The war on terror framework continues to savage the world’s poorest civilians.
In 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate — the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out — another drone killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.
Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely “collateral damage.” Abdulrahman’s grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post “to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman,” which explained: “Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies. His Facebook page shows a typical kid.”
The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated over the next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the U.K. armed, supported, and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally reckless bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation, seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the U.S.-U.K.-supported air attacks. Because of the West’s direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have received vanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.
In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S. barbarism, Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore) the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.
But reports from Yemen quickly surfaced that 30 people were killed, including 10 women and children. Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter of Nasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.
This is the 8-year-old girl killed in US raid in Yemen, Arabic media reports https://t.co/nPlWh6LqE3
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 29, 2017
US killed her teen American brother too pic.twitter.com/QP0TsgdIfq
As noted by my colleague Jeremy Scahill — who extensively interviewed the grandparents in Yemen for his book and film on Obama’s “Dirty Wars” — the girl “was shot in the neck and killed,” bleeding to death over the course of two hours. “Why kill children?” the grandfather asked. “This is the new (U.S.) administration — it’s very sad, a big crime.”
The New York Times yesterday reported that military officials had been planning and debating the raid for months under the Obama administration, but Obama officials decided to leave the choice to Trump. The new president personally authorized the attack last week. They claim that the “main target” of the raid “was computer materials inside the house that could contain clues about future terrorist plots.” The paper cited a Yemeni official saying that “at least eight women and seven children, ages 3 to 13, had been killed in the raid,” and that the attack also “severely damaged a school, a health facility and a mosque.”
As my colleague Matthew Cole reported in great detail just weeks ago, Navy SEAL Team 6, for all its public glory, has a long history of “‘revenge ops,’ unjustified killings, mutilations, and other atrocities.” And Trump notoriously vowed during the campaign to target not only terrorists but also their families. All of that demands aggressive, independent inquiries into this operation.
Perhaps most tragic of all is that — just as was true in Iraq — al Qaeda had very little presence in Yemen before the Obama administration began bombing and droning it and killing civilians, thus driving people into the arms of the militant group. As the late, young Yemeni writer Ibrahim Mothana told Congress in 2013:
Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants. … Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen.
During George W. Bush’s presidency, the rage would have been tremendous. But today there is little outcry, even though what is happening is in many ways an escalation of Mr. Bush’s policies. …
Defenders of human rights must speak out. America’s counterterrorism policy here is not only making Yemen less safe by strengthening support for AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] but it could also ultimately endanger the United States and the entire world.
This is why it is crucial that — as urgent and valid protests erupt against Trump’s abuses — we not permit recent history to be whitewashed, or long-standing U.S. savagery to be deceitfully depicted as new Trumpian aberrations, or the war on terror framework engendering these new assaults to be forgotten. Some current abuses are unique to Trump, but — as I detailed on Saturday — some are the decades-old byproduct of a mindset and system of war and executive powers that all need uprooting. Obscuring these facts, or allowing those responsible to posture as opponents of all this, is not just misleading but counterproductive: Much of this resides on an odious continuum and did not just appear out of nowhere.
Congress voted on border wall in 2006, Hillary, Schumer, Feinstein voted Yes https://t.co/70y1dwH1J7 Bernie voted no https://t.co/QWcWWQZ602
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) January 30, 2017
It’s genuinely inspiring to see pervasive rage over the banning of visa holders and refugees from countries like Yemen. But it’s also infuriating that the U.S. continues to massacre Yemeni civilians, both directly and through its tyrannical Saudi partners. That does not become less infuriating — Yemeni civilians are not less dead — because these policies and the war theories in which they are rooted began before the inauguration of Donald Trump. It’s not just Trump but this mentality and framework that need vehement opposition.
Top photo: A Yemeni man walks past cars destroyed during fighting with militants in the city of Zinjibar, Yemen, June 14, 2012.
everyone’s being played like a fiddle wars are carried out by the poor so rich people can steal land, i.s.i.s. u.s.a, iraq, saudi arabia and isreal are all friends with each other giving each other oil and weapons, until the toy soldiers come out to play, then it’s back to the stage.
I do not need to use false names to state my opinion – so here you go.
It looks like there can be a semi intellectual conversation amongst this group. One always looks to the outrage in any given situation, as well one needs to understand the reasoning behind it. Violence begets violence, and anyone that thinks otherwise is living in a bubble – it’s the law of nature.
One also needs to understand that sometimes use of force is justified. The writer completely misses the mark that for a very long while the inner eastern and northeastern borders of Yemen were and still are becoming bastions of training camps for Al Queda. This is a documented facts, it is also a documented fact that the “Prime Minister” of Yemen was a brutal despot and coward that ran from his country when faced with adversity. It is also a fact that Saudi Arabia has been utilizing deadly force through the means of light ground engagement (special forces) and heavy arms (war planes). Saudi Arabia has been a principal prognosticator in the entire region and took advantage of the destabilization that the United States caused with its reckless invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The destabilization of the entire region is due to the fact that the United States does not recognize the true autonomy of nation building. We have not invested in education (at home or abroad) properly.
That being said, I completely and totally support pre-emptive strikes with civilian casualties as an outcome. I’m not some sort of “Tea Party” patriot either, instead I am a democrat and grounded in reality. The reality is that these people want to do us and many others around the world harm. I do support removal of individuals that are plotting to do mass harm of many individuals globally. It is the right thing to do – and an unfortunate bi-product is linear loss of life. It’s not something that’s easy to accept, and I believe it is an internalized dilemma. We as members of the human family are ultimately responsible for one another. That includes taking away those that would ultimately and intent fully do us harm.
Last comment though, I think it is ridiculous that some people keep harping on Islam. It’s “islamist” this or that. Wrong – inherently outside of a few quotes that people continue to hang on too from the Koran. The fact is that it and all major main stay religions do promote and condone speech. There are fundamental differences between Sunni, Shia and Sufi. That being said – those that have the intention to harm others are utilizing “religion” as a centralized theme. They are occultists and major employers, remember what I said earlier? Instead of true investment in a region and creating a better society – we continue to result in force. I guess the real question should not be the justification of force – which in surgical type strikes should be carried out with the utmost caution. The real question was – why were Trump and Bannon not brining the military generals into the room to run the campaign? Obama did use force prudently – as the people he killed were often not really bad people.
The true problem is that those that are in charge – the true wealthy elite, are continuing to push violence as the solution so that they can continue to expand their wealth and power basins. When will people wake the f*&k up?
DEMOCRAT vs REPUBLICAN (is it in the Bible!?!?!)
God’s prophet, Daniel, wrote a prophecy about this time and explains that part of mankind will be like “steel” (hard and “conservative”) and part of mankind will be like soft clay (malleable and “liberal”) …
AND – just as steel and clay do not bond … the world in the last days will be the same…
Daniel 2:41-43
41 “And just as you saw the feet and the toes to be partly of clay of a potter and partly of iron, the kingdom will be divided, but some of the hardness of iron will be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with soft clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom will be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 Just as you saw iron mixed with soft clay, they will be mixed with the people; but they will not stick together, one to the other, just as iron does not mix with clay.
The Previous parts of the image: (Daniel 2:28; Daniel 2:31-43)
– The head of gold represented the Babylonian Empire.
– The breasts and arms of silver depicted Medo-Persia.
– The belly and thighs of copper pointed to ancient Greece.
– The legs of iron pictured the Roman Empire.
The feet, an amalgam of iron and clay, symbolize the politically and socially incohesive state of affairs during the time of the Anglo-American world power.
According to Revelation 17:10, the seventh world power “must remain a short while.” How long will that prove to be? How will it disappear from the world scene? And what will happen thereafter? Daniel sheds much light on these questions.
A Hope You Can Trust…
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201105/seventh-world-power-bible-history
It’s only too clear that what purports to be bipolar elections between presumed mutual opponents is entirely farcical theater to placate a mind-controlled population.
It would be comical were it not for the lethal continuum perped by the psychopaths that rule us, and the foolish partisanship that enables our own enslavement and complicity to atrocity.
It’s noteworthy that no one here gets out alive. We will all answer for our intent, actions and inactions.
Live free, die trying and damn the tyrants.
Well said!
Excellent article on what known so far about the raid.
https://theaviationist.com/?p=41133
Before I start, is the argument clinic?
Or the “Getting hit on head lessons?
Thanks!
It’s Whack-a-Mole
That Mona sure is killing it in this video…;-)
Are we supposed to feel bad for terrorists now, too?
Become a terrorist, endanger your family. That’s what happens.
I think people like you are terrorists.
See the problem Mr. Sociopath?
nailed it, Bill
I bet if you were in Medieval Europe you would be one of the idiots killing people suspected of being witches.
Thank you for contextualizing this story — it’ critical. I get chills when I remember what 45 said on the campaign trail: “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families…They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”
Arming Saudi more so a Faustian bargain vis-a-vi Iran nuclear agreement than a continuation of War on Terror ‘framework’, no?
The SEALs are composed of people who make their living killing other people at the behest of elites. They are no better than Mafia hit men.
Killing children is an act of terrorism. I have no sympathy for the death of a career murderer like the SEAL thug killed in an immoral , illegal act.
Seconded, cwradio, well said!
amen
You should be ashamed of yourself. A terrorist is a terrorist .Our brave men have the right to defend themselves.I bet that child or women wouldn’t think twice about killing any American. How many women and children were killed on 9/11.
The biggest terrorists are US congress and the corporations they work for. American soldiers aren’t defending America because America is not being attacked, rather they’re pointlessly losing their lives for agenda driven, narcissistic wealthy elite that will do anything to have power and control and continue this worldwide unrest.
The establishment creates false narratives and instills fear in societies such as America to justify what they do and continue to segregate groups in order to divide and conquer. The more you think that people in the Middle-East are the ‘Others’ you should fear, the more power you are handing over to the figureheads of Corporatocracy that continue to act as a mouthpiece for the various corporate industrial complexes— military, financial, energy, food, pharmaceutical, prison, etc.
The more US expands this idea of ‘terrorism’ the more they will expand wars and armed attacks into more and more countries – for their agendas.
Look at the bigger picture.
When did Trump get an 8-year-old sister?
Having listened to Pelosi yesterday, I am sure she doesn’t read your editorials, Glenn. She could actually learn something….
There was big time resistance on the part of the guards against the Seals. Why would parents allow their children to stay in an area that could be a target because they are terrorist? Islamist are cowards and hide behind women and children so when something like this happens they can stir the pot of outrage.
Its too bad children die in this crap but lets but the blame where it belongs. Parents that know they are in a situation that could be raided and Islamist that are hiding behind their children.
I agree. They endanger their families themselves.
Funny, I’ve always felt that if people are placed in danger, no matter who by, it’s up to true human beings to try to protect them, not kill them.
The innocents in those families did not choose to put themselves in danger. Nor do I know of any moral code that justifies their killing in order to get the bad guys.
You and Mike are the kind of sociopaths mentioned in the article.
It’s probably a waste of time to respond to you, except that such a callous attitude toward the murder of innocents should never go unremarked.
If your family were held hostage by a serial killer, would you be content to see them killed in order to get the serial killer? That’s what you’re condoning.
It’s hard to believe that you and I are of the same species.
If your brother is a criminal, are you obliged to be afraid of the law? Should you uproot and move your fam to a different town for fear of vengeance from the cops? Please, it is not the fault of the child that the father or brother is a terrorist.
So, if there’s a bad guy holding kids hostage in an American school, we should blow up the school to get the bad guy and just call the hostages “collateral damage”?
The idea that invaders of a nation are the good guys is as preposterous as it gets.
