty — all of which has caused America’s popularity in Pakistan to plummet from 36 percent under Bush to 24 percent under Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner Obama.
it is customary when using other's work product to credit the work by using quotation marks ["] around their work and linking the source material.
Just the thought that Pakistan is of our allies is sheer absurdity. They were too frightened to kill OBL so we had to do it. IMHO we should never have dumped the body but brought it back to DC for public display. Drone strikes do kill innocent bystanders but they kill far fewer innocents, if there are any, than a ‘conventional’ bombing. Just think about the difference between a 100 lb of explosive in a drone strike compared to the 20 tons of explosive from one B-52. The first kills a terrorist and a couple of bystanders and the latter shatters a town and can kill hundreds. So why don’t these bystanders either get away from the idiots or kill the terrorists themselves?
Out major problem is our failure to realize we do not have ANY allies in the Middle East. From Morocco to Pakistan we are cordially hated by everyone including the Israelis. It is past time to get out and let the natives settle their differences. Don’t worry they will still sell oil to the highest bidder.
President Barack Obama has decided to deal with revelations about the Justice Department’s spying on journalists and other scandals by changing the subject. In a major national security address last Thursday, he announced the phase out of the Guantanamo prison facility and the CIA’s oversight of the drone program. But these are cosmetic changes that can’t conceal the biggest scandal: His record on the war on terrorism, which is arguably even more draconian than George W. Bush’s, his angst notwithstanding
The question is whether liberals will protect their principles or their man.
What was remarkable about Obama’s speech was its complete disconnect with his own actions in office. In a textbook example of Orwellian doublespeak, he declared that America would be haunted by the civilian casualties produced by drone attacks — without noting that these attacks were the defining feature of his war on terror.
As atonement, he pledged to transfer oversight of the drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon. But the problem with the program is not who runs it but what it does.
The theory behind transferring the program is that lawmakers will be able to offer more effective oversight given that Congressional defense committees have more power to extract information from the Pentagon than intelligence committees from the CIA, explains Cato Institute’s Benjamin Friedman, a defense expert. But the ingeniousness of the drone program is that even if Congress can provide more oversight, it will have little incentive to actually do so.
Why?
Invasion of foreign countries — like Bush’s misadventure in Iraq — risk American blood and treasure and therefore invite domestic scrutiny. Not so with the drone program that has made the war on terror virtually costless to Americans; drones, after all, are cheap and unmanned.
This has enabled the administration to vastly expand both the size and scope of the program without raising an eyebrow outside of civil libertarian circles.
It has escalated drone strikes against alleged militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. According to the liberal AlterNet, the Bush administration conducted 52 drone strikes in this region killing 438 people, including 182 civilians. This administration ordered 300 strikes in just its first term, killing 2,152 people, including 260 civilians. The constant buzzing in the sky traumatizes the local population — and violates Pakistani sovereignty — all of which has caused America’s popularity in Pakistan to plummet from 36 percent under Bush to 24 percent under Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner Obama.
Quote:
The question is whether liberals will protect their principles or their man.
They can whack as many Taliban as they want, I'm fine with that, and you know it's going to escalate as the US comes closer to withdrawing from Afghanistan.
And the fact that Obama lied? BFD, he does it all the time. The libs and the MSM will always find a way to justify his actions.
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