Now it has come to light that President Obama has been lying about the extent of his drone war. We haven't just been killing men who were either senior al Qaeda leaders or who were involved in terrorist plots. No, we've been killing guys whose closest connection to terrorism was apparently having breakfast at El Jihado's House of Pancakes:
Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.At times, they didn't even have a clue who they were shooting at:
The documents also show that drone operators weren’t always certain who they were killing despite the administration’s guarantees of the accuracy of the CIA’s targeting intelligence and its assertions that civilian casualties have been “exceedingly rare.”Because we are the first nation to use killer drones in warfare, we are, by our actions, setting the standard for what is permissible and what is not. We have set the standard at: "You can kill that guy because he looks funny." We are killing people at a lower level of suspicion than we allow our cops to pull somebody over. Our standards for using lethal force are right around those used by the Russians in Chechnya.
George W. Bush at least had an excuse, for he was (and likely still is) a sick twisted man who got his rocks off by killing people by remote control. If he has ever shown a drop of remorse for the hundreds of thousands of people that were maimed and killed on his watch (not to mention the millions made into refugees), I've seen no evidence of it. Barack Obama apparently is bloodthirsty in his own special way.
The chickens are going to come home to roost on this. Mark my words.
He might be in the running for another "peace" prize.
ReplyDeleteI'm not in the least surprised by this. There have been enough independent reports over the years to indicate that this was going on. Perhaps the most egregious things that have been done in this "drone war" were the use of a cluster bomb on a "terrorist camp" in Yemen, and the apparent targeting of rescue workers by delayed drone strikes in various places.
ReplyDeleteThe targeting of rescue workers iss a common tactic of terrorists. The IRA was known for that, among other outrages.
DeleteFunny that we do the same thing, now.
President Obama may be the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to be tried for war crimes (though to be fair, that honor should have gone to Henry Kissinger).
At the time it was awarded, I only thought that prize award was silly. Now, if I had been part of that Nobel committee, I'd be hanging my head in shame.
DeleteOh, and yes, it used to be the targeting rescue workers was something that only awful people did. Now we do it.
DeleteWe really live in a time of lowered expectations.
You know Karma has a way of paying bad deeds back in multiples. This is the best reason I can think of NOT to mistreat POWs or to do other things like torture and so forth.
ReplyDeleteThis is going to come back and haunt us big time...
All The Best,
Frank W. James