It’s really sad that the crazy American warmachine is immune to scientific and rational reality-testing of its perverse ideas: Targeted killings of high value targets DOES NOT WORK! Especially not against an ideology-based hydra with enourmous recruitment potential. Against such a foe, Targeted killings works as a forced evolution of the leadership group towards smarter, more creative, more radical, more ruthless and more covert people and unless the recruitment to the group is blocked as well the capacity and viciousness of the group increases! This was demonstrated in an academic papir about the Iraqi surge… Russia never used targeted killings in Syria. Maybe they realize it doesn’t work.
Looks like she was already someone’s wife. Saved her from a life serving the debauchery of others in the name of a religion.
Where did you see her dressed as a bride??
Very sensitive comment.
We got to remember Senator Rand Paul, who asked Obama literally 100 times, “do you believe that you have the power to execute US citizens without a trial”.
Obama pretended 99 times not to understand the question.
On the 100th time he was asked, Obama answered the question.
“Okay fine no I don’t now leave me alone”
It was “impolite” of Senator Rand Paul, wasn’t it.
Maybe they encouraged Trump to join the club so their past actions wouldn’t be held against them?
This is likely nothing but propaganda. The source given does not provide its source. Not only that, the source site is not built on a professional platform. It’s built on WordPress and therefor is likely to be a mom and pop web site.
This is called “kinship liability” (Sippenhaft). Was quite popular with the Nazis.
I think it is wrong to put finger only on trump because of this, many drone attacks are decided by the military and the president just approve after they tell him: “they target terrorists”. they bombed some building in Libya and killed embassy personal of Serbia. trump is guilty for trusting them, and the war machine is responsible for this type of crime. the war machine (military industrial complex) are even the cia and defense companies that make propaganda against trump: boeing, lockheed martin, general dynamics, etc. If you want to fight against war crimes, it is not enough just to mention Obama or Trump, you should arise awareness about Boeing and similar companies, who are the main managers, are they from the cia, who are owners of these companies that profit from insecurity, protests, terrorism and war. I say: managers of arms industry are from the cia, they organize terrorist attacks, war crimes and other things that prolong the war i.e. make their profit bigger, they use cia cops to shoot african-americans to produce riots and profit from insecurity, they organized terrorist attacks in Europe through corruption of EU politicians. the top of the arms industry use their connections in the cia to organize terrorism and war. to prolong the war, they kill civilians. This kid is one of many victims, in the name of the profit of cia, boeing, general dynamics, etc.
You mention the President is guilty for trusting the people in charge of the drone-attacks, but isn’t it fair to say he is also responsible for their actions? In a sense, he is their manager. If this were to happen once, I’d find it necessary for the president to take action to prevent a similar situation from happening in the future. This is seemingly not happening, either due to a lack of public outcry and/or it not getting prioritized by the president.
We must really learn not to trust anything human. We must be disillusioned, thoroughly disillusioned with man. Do we have the capacity to change? Can we put our trust in a power higher than man? Is a new form of life possible? New perceptions, going beyond words, new ways of touching one another, and a new sensitivity towards one another, a new awareness of what life is and what it requires of us, direct perceptions so that there is no need to be told? Could these characteristics come from us, from our children, or our children’s children?
I don’t believe you…
As noted, the ACLU and many Americans were strongly opposed to the drone strikes- though you omit that even people who agreed that Anwar al-Awlaki was a major recruiter of terrorists who deserved to be killed – also opposed the drone strikes because of the “collateral damage” – Unfortunately, what is NOT noted here is that Trump’s mission in Yemen reads like a a boots on the ground direct TARGETING of innocent family members – these women & children do not appear to be accidental “collateral damage” but instead the mission’s targets. This IS new and it is not defensible with the Geneva Convention. So perhaps address that instead of straining to call everyone partisan hypocrites.
Democrats were largely supportive (or otherwise uncritical) of Obama’s droning of Al-Awlaki’s teenage son. And I’m sure the eight year old girl who died will be comforted to know that her murder by Trump was actually much worse than the murder of her brother by Obama.
Why is that, anyway? Just because Obama wasn’t churlish enough to admit to killing innocents on purpose? The guy who was supposedly targeted in Obama’s drone strike wasn’t even there. It’s “collateral damage” when Democrats do it, but indefensible and evil when Republicans do it.
Spot on. The only “difference” between the policies of the two administrations is that one of the sociopaths is polished, the other simply a buffoon.
exactly.
Your last sentence is correct.
Susie, you are a wingnut and an Obama apologist. There is very little difference b/w Obama’s actions and Trumps on this matter. The president’s actions are clear violations of international law. And Obama’s actions against Awlaki and son were also a clear violation of the US Constitution.
Obama decided it was important to assault the rule of law.
He could have went to court, tried Awlaki in absentia, got warrants, and maybe had to wait awhile but then, he would have avoided setting the precedent which he handed to Trump, whereby US citizens can be killed without a f———- trial!
Suppose it depends on your definition of ‘imminent threat’ and whether Awlaki met that criteria. The sniper metaphor is instructive here – if a sniper has a loaded gun aimed at civilians, is he/she necessarily entitled to due process? Moreover, is law enforcement legally allowed to neutralize the threat, perhaps lethally?
Ah yes, let’s stop terrorism by creating more terrorists.
With every civilian that’s killed in these countries, the feeling of resentment grows stronger. You kill 1 terrorist with a drone strike and 2 more take its place.
What creates Islamic terrorists is Islam. China killed 1.5 MILLION Tibetans. Where are the Tibetan terrorists?
When the Islamic Terrorist says “I love death more than you love life” he isn’t lying. That is what he actually believes, because he wants to die and go to heaven.
Right? ISIS at one point ran an article in one of its magazines that was all about why they fight westerners.
“We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah – whether you realize it or not – by making partners for Him in worship, you blaspheme against Him, claiming that He has a son, you fabricate lies against His prophets and messengers, and you indulge in all manner of devilish practices.”
And “We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted, a matter that doesn’t concern you because you Christian disbelief and paganism 32 separate between religion and state, thereby granting supreme authority to your whims and desires via the legislators you vote into power.”
And “What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary, hence the reason we addressed it at the end of the above list. The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”
(https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/the-islamic-state-e2809cdacc84biq-magazine-1522.pdf)
Of course, they do list a bunch of “grievances,” but their grievances, of course, all stem FROM their worldview, ultimately, especially in the case of ISIS, which is way more extreme than, say, al-Qaeda.
don’t be daft.
everyone knows they hates us for our Freedom™.
Have you ever read the material on Westboro Baptist Church’s website? Every society and religion has their extremists. The key here is that US foreign policy created a situation in which the radical elements of the societies we targeted have become the refuge for people trying to make sense of what is happening to them. Here, we endure no hardship, our fringe remains fringe. How long do you suppose Americans would endure bombings, scarcity of food, and “boots on the ground” before we started to turn to the fringes our of own culture? “Their” worldview stems from trauma and interference, and their zealots are no more zealous than our zealots. Your post lacks nuance and perspective.
I guess that explains why Islamists attack countries like Belgium and kill their civilians. Because of Belgium’s aggressive, militaristic policies in the Middle East.
No. But it’s a direct result of Western nations aggressive, militaristic policies in the Middle East, otherwise, it wouldn’t be happening at all.
No war = no refugees.
Islamists do not need Western “provocations” to slaughter civilians. That might be true for groups like al-Qaeda, but ISIS is far more pro-active.
If there’s a worldview that believes in inflicting death and violence, it’s the US’s worldview. Do the numbers and see how many deaths are directly attributable to US militarism. Then if you add the deaths that can be attributed to US support for extremism, the fact that you’re full of sh*it becomes even more apparent.
“What’s important to understand here is that although some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this particular reason for hating you is secondary, hence the reason we addressed it at the end of the above list. The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.”
Gee, this sounds like it could have been written by people who promote Muslim hatred for their very narrow foreign policy interests. How convenient.
Look up the Dabiq issue yourself, then.
You literally chose the ONE culture in the world that actually practices non-violence. How did Islam create the Christian terrorists in South America, the atheist terrorists in China/Russia, or the Buddhist terrorists in Burma? How many Muslims in this world are not and never will be terrorists? Uhhh, the vast majority all together, but especially those who aren’t getting their homes blown up by Western forces. No matter the ideology, instability caused by inequality, injustice, and war, and lots of young men with nothing left to lose will create terrorists. Hence, “I love death more than you love life.”
Of course there were Tibetan “terrorists” and their violence was quite brutal. Like other terrorist groups, they were CIA-trained. The Tibetan rebellion was ultimately crushed by China, and thousands were executed.
Are your arms really bare?
No, he his arms are bear… http://www.lfg.co/page/134/
where are the tibetan terrorists? dead probably. do you defend china for genocide?
This logic doesn’t compute. Yes, radical Islamists have a violent and retributive ideology. And of course, the U.S. bombing civilians in Muslim countries drives more people to adopt that ideology and direct it against the U.S. This “war” is not winnable with more war. The cycle of death has to be broken.
There is no money in solutions.
As ex-Military, I oppose drone strikes due to reasons I’ve never seen published anywhere.
I oppose them because drones are tactical weapons which due to the manner in which they’re employes are quote incapable of a positive strategic impact but quite possible, indeed almost a certainty, to have a negative strategic impact.
It makes no sense to use tactical weapons like this. They only make the going tougher and longer towards any favorable strategic outcome.
LF
This is an interesting idea, but … can you explain the tactical/strategic distinction in this case for those of us who aren’t military? I mean, if al Qaida is a small organization, why isn’t blowing up one of its major facilities strategic?
do they have major facilities to blow up? we don’t even have a firm grasp of who al quaida is, i mean anybody can call themselves that, or call themselves isis.
Are drones being used as a strategic weapon, though? One could also argue that the US is using drone strikes as a tactical weapon. The US is basically trying to contain/degrade the capabilities of groups like the Taliban al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, AQAP, etc, and one way they do so is target their leaders and operatives via drones.
The groups targeted by these strikes are also fighting the governments of Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, so in that sense drone strikes are, in fact, a tactical weapon (i.e. one of many), aren’t they?
Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost.
There lots of things that I disagree with Glenn about, but he is one of the only ‘media figures’ who has been reporting and protesting this consistently, in a
‘bipartisan’ way.
It’s tragic that all the people out protesting this weekend didn’t react when this was happening under Obama, because it undermines the credibility of their reaction now.
Which raid are you talking about?
I just need to get this said:
A General Strike is needed to stop the Deep State, not Trump!
He’s not the head of the snake.
Removing him is a partisan distraction, tantamount to declaring everything was fine until he came along, which is a manifest lie.
The above article by Greenwald says it clearly
And the same point applies to the corporatism and oligarchical rule beyond and throughout both major parties of the establishment’s theater.
This “Trump must go” business ignores the fact that the system is totalitarian whether he is its figurehead or not, and can only drive people to the “Good Cop” rather than the “Bad Cop” in the corrupt Police Force of the establishment. Neither cop is any good, they are both in on the charade, and they work for the same elite.
Again, a General Strike is needed to stop the Deep State, not its easily disposable and interchangeable puppets.
But let me stress I affirm protests that are about (in Greenwald’s words) “not just Trump” (and not just Republicans), protests that promote real challenges to the corruption and inequality of the bipartisan status quo, corporatism, the military-industrial complex, etc.
I think the business-as-usual partisan lineups are so crippled that the chances of, e.g., the mainstream Dems being able to co-opt or pilot a movement are pretty slim.
We’re not going their way. If they want to come with the people, fine. But that would mean real, no-bullshit transformation that fundamentally challenges the status quo.
Not easy, but conceivable, possible. I can’t remember a more opportune moment in a very long time.
If it catches on more I’m sure some establishment Democrats and stars will latch on like leeches, but it doesn’t particularly need to be further co-opted to meet with my disapproval (for what it’s worth), since it is already being promoted mostly by people who just hate Trump and the GOP, not the system itself. At least, according to the Twitter feed. If it does emerge as something non-partisan I’ll be very surprised, for right now at its conception it’s nothing of the kind.
I’ll be watching. Anyway, I had to get all this articulated; thx for reading.
A General Strike is needed to stop the Deep State, not Trump! He’s not the head of the snake.
i’m with you 100% on that.
I used to think that those who talked about the deep state was conspiracy theory for 3 decades. Now I agree that it is real and must be stopped. Maybe Trump’s evil, loose-cannon, idiocy provides that glaring example of how shit can go very wrong to compel us to stop this evil and soon.
Actually, I am one of those whose comments could have been possibly perceived as “blaming Glenn Greenwald personally for Trump’s election victory” when in fact I was just questioning Glenn’s/theInterept’s “‘ethical’ journalism” when it comes to effectively protecting high ranking government officials boasting about genocide and torture by redacting the Snowden leaks of anything that could be used to prosecute the emming effing morons.
I don’t even know what the LGM Blog is. I have posted my concerns right here at theIntercept explaining my points profusely. Even though my comments could be easily misconstrue as implying a cause-effect relationship, I don’t think my points to be so outlandish,, hard to understand:
// __ In the Trump Era, Leaking and Whistleblowing Are More Urgent, and More Noble, Than Ever
Glenn Greenwald
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/14/in-the-trump-era-leaking-and-whistleblowing-are-more-urgent-and-more-noble-than-ever/?comments=1#comment-309989
At times theIntercept journos seem to be talking to “words” and “concepts”, about them “lying again”, “not giving a f#ck about morality and civility” … The other day I noticed Snowden himself advocating for “a more adversarial journalism”:
// __ acTVism Munich (Jan 17, 2017): Edward Snowden talks about FBI’s COINTELPRO, CIA’s MK-ULTRA and Black Lives Matters
youtube.com/watch?v=8XLMyrkjcMg
~
I am all for it. We can’t let them think they own us, the discourse anymore:
// __ Edward Snowden has the fingerprints of a foreign spy, By Rachelle Bergstein January 21, 2017
http://nypost.com/2017/01/21/edward-snowden-has-the-fingerprints-of-a-foreign-spy/
~
RCL
“General strike” is trending on Twitter and The Guardian has published an article calling for it. It looks as if this is going to happen.
yes, and based on NY Times’ polls Hillary had 93% of winning …
RCL
Non sequitur.
https://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/theintercept_20170130_obama-killed-a-16-year-old-american-in-yemen-trump-just-killed-his-8-year-old-sister/#comment-81
RCL
So someone was wrong once.
Conclusion, no poll will ever be correct again.
Polls don’t show chances of winning. They show only how many people prefer which candidate.
The percentages are guesses by self-styled pundits.
Actually, Clinton’s polling lead toward the end was within the margin of error that meant that the election could go either way.
2011 redux. Zzzz.
https://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/theintercept_20170130_obama-killed-a-16-year-old-american-in-yemen-trump-just-killed-his-8-year-old-sister/
RCL
This is what bothers me more than anything is Democrats (like Schmur crying) pretend to care about civil rights etc are DEAD silent on the massacre of Yemeni civilians, both directly and through its tyrannical Saudi partners. I am very saddened about the civilians being killed in this raid along with the 8 year old. I would say these killings are deliberate and blood libel. Looks like a long 4 or 8 years of this slaughtering. And, I actually did just finish reading Dirty Wars, excellent book, and know exactly the details of the Awlakis in Yemen.
Agree with you 100%. Where was CNN and FNN over the last 8 years?
Dozens killed in Yemen in first US special forces raid under Trump
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/30/yeme-j30.html
“jeremy scahill [email protected] 2h2 hours ago
Early tomorrow morning, we will publish a major story at @theintercept that the government does not want out. Stay tuned.”
Oh, my. Jeremy teasing a story. Likely a significant step toward spontaneous combustion of the Vulgarian.
Sometimes, it sucks being on Pacific time.
I’ve seen it:
“Donald Trump Has Fired The Guinea Pig That Lives On His Head.”
Stay tuned…
That’s my favorite millennial. Maybe the young ones aren’t so bad after all. Of course, they’ll improve with age. ;^)
Well, my bitter, blaming mood seems to have passed. Probably because so many of you guys and gals here give getting older not such a bad rep. I’m glad I didn’t take my mood to Fox News or CNN. And yes, perhaps my whine will improve with age.
Plus I remembered that I’m vegan, and can’t eat elderly people after all.
Too bad, as I had a ‘Smarties’ joke ready about eating socialists (the red ones) last , damn it!
I know some, in high stations and positions of influence, who are de facto vegetables. It should be OK to eat them.
It’s about the FBI:
Reliable Sources
Why, thank you!
This’s why the oldsters keep you around…fast reflexes!
Don’t you miss Spy magazine? I do. Short-fingered Vulgarian.
I would never deny that innocent civilians, many of whom are children, have died at the hand of US attacks. But I can’t help but be a bit doubtful of this story.. How likely is it that in the first Trump OK’d attack, the sister of a boy killed by an Obama attack is killed? Those are some incredible odds. And the grandfather in no time knows it’s her? Did she miss her daily facetime session? I’m all for calling attention to civilians dying in US strikes but this story seems sketchy.
Great article. I’m a libertarian who has long been a fan of Glenn’s great journalism. As much as I’d like to join with the protesters in demonstrating against Trump’s abuses, so much of the Left has lost all credibility and I can’t endorse their agenda either. With heroic exceptions like Greenwald and Scahill, the anti-war Left has been on hiatus during the Obama years and I don’t even see them objecting to the supposed “war on terror” policies now that Trump is in office! Fucking hypocrites. Murdering children is okay if the progressive black president is doing it.
Trump’s immigration restriction is foolish but I can’t help but laugh when some of the biggest neo-con and liberal hawk warmongers complain that THIS policy is what will motivate ISIS propaganda and boost their recruitment.
It surely won’t help, but what motivates terrorist recruitment far more is the wanton murder of innocents including women and children. What boosts recruitment is when our military and/or CIA destroy their countries, install puppet dictators, impose murderous sanctions and impose our values on them through force and intimidation.
Robert Pape discussed this in his great book Dying to Win. Our terrorist problem is entirely blowback for our foreign policy. Muslim terrorists correctly observe that the United States has been at war against them for decades and they oppose our occupation. They don’t attack us because the Quran instructs them to. I understand clueless Republicans believing this anti-Muslim bullshit, but the Left has less of an excuse.
As a libertarian, I welcome the Left (as hypocritical as most of them are) back into the anti-war camp where libertarians have stood nearly alone during the Obama years. It doesn’t hurt to have a set of principles and stick to them.
Many of these same liberals would doubtless be cheering on a Hillary administration in their efforts to arm terrorists in Syria, impose a no-fly zone and fight a new cold war against Russia. The hypocrisy is simply staggering.
Good for you Glenn for trying to educate these liberals but I fear they won’t listen.
Mr. Greenwald should understand that American politics operates under rules that were laid out by Charles Darwin. The lambs will be eaten by the lions. That will not change.
Don’t underestimate the lambs.
Thanks Greenwald for adding this to documented history.
Only response the terrorist have to this piece is “911 911 911″.
You know in Islam and Judaism there is principal called “Eye for an Eye”. That rules not only provides you with equal justice but more importantly it provides a limit so people do not transgress. After the death of religion in the west people have also lose concept of justice. people are being punished for thought crimes and then we have this war on terror. Our (American) government believes that 911 is like get out of Jail card. They can kill for next couple of centuries as long they can play the 911 card. In 2006 in Iraq there were 3,000 people were dying every months. How many children died because of our use of chemical weapons in Falluja?
It has to end. These freaks can not be allowed to continue killing and raping on the name of innocent who dies on 9/11/2011. They already killed more then 2,000,000 Muslims. How coincident where ever these people want to attack suddenly locals start killing each other and Al-Quaida raises it head.
Somebody thought full need to think and stand up for justice. We the American people are asleep. Afraid and spent
I think it’s ok to fry the skins off of those crazy people over there because most people I know don’t seem to mind it at all. There’s nothing we can do about it. People been killin’ people for thousands of years. Whatever I don’t care. Trump’s the bad guy. TRUMP’S THE BAD GUY! Republicans are evil wouldn’t let Obama do anything. He tried. I don’t care.
Every moment of the continuum of human society has its disbelievers, its Times analogue and its enlightened readers–who think their epoch is the modern, scientific, civilized one. Everybody gowned in togas fixed with crystal brooch communicators, and rhetoric salons, and grapes. And there’s no more power trips or family scions with unimaginable wealth who are profoundly bored with provincial Europe and wouldn’t think of wanting to organize to take over the world.
And where do you come in my dear Communete ?
Tween spasmodic thighs,,, groans of thrill ?
Or just flop on the bar room floor ?
“While debate is encouraged, name-calling is not.”
https://theintercept.com/comments-policy-and-guidelines/
Someone forgot to tell the most active commenters here, because I have rarely if ever seen a site publishing more verbal abuse than The Intercept. I guess they take their hints from the verbal abuse condoned by the site’s authors like Glenn Greenwald, who has not engaged in a single debate in the last 8 years without employing denigration of those who dare, DARE I say, disagree with His Imminence.
the level of abuse is relatively mild here.
You would not say that if you were on the wrong side of an argument made by a columnist published on TI. I’ve been treated better at Breitbart in the past. Now THAT is saying something.
Breitbart is mannered. You’re dealing with liberal columnists here.
Abuse is what Thomas Jefferson did to his slaves !!
Hilariously, fragile snowflake Hobart said this about Glenn:
But this pig-ignorant DNC-hack’s knickers are in a twist about “verbal abuse.” [eye roll]
“Alex, I’ll take ‘What is can dish it out but can’t take it?’ for $2,000.”
You always write something weird. “Hobart” underlined an official policy of the Intercept that is obviously being ignored. Your argument:
“He does not follow that policy and I will not follow that policy”
Are you saying TI policies are useless? It seems to me that both of you should at least get a warning for blatantly ignoring that policy.
This coming from the whiny bitch who just a day or two ago threatened to report me to Intercept moderators for having the temerity to openly expose her chronic use of sock puppets.
Hey ,,
Hobie ,,,
Where ya’ll been ? We show miss ya dribbling mouth did .
Are you calling the cops ?
NAME CALLING ? —WITH A NAME LIKE HOBART?
Gimme a break !!
The word you mean is “eminence,” as “imminence” means something about to occur, and eminence is fame or recognized superiority (obviously what you were going for)
You… you… you… bad speller, you.
Oh Maisey ,,
I was a bad speller , still am ,, great in arithmetic and geography . I know stuff about the Phoenicians that would turn your head .
And any one that want’s to know what Einstein’s general theory is about ,,, call on old Mudbone !!
P.S. It’s just a model !
Yes, you’ve added a ‘y’ to my name!
I was just piling on poor Hobart to be silly. Actually his was wrong word choice, an even worse sin.
Although badd speling iz a pet peve of myne.
I’ll ask you about Einstein some other time, The Phoenicians (which you spelled beautifully), too. I like my head being turned.
We do not need to be “encouraged” to call DNC hacks “DNC hacks.” And yes, on Twitter and elsewhere Glenn Greenwald names liars and imbeciles as “liars” and “imbeciles.”
Oh, absolutely, Glenn “denigrates” about as masterfully as I’ve seen to those who deserve it for being, e.g., homophobes, authoritarians or party hacks. At the CompuServe site where he and I met, a phalanx of conservatives tried like hell to get us both banned. They failed.
Wait.
Didn’t you just denigrate Greenwald and all the most active commenters?
Next!
This commenting system is hilariously inefficient. One has to load the page EVERY SINGLE TIME to gain awareness of new comments or replies, thus conversation is discouraged. Maybe that’s how The Intercept prefers it.
There is no flagging function for abusive content and whatever moderators this site allegedly employs appear to be on a permanent vacation. This is a feature on nearly every site on the Internet, but not the supposedly uber revolutionary new media site TI, funded almost exclusively by one billionaire? How curious.
I mean, you can’t even make a user ID. You can post whatever name you like in the comment and are required to cite your email address Every. Single. Time. Disqus doesn’t do that. Livefyre doesn’t do that. 99% of web sites don’t do that. Why is The Intercept so antiquated in its approach?
Aww, pobrecito!
Here ya go, get in touch with Travis and give him a list of the people who have hurt your crummy little feelings:
Of course, considering all the defects and undesirable behavior you’ve listed, you might be happier to go somewhere else to share your wisdom.
The operation, which Trump said “will assist the US in preventing terrorism against its citizens and people around the world”, was the first major US military action in Yemen since he took office on January 20.
– ‘Heinous crime’ –
A statement from AQAP said that 30 people died in the raid — “only women and children… with some tribal leaders who have no connections” to the group, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group.
AQAP claimed an Apache helicopter fired more than a dozen rockets at three houses in the area, condemning what it called a “heinous crime”.
Trump chats with Saudi, Abu Dhabi leaders
Why would he be talking with Leaders of these countries after his massacre? Duh..they are trying to steal oil routes and oil….see all below
Critics point out that the nations where the Sept. 11 hijackers hailed from — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon — are not included on the list. Neither is Pakistan, the home of the 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad.
Saudi Arabia
Companies
Jeddah
Trump lists companies on his FEC filing possibly related to a development project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest city, located outside Mecca: DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager LLC, DT Jeddah Technical Services Manager Member Corp., THC Jeddah Hotel Manager LLC and THC Jeddah Hotel Manager Member Corp.
Egypt
Companies
Trump lists two companies on his FEC filing possibly related to business in Egypt: Trump Marks Egypt and Trump Marks Egypt LLC.
United Arab Emirates
Trump Golf courses
Dubai
The Trump Organization has a licensing and management deal in Dubai with Damac Properties Dubai Co. for a golf course and luxury villas currently under construction. Another Trump-branded golf course, designed by Tiger Woods, is under development with Damac nearby.
Glenn Greenwald is a negative loser.
The Deaths of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki are among the accomplishments of President Barack Obama.
Snowden & Greenwald are circling the drain.
Glenn has been off his rocker for at least a decade, constantly searching for that moment where he personally turns the tide and everyone worships him as some sort of infallible saint, agrees with every word he says, and anyone who disagrees is forever condemned as irredeemably malicious and shamed into silence permanently.
It will never happen. He sealed his fate as an irrelevant voice when he chose to side with Snowden in defense of treason against the United States.
In an attempt to take an unenslaved society down a rung or two, one of the goals of organized globalism (which some, who style themselves thinkers, refuse to believe exists), is to make the world hate America.
WAKE UP !!! THE WORLD HATES AMERICA BECAUSE IT’S BOMBING BOMBING EVERY THING EXCEPT JERSEY “!!
Well said! These imbeciles don’t even come close to getting what you’re saying. Your friend mudbone really gets worked doesn’t he? Intercept fans here are like Kindergartners.
Scheiss idioten
The problems with TI are now threefold :
1——–Linking
2——–Quoting
3——–Linking + Quoting
Its worst than a shit blitz in WWII !
Not to mention your copy and paste !!
Even though I don’t agree with any of it and I know that they don’t give a sh!t about how much “collateral damage” may be in their way, I took the time to read twice Glenn’s article and the NY Times ones, trying to figure out what they gained out of it:
yet, no where is clear why they had to kill 30+ people. It is all about what they see as hypothetical ends justifying the means at any cost.
… the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and the several other innocent Yemenis have names and had lived so long until they were killed by USG because that “hit” gave them some points in their computer games …
For Christ’s sake, how much multitasking do you expect Mr “Yes we can” to do?!? He never said or implied “Yes I can”. He was packing the hell out of the White House and at the same time busy bombing people all the way to the end of his term. Yet, having left “unfinished jobs” should be enough to claim back his Nobel Peace Prize.
// __ President Donald Trump’s Oil Grab Policy Puts US Troops At Risk | Rachel Maddow
youtube.com/watch?v=TIoAN8GxD7E
~
… “could” contain “clues” … as perceived by the genocidally, psychopathic USG. Trump, just doesn’t care about political correctness (which doesn’t have to be a bad thing, really). In fact, let’s keep the count straight. So, far he has killed, how many? 30 individuals? I would bet one of my balls Trump will start less wars, kill less people than Mr. “Yes we can”, “it turns out I am better at killing people than I could have ever imagined” did.
At some point during the Vietnam war they stopped the head counts, because, they said, it was “immoral”. Yeah, right! USG genocidally invades a country based on lies and then talks about morality! I think head counts are alright. At the end of the day, this is what it is all about, right? You kill one of our own and we will kill 30 of yours. I know, you don’t even have to kill one of our own.
Some of you have had issues when I compare USG with Nazi Germany during WWII
a) USG and their Western NATO acolytes have 8 timed the genocidal ratio of Nazi Germany during WWII (I know, I know Muslim people don’t count anyway, right? Oh, no, wait! Isn’t that the same Nazi mindset?)
b) When Nazis were doing their “freedom loving” they didn’t go half way around the world to mess with people who couldn’t defend themselves on an equal basis, but fought on Britain, Russia, France, … head on and all at once and kept fighting even after Russia raised the killing ratio to 1:1. Why is it so hard for USG and their NATO allies to find Russia and China on a map?
c) After the election I heard someway say “our secret service will not let someone like Trump be the POTUS” I wondered what she meant, since Trump had been already elected. I thought she meant that they had something on him that they could use to mess with his candidacy (they had already posted on the Washington Post nudes of his wife, mother of his son), but a friend clarified to me “no, she meant they would kill him” … Let’s see, now, how gringos fair in that department:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Donald_Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler
Even semi-god, Nobel Prize in Physics Max Planck lost his son Erwin in one of those attempts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Planck
Again, those women and children were human beings with names … We should not play their “they are less of a people than we are” game. Pronouncing Arabic is not that hard. The IPA would greatly help with it. Their names should be written in Arabic, with their English (and optimally IPA) transliteration.
Even mobsters understand you should not do this. But again, it is not even primarily about Trump, but USG as a whole and “We the people”. Politicians do this because they know they can get away with it. “‘The’ land of ‘the’ free and ‘the’ ‘brave'” has “democratically” gone down the toilet.
I have had to admit sooner than I expected I was wrong. I did expect Western MSM and US IT companies to keep being up Trump’s @ss, but, no they have once again, paid homage to their emperor, way quicker than I ever expected.
RCL
What President Trump or any president should do to significantly decrease Islamist terrorism: Apologize
Below, one Craig Summers writes:
Mona ,,
In the name of The Father , The Son , and DOCTOR VINNY BOOMBATZ ,,
please stop the damned 8 page BS !!
Craig is a winky little jerk ! Don’t waste your time with his pee .
My post is not for Craig.
Geez kid ,,
you started off CRAIG SUMMERS writes and I just took it from there .
Sorry .
Mud
How do get the ITALICS ?
How do you italicize ?
BRAVO
I get it !
italics
[<] i
or
[<]cite
looks like my last two replies didn't work
Try this page:
http://commenteditor.altervista.org
See Mona ,,
That’s a hard one for me ,,,,
PRESIDENT TRUMP
If only this was a cartoon !!
“What President Trump or any president should do to significantly decrease Islamist terrorism: Apologize”
Your statements are shockingly naive.
Islamist terrorists mostly kill Muslims. Americans/Westerners rarely get killed by Islamist terrorists. Sunni extremists will stop killing Shias in Pakistan if the US President apologizes? ISIS will decrease its genocidal policies if the US president apologizes?
“I pledge that the United States will no longer interfere in Muslim-majority nations.”
Yet, you complain about the US refusing Syrian refugees. If a sovereign nation must accept thousands of refugees ( some of whom could potentially cause harm to the host nation) at great costs, then it is in the interest of that nation to interfere at the source of the refugee crisis and attempt to stop it.
Rather obviously I’m talking about greatly reducing terrorism directed at Americans and on our soil. We can’t control intra-Mulsim violence any more than we could stop the carnage between the Brits and the Irish. But we can do a great deal to remove the target from our own back.
In so far as US government agencies arm and train radical groups (of various ideologies) in order to destablize governments not cooperating with the aims of US elites, US policy is partly and sometimes largely responsible for internal violence in many countries, Muslim or otherwise. An apology is some kind of start, but words are cheap.
That is still very naive and quite illogical.
1) Islamist terrorists attacks against the US have been reduced. Most of the terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11 have nothing to do with Islamists. So, there has been a decrease without the president apologizing. Do you want zero islamist terrorist attacks on US soil?
2) Islamist terrorists always move beyond the borders of the country they initially operate. Al Qaeda has been active in Indonesia for years. Indonesia has absolutely nothing to do with US policies in the Gulf States. Islamist terrorists attacked and killed hundred of Jews in Argentina. Argentina has nothing to do with US policy in Israel. What makes you think Sunni extremists will not attack American Shias on US soil?
“But we can do a great deal to remove the target from our own back.”
3) Your reasoning is incoherent. A terrorist group that target Christians worldwide does not care about the Chritians’ location. ISIS publicly stated Rome is one of their main destinations. Moreover, how can you remove yourself as a target if you are accepting the refugees they believe they have to kill for religious reasons?
4) Finally, I am not sure what ” stop interfering” means for you. If the democratically elected government of Iraq requests military help to fight a terrorist group that is responsible for a refugee crisis on our soil, do we say no because we do not want to interfere?
Your arguments are still very naive and quite illogical.
First, you stated an apology from the US president would reduce Islamist terrorism on US soil. Islamist terrorism on US soil is already extremely low. Law enforcement agencies in the US have consistently repeated for the last 15 years that right wing extremists are the greatest threat. (New America Foundation, 2015). Are you looking for zero Islamist terrorist attacks on US soil?
Secondly, empirical evidence do not even support your suggestion. Indonesia is a Muslim majority country with an elected government that has nothing to do with US policies in the Gulf States. Yet, Al Qaeda is very active on its soil killing its citizens. Argentina has nothing to do with the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts. Hundreds of Argentinian Jews were killed by Islamist terrorists on Argentina soil. What exactly should the elected Muslim Indonesian president who was elected by a majority Muslim electorate apologize for to other Muslim nations to prevent Al Qaeda from killing other Indonesian Muslims?
Finally, you stated there would be a reduction in Islamist terrorism on US soil if the US pledges to stop interfering in Muslim nations. What exactly does that mean? Interference is not only about toppling a democratically elected government in Iran or a dictator in Iraq.
For instance, a phone call from the CIA headquarter in Virginia to a police officer in Baghdad telling him there are 3 ISIS operatives who are about to blow up a market downtown constitutes interference in a domestic conflict. Sending just one military helicopter to pick up a few civilian Yazidis that are about to be massacred by ISIS constitute interference. So what exactly do you mean by interference. There was no US troops in Iraq when ISIS went out of control. Should Obama have ignored the request from the Iraqi government?
If the democratically elected government of a Muslim nation requests help for the US to fight a genocidal terrorist organization that is responsible for thousands of refugees attempting to come to the US, do we take those refugees at great costs, but we do not help that government because we will not interfere?
What you are essentially saying is that countries such the US, Germany, Turkey, Jordan…should accept thousands (millions) of refugees with the possibility of having terrorists among those refugees, with the high financial costs of sheltering, feeding and assimilating those refugees, and the political cost of having right wing extremists gaining power, but at the same time those receiving countries should not interfere at the source of the refugee crisis.
But the Occupy movement was a threat to democracy? https://goo.gl/IYEmHr
No ! It was a COP call to get all cells OCCUPIED TO BURSTING !!
Obama’s just glad people are mad at Trump and not him for being a comparable jerk to Muslims. He appears to actually believe his own bullshit, which would be funny if he hadn’t killed and deported so many innocents and surrendered to corporatism, militarism and imperialism at so many people’s expense. And yes, he stood by while Occupy was co-opted and crushed by his wonderful Party.
“Let me be clear… uh… Squirrel!”
Being a man of colored blood ( French , Chrokee , Black , and ??? ) from New Orleans or there abouts I know the white black issue ,, and it’s cost me . Only one that will still talk to me is my Son . Well , my grandson and grandaughter still like me ,,I think .
Skin color ain’t important ,,, heart and blood is Red . Geez Guys ,, get it together !!
maybe i’m seeing things, but you’re starting to remind me of piece of cake.
Eat up !!!
who iirc was mimi the 6 foot supermodel who worked as a physicist by day, and designed aircraft engines, and still had time to crapflood thread after thread.
Well, I’m talking to you.
You’re right that skin color isn’t important.
Next shot you down, let’s drink together to racial harmony. Heck, even cats and dogs living together, harmony everywhere.
Hey Maisie ,,
you ain’t getting no complaints from me on that school of thought . Me and dogs get along just fine ,,, but I’m scared of cats . Nancy likes cats . Whatcha gonna do ? Ever try mixing dogs and cats ? Better start early !
What’s Occupy?
A pie made of Occues?
You neglected to say that the 16 year old was riding with his Dad’s old terrorist buddies when the drone that was targeting them, got him too. Didn’t his Dad always tell him to be careful about who he hung around with?
PATHETIC writer!!!! Did either of our Presidents go over there and pull the trigger??? How do you know it was fire from one of our troops and not the enemy???? GET A LIFE!
Sorry, Jeremy, his father can be “at least be explained”……. I can’t buy it, he was an American citizen not tried before the American justice system. I’ve purchased your pubs. but I cannot buy into the at least explained assasination of an American citizen
Mr. Greenwald
You haven’t written an article on Syria in the five year civil war killing at least 300,000 people (except to lambaste Israel), but you treat the deaths of 30 civilians in a firefight (war zone) as if the US special forces targeted the civilians which obviously wasn’t the case. The US is at WAR with al-Qaeda.
1. Al-Qaeda declared war on the US twice in the 1990s. On September 11th, the US learned the hard way that al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were dedicated, serious and more than willing to attack and murder 3000 civilians.
2. Al-Qaeda’s murderous assault on mostly Muslims successfully reemerged in Iraq with the goal of spearheading sectarian violence. Al-Qaeda has a history of attacking and murdering mostly Muslims.
3. The Yemen government asked for US assistance in fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen.
4. The Yemen government with assistance from the US expelled al-Qaeda from Abyan Province liberating the Yemen people from al-Qaeda control. Amnesty documented severe human rights violations by al-Qaeda. Additionally, there is no way that the US is going to allow al-Qaeda to establish an area to plan attacks like 911.
5. The US was in a firefight when the civilians were killed yesterday. No one benefits when civilians are killed in war (especially children), but the fighting against al-Qaeda is a part of a long running war initiated by Bin Laden. With Trump at the helm, the “war on terror” will become only more intense.
You published an article at the Guardian in 2013 about Mothana’s speech to Congress. He was very articulate (albeit a propagandist), but he left out a couple of items about the war in Yemen – just as you did in 2013 and in today’s article. Al-Qaeda took control of Yemen’s Abyan Province at that time. In his speech before Congress, Mothana never mentioned the abuses committed by al-Qaeda in Yemen documented by Amnesty International:
The abuses by al-Qaeda certainly must have driven young Arabs into joining the Yemeni military. The Yemen government with the aid of the US military actually liberated the people from al-Qaeda.
LONG WINDED GASBAG !!!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjy6tfQievRAhUN6GMKHWeWAgYQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGoodyear_Blimp&psig=AFQjCNGJF-D70SyhDS4uvrDDztL4FDIH4Q&ust=1485907149142970
Hey, you’re using the actual
By popular demand!
It does make it easier to discern your quotes from your comments. Thanks.
Next thing you know he’ll try to come up with something of his own !!
HUH?
Great comment. The blood that Mr. Greenwald has splashed all over him, is his false equivalency articles about Clinton. Miles of print about the funding of the Foundation, not a single word did Mr. Greenwald ever write about the lives the Foundation saved. In this way, Greenwald was instrumental in getting Mr. Trump elected. Lucky for Mr. Greenwald, he’s funded by a naive billionaire and he lives far away. He’s having a good laugh now. And now he starts what you wrote above, his picking at the evidence to make his point, that both sides are equally egregious. One needs to criticize the Democrats, that’s for sure. But one should never obfuscate the truth. Yes, as Chomsky said, there really is a choice and one side will inflict infinitely greater pain on the weaker than the other. Mr. Greenwald even found himself on Fox News, the hero of the alt-Right, and now, of course, he’s not going to let up. Meanwhile, the brainless acolytes on this site will support him, as will the very naive, not particularly bright, Omar. Meanwhile, Greenwald will continue on, berating people like the Clintons for taking money from billionaires, while he does the same. Only his use for that billionaire money is deeply immoral. Like Assange, Mr. Greenwald is an utter sham.
No one ever had a problem with how funds were dispensed from the Foundation. It’s how they came IN and were given quid-pro-quo for arms sales in the middleast and other favors to be granted from HRC.
You can put your blinders back no now.
i think they had a problem with how the funds were dispensed too, but maybe that was the clinton global initiative. i need to read up on it, but the foundation has been heavily criticised for abysmal work in haiti.
Here, let me explain how journalism works. Let’s say I wanted to portray MLK as a monster, much like Greenwald did Hillary. In order to make a fool like you go along with that foolishness, I could write about all the animals he killed in his lifetime. I could go to the slaughterhouses where the cattle and chickens were killed, talk about the animals being marched to their death. After a while, as long as I never mentioned the work that MLK did, it would seem like MLK was a very heartless and cruel person. Or if you don’t give a shit about animals but were a moral prude, I could talk about all the philandering MLK did. You see, foolish and naive one, journalism can just as easily distort as it can explain. Mr. Greenwald was Trump’s best friend. I’m sure Trump would blow him a kiss as he did Comey if they come across each other.
“……Meanwhile, the brainless acolytes on this site will support him…..”
Yep, they are easy to manipulate.
“……..Like Assange, Mr. Greenwald is an utter sham……..”
Assange certainly is, but I don’t buy that Greenwald is. He is a good journalist – just misguided.
I agree and wish that there were a way to edit comments. Greenwald has been extremely good at times. This time, he didn’t seem to get it. Just like Trump can take a single incident and exploit it to make his point that Muslims are evil, so can Mr. Greenwald do the same, and he does it frequently. He was a welcome voice in calling out Obama, especially in his first term. He wrote an excellent article about Comey in 2013. But all of the violations of civil liberties were in place to write countless articles this past year. Mr. Comey coming out as a law enforcement officer in July and making an extraordinary statement the likes of which the nation had ever seen coming from top law enforcement. The utter sham investigation of [email protected]. Itself equivalent to trial of the Jim Crow days. Then not a peep out of Mr. Greenwald or his acolytes about the fact that Comey owes his entire career to Mr. Guiliani in the South District AG office, then the job that Mr. Comey got with Mr. Starr, another violator of civil liberties, then Mr. Ashcroft, then the railroading of Martha Stewart, then the job with Lockheed Martin, then the job with Bridgewater. Not a peep out of the great champion of civil liberties here. No, in fact, you could read between the lines on many of his tweets about Mr. Trump, he did indeed like him, even admired him. And of course the alt-Right picked up on it. Who wouldn’t want Greenwald on his side. The next four years and beyond, Mr. Greenwald will be continuing to try to show that Trump was inevitable. That he warned about him. That he’s a continuation of Democratic policy. That Hillary would have been just as bad. Another lie. It will go on, the pawns that frequent this site will revel in all the atrocities committed by Trump, as if they were privy to it through Greenwald’s eyes.
So my dear dumb Hillarybot, are you claiming that Glenn Greenwald has never written about James Comey, John Ashcroft or Rudy Guiliani, and the civil liberties offenses all are associated with?
He did warn about him. You Hillary/DNC hacks did not listen.
Finally, I think it fine and fitting that you are so tight with Craig Summers and have so much in common with him. A man who said he was voting for Trump, and who is an authoritarian and strong advocate of torture.
“………He did warn about him. You Hillary/DNC hacks did not listen……..”
Mackey warned about Trump – not Greenwald. Greenwald’s statements were just qualifiers to distance himself from Trump bigotry, but it was Mackey who really sounded the alarm at the Intercept about Trump. Your response to Mackey?
Was to complain to Greenwald about Mackey’s “support” for HRC. You of course are Greenwald’s former law partner – and I guess this entitles you to “fire” a journalist. Greenwald and you have one thing in common – your hatred for HRC.
READERS: About 95% of the time I do not reply to Craig Summers, who is an authoritarian, pro-torture, Republican who said he was a Trump-voter. Multiple commenters asked that I not reply to Craig because doing so causes him to post yet more walls of drivel-text, which pollutes the board.
Yeah ,, Assange can’t leave the Equadorian Emabassy because he did not wear a condom in Sweden !
Surely you jest ,, NO ?
Could you tell us what the crime that Assange committed in Sweden was ?
And if you say RAPE ,,, does it mean you did wear a condom ?
Pal ,,
the Government of America is the biggest blight on humanity since the flood !!
Classic. You’re so blinded by your partisanship and hatred of Glenn you quote Chomsky who is actually a personal friend and supporter of Glenn’s work.
You want to find a single example of where Chomsky believes Glenn did anything your described?
Or do you just want to concede you’re a bald-faced shameless liar which has been demonstrated so many times around here that you should be ashamed, assuming you had the capacity for shame or intellectual honesty when clearly you possess neither?
But hey yappy little dogs like you appear to need to bite at the ankles of your betters.
I’m not quite sure why you have this incredible need to treat guest to the Intercept so badly rr. You certainly have no grounds to criticize anyone on an intellectual basis. Chomski and Greenwald do think alike, but It’s unlikely that Greenwald voted for HRC (or would ever admit it).
Jimmy writes
A quote of Chomski:
As we have already seen, there is a lot of truth to what Jimmy said in the quote above. Do you rationally believe that Greenwald voted for HRC?
And for the record, that’s exactly how I leaned. Sanders until the spring when he became unviable. I didn’t buy Bernie math after a while, and my teenaged son canvassed for Hillary and reported back from south Philly and parts of the Bronx that the minority support for her was extraordinary. I found that out leading up to the election when making calls for Moveon.org. I heard Chomsky interviewed a number of times, and completely agreed with him, as I almost always do.
I feel particularly bitter at Greenwald because I was a real fan of his, particularly when he went after Obama who continues to inoculate people like Comey and Cheney’s good friend, Mr. Gates. The list goes on. This was a career changer, his aiding Trump by falsifying the larger Clinton picture, in my opinion. Sort of like Mr. Nader claiming that Bush and Gore were tweedley dee and dum etc.
You keep repeating this claim in one form or another. And me and many others have asked you to prove it.
Prove it with articles written by Glenn that you actually believed influenced an entire US election. And establish the subset of the electorate that would have voted for HRC, but for Glenn’s writing. And I’ll make it even easier for you, just focus on establishing that with regard to PA, MI and WI.
Because if you can’t do both, you’re full of shit and a liar in trying to blame HRC’s loss on someone like Glenn or his writing.
you hold your nose and you vote Democrat. I don’t think there’s any other rational choice.”…….”
I think there was a more rational choice .
I’ll hold your nose…rationally of course.
Of course I have a right to criticize anyone I choose on an intellectual basis, when they lie, can’t argue coherently or logically or morally–that’s why I criticize you and people like Jimmy. And I do it under my own name because I’ll stand by any of that criticism on the merits. Unlike either of you.
And if you don’t like my tone in doing it, who cares? I don’t like or agree with the tone of the morally depraved and ugly policies and arguments you advance here, and have for a long time, so I don’t feel obligated to show you any respect whatsoever. And if you don’t like my tone you can shove it up your ass for all I care, I’m not trying to win an internet popularity contest.
So what if Glenn voted for HRC or didn’t? How is that relevant to anything. The only people responsible for Trump being elected, as a logical and moral matter are those who voted for Trump. If Hillary Clinton couldn’t motivate enough people to beat Donald Fucking Trump, there are reasons for that, and none of them have to do with my vote, Glenn’s vote, or any Jill Stein voter because Hillary Clinton isn’t owed anybody’s vote in a democracy, and every individual casts their vote on the political and moral calculus they prefer. And if people don’t like that then they can shove it up their asses, and figure out how to appeal to those voters, or not. Either way not my problem.
Again, Glenn is likely registered to vote in NY, which is not a swing state and went overwhelmingly for HRC, as did Mass where Chomsky resides, and Oregon where I reside. So I’m sure Chomsky has no problem with me or Glenn voting for Jill Stein (or anybody not-Trump) assuming Glenn did (which I don’t know), but I voted for Stein for the second time.
See above. I do not believe there is any truth to what Jimmy said, that’s plain from my comment. That you think there is, is on you, but I disagree. And I don’t know who Glenn voted for or didn’t, but in no event do I believe he voted for Trump in which case I do not hold him to any personal moral responsibility for Trump’s victory–that’s on Trump voters, and people like you who aid and abet much of what “conservativism” stands for rhetorically, and probably in your real life.
I’ve been quite plain in stating I have nothing in common with people like you. I don’t like you and what you stand for. I don’t actually like having to share a country with people like you. But I actually believe in democracy and the institutions of this country, and the basic decency of a majority of my fellow citizens (unlike you) such that I believe we will survive and fight back against Trump, and people like you, until we win and utterly destroy your bankrupt worldview, or die trying.
That you don’t like or agree with any of that is fine by me. Or that you don’t like, agree with, or appreciate my tone. I don’t see you as my ally or a friend or even someone I could have a productive discussion with on much of anything outside of fishing or sports, so I don’t bother disguising my contempt for you, because I’m not a phony. And I don’t believe in civility in the face of uncivil worldviews.
Don’t flatter yourself. You are a total phony. Anyone that threatens to sue someone over the internet is so insecure that I’m surprised you don’t crawl into a hole and hide. The only request I have for you is for you to quit pretending you are some kind of intellectual giant because you are a lawyer. That doesn’t mean shit here. Get over it.
Thanks.
The only time I’ve ever suggested I’d sue someone is when they’ve defamed me by accusing me of having committed a crime when I haven’t. Because that has serious implications for someone in my profession. I’ve invited lots of people to sue me if they can, and it has never happened. Wonder why? Any guesses. They aren’t very confident in their legal position, or they are pathetic phonies like you.
And I’m not the one that’s insecure in my worldview or arguments, because unlike you I post them under my real name you pathetic coward.
As far as my intellectual “giantness” compared to someone like you I am. Particularly when it comes to law and politics because I’m sure I’ve studied (and lived them) at a much higher level than some anonymous crank like you with a morally bankrupt worldview.
So any time a pathetic coward like you wants to come out from behind their anonymity and stick their neck out for the opinions on any subject, feel free. Then I’ll at least have a scintilla of respect for you, and not one second before.
So in short, fuck off.
…interesting comment, should you buy into that whole channeling, corralling, me versus you, us versus them.
Nothing new… divide up into tribal factions, induce and exploit fear, scapegoat other lessors, make a pile of money, count on our human natures and a corporate complicit mass media to distract us.
Long past due to move beyond capitalist’s blinding ambition. Unless of course it’s self-serving…we all know what that human nature is referred to as…aye?
on 911, al qaeda did not attack us, you ignorant moron. it was an inside job. the rest of your rubbish is just as false
No need for “…..” at the beginning and end of a paragraph.
This is really a superb articulation.
But notice how commenters either defend your criticism of Obama as well as Trump, or they defend either Trump or Obama, or they defend “this mentality and framework.”
They do not discuss how to actually facilitate the vehement opposition to the Deep State which you so beautifully elucidate, nor do they take responsibility for not uniting to bring the establishment to heel yet – indeed, they excuse their failure to do so in variety of ways.
There’s just tribalism:
The ‘establishment’ tribe.
The ‘Muslims are animals’ tribe.
The ‘Obama’ tribe.
The ‘Trump’ tribe.
And the ‘Greenwald mustn’t be criticized’ tribe.
If only there was a “let’s do what he said” tribe!
Let me the first to suggest a bake sale or something.
“They do not discuss how to actually facilitate the vehement opposition to the Deep State which you so beautifully elucidate…”
Serious question-How?
Oh comon !! You know how .
But it’s against THE LAW !!
Only THE LAW can legally kill ,,, RIGHT ?
DOOH,,DAH,,DOOH,,DAH !!!!
ok, on “3” everyone shout, “I WANT MAH COUNTRY BAACK!”
ready…?
Are you from the SIOUX NATION ?
Showed those bloody savages a thing or two !!
I think Greenwald himself would answer this question, probably better than I could, if he saw a real interest in it. His spouse is politically active and as outspoken as Glenn is. But I’m pretty sure he just face-palms at most comment sections to his articles and would feel he’s imposing on his readers too much unless people asked for such advice in large numbers.
As for me, I think working with tech experts outside the system, and artists who wish to cause a 60s-like revival of peace-activist culture pervading movies, songs etc., and applied civil disobedience unconnected with either major Party might be the way. This time, unlike the 60s, we have to follow through after the politicians are compelled to join in.
But it’s Greenwald who made this point so well. Let’s ask him!
Oh, I forgot – if the above doesn’t work, and Greenwald isn’t forthcoming with solutions or aspirations of his own, it’s on to Plan B:
Eat all the old people. Starting with the rich.
You can never run out of poor old people Maisie . But it’s tough old meat !!!
A little Gran-burger Helper (to make biddy-patties) and some elder-berry wine can mitigate that!
The rich codgers and old bags are always praising their own ‘good taste’, however, and it’ll be appropriate to see if they’re lying about it!
the young are much tastier, but you have to boil them in water alive to get the full flavor.
I’ve been eaten without being boiled.
I was a little baked, though.
Hey Maisie is that really the plan? Where are the demands?
It sounds like it’s from the “gee weren’t the sixties cool, and why do I belong to such generation” tribe.
You sound delicious. Yum yum.
now you sound like a yuppie foodie.
Just watch yourself if my kindlier plans don’t work, as you’ll be first up against the menu.
what plans?
And no, just throwing out ideas. My other plans are waiting on their copyright.
It’s all about cultural shift, baby. (Motto: Do it or we’ll eat you!)
ah copyright , figures the anti-capitalist is already thinking about how to make a buck.
1). I’m kidding about copyright.
2). I never claimed to be anti-capitalist. Anti-corporatist/militarist/imperialist, sure. Not anti-capitalist.
3). If I say my most earnest plans on this site it would be a waste as only those commenting read these.
4). I’d rather people like you were surprised-by than prepared-for what we have in mind in terms of peaceful, radical cultural shift.
5). I can’t think of anything for point #5.
6). Hugs and kisses from Maisie.
1) I know
2) fair enough, I stand corrected
3) what have you got to lose
4) I’m skeptical that you have anything in mind other than slogans like “radical cultural shift”
5) me either
6) wait a minute you promised to eat me now all I’m getting is a kiss!!! tease.
1). Good
2). Wonders never cease.
3). The element of surprise. Also, possibly my lover if I spend more time here.
4) Good.
5). There is no such thing as midichlorians.
6). I meant “cover you in ketchup,” my mistake.
There is, it’s called the Authoritarian Tribe.
I don’t see why taking his advice to heart would be authoritarian.
It seems like good sense, and cuts through the bullshit.
Sorry Maisie….guess I read it differently. If all or majority agree, then, yes….by all means. ;)
Actually it’s called ” THE OBEDIENT ONES “!!
AKA TAXPAYERS !!!
I guess it isn’t obvious that I was kidding about wishing for a “tribe” of following his advice. Such a group would undoubtedly be as little tribal as Greenwald appears, of necessity.
Maisie ,, now your are talking .
Us vs Them .
Family Values , etc .
I’ve had this line since I started commenting here .
Don’t know if I’ve helped but at least I’m starting to realize that I’m not alone .
The problem has been identified but I have not a clue on how to solve it .
That’s the misery of it all !!
Give up on the voting crap yet Glenn ?
And, sadly, it turns out I was right again–the suspect in custody for the Quebec City massacre at the mosque was a skinny white nationalist and cardboard cutout of that violent little zealot turd Dylan Roof.
AGAIN ?
Comon Herd ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Surely You Jest ,, No ?
But I am still of the opinion ,, and I stand firm here :
KEEP THAT ANIMAL ALIVE IN A CAGE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE
Every month throw a bucket of fresh rats in !!!
You need to stop spamming these threads with your nonsense, Mudbone.
Just tryin to keep the music alive Dog .
Just tryin to keep the music alive,,,DOG !
Quebec City mosque attack suspect known for right-wing online posts
http://www.theglobeandmail.com//news/national/quebec-city-mosque-attack-suspect-known-for-right-wing-online-posts/article33833044/?cmpid=rss1&click=sf_globe
“Sorry about the dead civilians, but this is war, and collateral damage and human shields, etc.”
This is a sentiment I see and hear a lot when people respond to articles like this one from Greenwald. “It’s OK to kill an 8 year-old because we need to act in our self-defense national security interest!”
Here’s the thing. Isn’t this precisely the moral argument, the ends justifying the means, that al Queda would make to justify 9/11? Surely they didn’t JUST want to kill civilians, but saw it as an unfortunate step towards a greater end? If we’re using the same reasoning as them, then what separates us other than tribal identity?
You’re argument only works when you completely make shit up.
Osama bin Ladin never said he didn’t want to kill civilians. He loved and celebrated it.
Thise civilians were kuffar – none believers. Killing kuffar isn’t a means to an end. It IS the end for Muslims. The whole point is that they get to go to heaven when they kill innocent civilians.
I’m guessing you’re a liberal atheist though so you can’t possibly believe that when a religious person says “I love death more than they love life” you think they’re lying and really motivating by politics bc the liberal just can’t put himself in the shoes of a religious fanatic
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Guaranteed to your make hog-breath go wild ,, or your money back ( TRY AND GET IT ) !
Thank you for the article Glenn. Sharing to my FB acct. It’ll be a nice break from all my Bannon/Pence/Drump bashing. Your reminder of continued US brutality abroad speaks to the definition of terrorism. That T-rump is going to wipe out ISIS is laughable, for with every innocent soul (collateral damage – a disgusting term for human life) lost, retribution is automatic. Hatfield-McCoy. David/Goliath etc.etc..
Trump isn’t wiping out ISIS. He repeatedly stated during the campaign that he would “defend” Saudi Arabia
Someone said triumphantly at one of the recent anti-Trump demonstrations, “We have our own tea party now.” For the original tea party everything was just great in the US until noon on 1/20/2009 when everything went to hell. Do the anti-Trump demonstrators really care about truth and justice or do they just hate Trump? The answer to that is important because it won’t be long before the state puts a nicer face on its crimes again. They know that Trump is a gross mistake and won’t do.
The US arms jihadists. They could give two fucks about stopping terrorism. Terrorism is great for business. Keep the population terrified of the foreign people in robes and allocate all monetary resources to military expenditures rather than infrastructure, education, and healthcare.
Usa_naziland is exterminating whole families,…whole villages…whole nations if it decides internally that it is a good thing. This country needs sanctions placed upon it by the international community. Americunts are complicit in the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians at the hands of its death-culture military industrial complex. Down with north-america!
if i didn’t already know it from scahill’s reporting i’d make a safe guess that this (and future atrocities) have the stench of erik prince all over them. as is typical of the bipartisan murder machine in DC he’s never seen a problem that can’t be solved with a death squad. it’s also worth noting that the civilians weren’t killed by an “errant” drone strike piloted from vegas but direct, eye-to-eye gunfire. surprised they didn’t try to dig the bullets out and call it an “honor killing”.
as i’ve said since before the election – trump is the president americans deserve. obama was the mask; a slightly ethnic patrick bateman who could spout flowery drivel and shoot some hoops to distract his idiot minions. trump is the face under the mask. that’s why he’s not an aberration but a case of “meet the new boss same as the old boss”.
he’s also a test. the election was a midterm F (unavoidable given the choices) and now the US has few chances left to pass. the protests would be promising if there had been a single one outside of BLM and occupy (which seemed to ignore obama’s role in both problems) over the past 8 years. or 14 years for that matter.
it’s odd that this is the second article to remind me of south park. there’s one where cartman goes back in time to the constitutional congress. they decide that it’s best to “grant” free speech so that the US can go to war any time it wants but look like reluctant peace lovers in the process. that’s all that most of the protests have been so far – “look how not into trump i am! LOOK AT ME WORLD!!!!”
to quote another cartoon: “that trick never works”.
Democratic hack, Hobart
Any questions, class, about the derangement and corruption of neoliberals?
ZZZzzzzzz….
So this is what it takes to feel good about living in America and being an American. All along i figured it was just the israelis who treated humans as disposable. Then it was wallstreet. Now it’s US. The wall is all fine and good, but this murder thing is very nazi styled – Trump should know that. He should also know that committing such acts causes mental health problems and cancer. There is probably a better way of getting results without the murdering. I have always advocated grilled steaks marijuana smoke and music at battle sites to be enjoyed by your targets. For those soldiers who need to see blood and guts you could also slaughter a goat or pig for the feast and grill that. The fans and loudspeakers would not cost much. I think maybe if we keep pushing this feast music and smoke idea that the contrast, as nutsy as it may seem, should get traction for many who really do believe the 10 commandements are for real.
Imagine marijuana bales, fired up and dropped upwind from “enemy” positions. Or set on racks on tanks, lots of bales, driving thru target areas. Follower tanks with racks of sizzling steaks. And local music. Sure beats killing women and children.
Lol just the Israelis?
Ok let’s see. Saudi Arabia treats their women as rape meat and bombs Yemen.
The UAE employ an army of bangledishi slaves to build their real estate empire. They invite them over and then steal their passports once they get there.
The Chinese as just one example of their ongoing genocides, have murdered 1.5 million tibetans.
the Russians used violence to conquer Crimea 2 years ago.
The Pakistanis government consistently use their power to subjugate the ammadiya minority who routinely suffer from armed attacks that kill scores each year
But tell me more about the Israelis think ppl are disposable
You play terrorism games and everybody in your life is at risk as collateral damage.
Breaking News! American lawyers are suddenly realizing they’re obsolete.
Not quite !!
What is obsolete is THE LAW .
The LAWYERS are just remaining maggots feeding on the DUNG HEAP OF LAW !!
Someone down thread mentioned something about Congress reining in something or other.
https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/825797672258961409
Congress’ likely response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QHHGHve_N0
Yeah, that’s Congress’ likely response.
For the moment, however, Congress isn’t nearly as important as the courts. That’s where the fight needs to be focused and where, at least in the near term, the battles are most likely to be won.
Has anyone heard of a petition for a stay or a TRO that has not been granted?
Congress isn’t nearly as important as the courts. That’s where the fight needs to be focused and where, at least in the near term, the battles are most likely to be won.
It was a federal court order they were trying to talk to CBP about. A federal court order the CBP has chosen to ignore. What happens next?
Yeah, something (war), but not other (confused CBP flunkies).
Well, tbh, I think Congress long ago abdicated their responsibilities wrt war. So now, for the moment, what we’re left with is the CBP stuff though I suspect that plate will be getting very crowded very soon.
Also, what makes you think the CBP flunkies are confused, as opposed to being on board with the orders and willing to apply them as enthusiastically as possible?
I had feeling this was going to happen. I was going to make a post about it last night.
I’m highly doubtful anything will stop Trump from doing what he’s doing. The SCOTUS can strike down as many Executive Orders as they wish, but in the end, all these departments are under the president’s authority and will execute his will or face the consequences of losing their jobs.
Truthfully, what good is the SCOTUS if they don’t have the teeth to enforce their rulings?
I’ve made the argument too many times that the DOJ and Attorney General should be either an elected position or under the SCOTUS. The only real option from years of building up the Executive branch is impeachment or cut off funding by Congress.
Everywhere we turn our heads there are Russian agents protecting America. Get your stories straight beautiful People. I’ve watched closely and read extensively. There are some serious, alternate, polar realities going on here like a bad case of psychosis. Get it up People. :) Luv yas!!!
oh yeah.
just add hot air, lies and guns
gotta be a name for that recipe
psycho American pie.
My conceptual toolbox belongs in a museum but at least I have a frame of reference:) I love America and American pie.
“polar realities” ?
Like Yes and No ?
No, not exactly like yes or no. More like lucid evaluation.
Some more continuity between the two presidents:
Trump’s executive order doesn’t even name the seven countries. The critical language is in section 3(c) of the executive order:
So the seven countries are those singled out for special treatment by section 217(a)(12) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, as amended in 2009 by the Travel Promotion Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-145, which, as it happens, was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Obama.
lol
the US democracy is being shredded by legal jibberish
i think the lawyers mimic’d this scientific notation thing on purpose to create a dependency upon them and then, so they can pull the wool over our eyes and claim US as lawbreakers of section 217(a)(12) of the INA,8 USC 1187(a)(12) which states that subsection 24A of paragraph 2 which states that item 4 of subpart 4 which states that such persons classed as 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 USC 1187(a)(12) revision 2.4 dated…. BLAH BLAH BLAH
TOAST.
That’s also a favored technique of Congress when they want to add a new special interest provision to the tax code, aka the Internal Revenue Code, so that only lawyers can figure out what they’re doing for their donors in return for campaign donations.
reminds me of when Luther translated the Bible to the readable language and the church objected. same trick eh? gives me an idea for a new law.
@Hobart
Is the ACLU also not “on the side of the facts” and betraying a “weird prejudice” against liberals like you?
To be clear, yes, I believe they are wrong and yes, I believe they are not on the side of the facts when they declare constitutional due process protections for enemy combatants at war with the United States. Period.
It seems that those two terms get thrown about a bit too much these days. Glenn is surely not a sociopath.
You may not have been around during his Salon years but I was and his treatment of anyone who dared raise a whiff of criticism of his opinions was beyond deplorable. Vicious doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“ENEMY COMBATANTS”—-are you out of your F’in mind ?
You can take your “BELIEFS” and jam up your ahole !!!
The American Government has NOT DECLARED war IN 60 YEARS . IT BOMBS EVERYBODY !!
The likelihood of a comment having a serious point to make has an inverse relationship with the use of ALL CAPS and puerile insults.
Always nice to encounter a learned shit like you ,, Hobart !!
But the point stands Hobart, where is the limit? Congress is unwilling to declare war thus granting unlimited discretion to the Executive Branch to make war. That is not what was envisioned at the creation of the US. Given the longstanding consequences and inherent dangers associated with war, both the Executive and the Legislative Branches must agree.
You can disagree with the position of the ACLU, but the Constitution provides due process rights to all American citizens. If you don’t like that, the answer is not to grant the Executive Branch unlimited deference to decide who gets a trial and who doesn’t. The solution is to change the constitution to reduce due process rights or change the citizenship laws to make clear what conduct forfeits citizenship. If Congress can’t accomplish either of those, then perhaps the current system is best and we should continue on with our long standing tradition.
Congress has actually declared war. Glenn is under the ahistorical and counterfactual impression an AUMF doesn’t cut it. There are a number of reasons why Congress chooses an AUMF in circumstances, some of them justified and some of them deeply cynical. Regardless, if any of y’all had a point about an AUMF being constitutionally illegitimate, you could prove it in the courts. Since none of you have, the policy stands, as law, today, and will be executed by the Executive pursuant to the will of Congress, the representatives of We the People. I doubt you could find more than 10% of the public to support undeclaring war against Al Qaeda.
American citizens who wage war against our country have no due process rights beyond what is permitted under the laws of armed conflict. No, a militant at war doesn’t need to be served a warrant before you shoot him, he doesn’t deserve a trial prior to attacking him when he attacks the nation, and killing him is without question constitutionally justified and legal under international law.
Note, by the way, the facts are not on the ACLU’s side in this instance since Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta was dismissed due to lack of standing and because most if not all challenges to declared armed conflicts are dismissed by the courts as inherently a political question. If he or you want to say we should cease war with Al Qaeda, go right ahead and say that but I doubt you’d find more than a tiny minority of Americans to support such a position, and without the majority, your words mean nothing under the law.
War with Al Qaeda, ?
Geez Hobbie , that war brand no longer sells . TERROR is the most marketable WAR BRAND now Hobbie .
Craps , Almighty ,,, keep up !!!
Nope. A congressional declaration of war has a specific meaning and consequences that flow therefrom. No declaration of war has happened.
Even idiot Alberto Gonzalez got that point.
Congress has actually declared war. ?
NO. THEY HAVE NOT.
the AUMF has always been the privilege of the president as commander in chief. However, the actual implementation of the use of military force requires a FORMAL DECLARATION OF WAR BY CONGRESS.
the AUMF is illegal because congress has never used the word WAR.
the NDAA is illegal because Americans have a CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS clause.
But the pimped out good for nothing whores in congress who would rather work for Pol Pot dont give a rats ass because they are do anything good for nothing pimped out whores for weapons and wars.
they are also very very stupid overcompensating underachievers seeking applause and cheers and bravado from the public they are pretending to save from the fires they cause which incidentally, puts them in the class of sociopathic psychozoids fit in need of being housed in the institution for the criminally insane with their wallstreet pimps.
would be funny if someone renamed the congress building – House of the criminally insane.
I am well aware of the AUMF. In general, I believe in the concept of limited government power and I think that the AUMF has been twisted past the breaking point to justify all kinds of stuff for wont of a more specific and timely AUMF or similar declaration. If you recall, even Obama requested an AUMF vis-a-vis ISIS. When he didn’t get it, he returned to the one from 2001.
I agree that war with al-qaeda is authorized. But I do not think that joining al-qaeda undercuts or serves to sever citizenship. There is no precedent or history to support that position. And, provision of Due Process to American citizens is not a political question, regardless of whether the case you mentioned was a political question. But more importantly, the political question doctrine does not mean that a government action is Constitutional, it just means the Court won’t reach the merits of a case that is a political question. So the decision in Al-Aulaqi does not mean that the President had the authority to do what he did, just that the Courts refused to review it.
I do not think that we need to cease war with Al-Qaeda, but I think that war with Al-Qaeda does not justify extra-judicial assassination of American civilians. I am also heavily critical of the way that the US wages war, especially the way we have conducted ourselves in Yemen (widespread use of drones that kill too many civilians, uncritical support for Saudi Arabia which is pushing a practice of targeting civilians and civilian-infrastructure).
I think liberals and democrats gave too much leeway to Obama, despite his continuation of many Bush-era policies that he ran against. I have been arguing with my partner about this for 7 years.
uh oh
Congress is unwilling to declare war thus granting unlimited discretion to the Executive Branch to make war.
yep – not just a constitutional crises, but a crises of cowardice by the pimped out whores in congress which i refer to as the dumb&dumbers. so this whole thing is going off in their face is it.
paul ryan is a particularly loathesome species. Fracking will put never diminishing chemicals into our water supply used for drinking and farming. in about 20 years, we will be a nation of blithering idiots a lot like the zombie creatures, mindless, lacking direction, paranoid gun toting mobs aimlessly looking for food and water. Flint michigan being the capital of the new way.
INVERSE ?????
Don’t go there Hobbie ,,, I’ll skin ya live !!
Very good. Hobart informs us that the ACLU is wrong on the law, specifically the Constitution. ‘nuf said.
My notification is not what matters.
The notification of a district court of the United States does, and they dismissed the suit as without merit a long time ago. Sorry you choose to live in the past.
Hobbie ,,,
because it’s THE LAW does not make it right .
Nope, that’s not what the district court ruled, not even sort of. The suit was dismissed before — and without — reaching the merits, on the procedural ground of standing.
At this point I declare you an ignorant doofus, because you’ve demonstrated yourself to be exactly that.
@rrheard
You implied below that I may be in agreement with people who are “blaming Glenn Greenwald personally” for Trump’s election victory. Since some people might actually read that nonsense and not go back to see my response, I am putting this up at the top.
I do not in any way blame Glenn Greenwald for Trump’s election victory. The suggestion that I do is utter and total bullshit. If I didn’t respect you RR, I would urge you to do something anatomically implausible with that insinuation.
Just or the record, I blame Bernie Sanders. Two things I have learned here are that (1) losing candidates are to blame for their defeats because they should have campaigned better, and (2) Sanders would have defeated Trump in the general election if only he had defeated Clinton in the Democratic primary. Therefore, since Sanders did not campaign well enough to defeat Clinton, this is all his fault.
Therefore, since Sanders did not campaign well enough to defeat Clinton, this is all his fault.
Had the DNC not done everything in their power to destroy his campaign and had the democrats held open primaries wherein all the people who wanted to vote for Sanders could vote for him, then I would agree with you.
Sanders knew before he undertook his campaign that Democratic primaries in many states would be restricted to Democratic voters. Clearly, he did not campaign well enough to win a sufficient number of their votes, which is his own fault.
On the other hand, as a former Clinton supporter, I do acknowledge that inappropriate intervention against one’s preferred candidate by parties that should remain neutral can be frustrating.
Sanders’ knowledge of how the democrats restrict the freedom of choice of voters has nothing to do with whether or not such restrictions should be in place as opposed to allowing voters the freedom to choose who they actually wish to support. Perhaps next time around the democrats will be more considerate of the large faction who was clearly not enamored of their Chosen One.
Clearly, he did not campaign well enough to win a sufficient number of their votes, which is his own fault.
Thank you for acknowledging same wrt Clinton losing to Trump. I have gotten tired of being scapegoated by bitter Clintonites for refusing to vote for either one of them.
That goes a long way toward helping us move past this stuff and allowing us to focus on what should be of premier importance, the bullshit Trump and his minions are stirring up. On that I think we can agree wholeheartedly.
Actually I don’t blame Sanders or HRC for their respective defeats. Sanders lost, in my opinion, because voting was (rightly or wrongly) largely restricted to Democrats and his opponent was one of the 3 or 4 most prominent Democrats of the last quarter century, whereas he had joined the party the previous year. Clinton lost, in my opinion, because she was ratfucked by the FBI.
I think your vote for someone other than HRC in the general election was profoundly misguided. That in no way diminishes my great respect for you or my perception of your moral authority.
what sanders didn’t know is how many of his votes could be stolen by switching them to independent, or any of the other dirty tricks. or how corrupt clinton really was. i like to think he would have broken his promise to support her had he realized how badly his supporters had been screwed, just to remind them, they were told they weren’t needed at the convention. apparently that wasn’t true. but it’s nice that clinton won california by roughly 3 million votes she didn’t need, and lost rust belt states because the campaign didn’t allocate sufficient resources, or because the dnc didn’t have effective voter registration campaigns. somehow the campain got 8 million or so votes fewer than obama. oh wait, it was putin.
the sad part about all this is it gave us trump.
Gator, you lack moral authority for that post. You voted for Hillary Clinton in the Florida primary and gushed with joy at meeting and touching her.
Further, you omit the demonstrable ways in which the DNC sandbagged Sanders in support of their would-be Queen.
rotflol
mona, you are amazing
that was a smackback if ever there was one.
no kidding, i am laffing so hard my eyes are watered.
super memory
Problem with #2 above is that HRC and the DNC did every sneaky thing they could to make sure Clinton won. When there is collusion, fraud usually prevails and is hard to detect.
Not really the victim’s fault. You should reconsider #2 above, IMO.
What Pedinska, Mona, and Galactus said.
Watching ABC’s Sunday talk show with Donna Brazile on for weeks at a time praising Hillary is just one example of why Sanders lost.
If The Intercept has taught us anything, it is that any disagreement with their views, reporting or their ‘reporters’ is automatically sign of moral avarice.
“since Sanders did not campaign well enough to defeat Clinton, this is all his fault.”
Putting this under the “what I’ve learned here” category is disingenuous to say the least.
I’d sadly hang my hat on that assessment if it were anything close to correct. It isn’t. There were so many machinations documenter by reporters and commenters here involving voter suppression and collusion regarding how the DNC handled the primaries (certainly not an impartial party to all candidates ) and their job of “or articulating and promoting the Democratic platform” was overtly prejudicial throughout.
Confession: I watch too much TV.
All major networks (Fox, CNN, MSNBC) gave Clinton 90% coverage compared to Sanders. To blame Sanders for that is disingenuous at minimum. Sanders killed it, and noone saw it.
Drumpf too got 90% coverage compared to the rest of the GOP candidates.
Vile are the media moguls.
Yeah ,,Bernie took $575 of my boodle . And about 120 hours of pamphlet carrying sweat .
But when you come right down to it pal ,,,
I don’t see any difference between winning and losing politicians .
S CUM OF THE EARTH ,, ALL OF THEM !
If you think I was trying to insinuate something I wasn’t. I said it plainly. I think you’re foolish for engaging that nonsense over at LGM Blog, and it is a fact I’ve never seen you push back on the very common attempts by both the writers there and many commenters to blame Glenn Greenwald personally for Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Much less all the other nasty shit that is said about him over there.
Your the one who chooses to comment there and thinks they offer something worthwhile. That you never, or rarely if ever push back against the bullshit leveled at Glenn there–people can take it however they like.
That you don’t personally blame Glenn, I have no doubt. But that also wasn’t what I implied or stated.
And if you actually blame Bernie Sanders in any way, and I’m assuming you’re being tongue in cheek as a person who gladly voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary (assuming my memory is correct and I believe it is), then I’m happy to tell you what I really think of you, and I’m guessing if your serious about respecting me, you no longer would.
So how about we don’t have that discussion if that’s what you really believe so we can continue to be on relatively civil terms?
Your implication was quite clear and it was bullshit.
Of course I don’t blame Sanders. I just think it’s funny (both funny-strange and funny-haha) that many folks around here, including you, steadfastly insist that HRC’s defeat was the fault of her and her campaign, while holding Sanders and his campaign blameless for his own defeat. Especially given that HRC’s grievances regarding inappropriate interference by actors that should have been neutral are at least as valid as Sanders’ own. (Much more valid, IMHO, but reasonable minds may differ on that.)
And of course I’m serious about respecting you. I have unflaggingly done so ever since you started commenting at GG’s place (in whatever long-ago age that was).
As for GG and LGM, he’s a big boy and doesn’t need me to defend him in that forum. I don’t go there to get in raging dust-ups about Glenn. Whatever I want to say about him will be said here.
Okay what was the implication you think I was trying to make that I was afraid to make or state plainly. I’m stating it plainly, again, I think that fact you don’t push back against all the crap that gets flung at Glenn there, while choosing to participate in the comments there means something. It means something to me, but may mean something to others. I left it for them to decide what, which is precisely why I phrased it the way I did.
I don’t think you personally blame Glenn, but you allow others to do so where you choose to hang out and comment. I think that’s week given how you’ve been a long time commenter here and other places under Glenn’s work.
Who said I hold him blameless. He obviously should have started campaigning early if he wanted to improve his chances, and he needed to have a spent a lot more time and effort attempting to make inroads on Hillary Clinton’s long-time political relationships and advantages. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never said otherwise or been asked. But there you have it. I’ve also stated many times for the record I didn’t find certain enumerated positions (or omissions re: policy) of Bernie Sanders as problematic for me personally. But on the whole he was the closest thing to the type of Democratic party member I could support running for President.
Dang it typo:
He wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. He had a couple of positions re: foreign policy (or lack thereof) that gave me pause. But he was by and large an FDR “liberal” and that’s good enough to get my vote, funds and effort. HRC never will be and never has been.
But all you HRC voters had a chance to back him instead of her, and he was far superior in so many ways, but you stuck with all that self-fulfilling “electability” crap, and overlooked her many many shortcomings in letting her get out of the primary. All you have to do is own that choice and I don’t have a problem with you except that many of us warned you (and I mean collectively “you” as Hillary supporters) and you didn’t listen. So don’t blame us for what happened.
I was never going to vote for her under any circumstance because she is emblematic of everything I don’t like about the Democratic party and its current neoliberal centrism both domestically and as a function of foreign policy. And nobody was going to convince me otherwise because I was well aware of her positions, and that they only changed for the better (and I mean rhetorically because I don’t think she changed them except out of pure political opportunism and necessity rather than actual conviction) because Bernie forced her too otherwise she would have lost in an even larger landslide electorally.
RR- Apology noted, accepted and appreciated.
If you think GG needs defending at LGM, there is nothing stopping you from doing so. I don’t feel the need to do it any more than I feel compelled to defend Scott Lemieux (whom I admire) against your insults here. GG is not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, and neither is Scott. I happen to like em both.
Hobart
slightly edited for clarity
Glenn know[s every] damn thing about due process [and] the rule of law, especially when he willfully [cites] the fact, FACT we are at war with [many Arab countries] and due process rights have [always] in American [and] human history [been] applied to enemy combatants in a declared armed conflict [by way of the Geneva convention and basic standards of human decency]. [My ignorance and pure faith in the U.S. government] has turned me into a permanent critic of him and his supporters especially as his [logical and honest] views[. My] vitriolic approach [hasn’t] done [anything] to damage [a] liberal defense of civil and human rights[. I admire every] right wing conservative you could name, living or dead.
I have [just] declared the ends justify the means [and] have I stated constitutional principle doesn’t matter. I have very serious disagreements with Glenn because he is not on the side [of the U.S. government] and what is worse [is] his weird prejudice is against [government shills] like me[.] [H]e is doing more to serve liberal politics than he is in defending [the U.S. government]. [I am] a narcissist and a sociopath[ic name-caller] which is probably why [I] admires Trump so much.
The derivative imitation you provide of my own comment suggests I’ve really struck a chord somewhere in your brain. I’m so sorry I criticized your Dear Leader. I mistook this site as a place for discussion among reasonable Americans as opposed to emotional children.
Imitation, by the way, is the most sincere form of flattery.
Ah, I sincerely doubt you find Doc’s stinging parody to constitute flattery. But then, you’ve demonstrated a sever deficit in reasoning skills, relying on bare assertions with no basis in reality. (By your “reasoning,” the ACLU is a nest of anti-liberal idiots who don’t understand constitutional law.)
Stinging, boy do I feel stung. I’m going to go crawl into bed now because some anonymous Internet commenter said things about my sever [sic] deficit in reasoning skills. You guys sure have shown me.
“the ACLU is a nest of anti-liberal idiots who don’t understand constitutional law”
When y’all seek to tie your defense of known terrorists to the very important and sincere cause of civil liberties, yeah, that’s exactly the kind of stereotype you represent. Basically every last terrible thing conservatives say about the ACLU is confirmed when they choose to defend an obvious enemy combatant like Anwar Al-Awlaki. Would you find their cause just if they filed Bin Laden v. United States in a court of law? I’m starting to think you might.
Would you find their cause just if they filed Bin Laden v. United States in a court of law?
Absolutely. Every time we allow our government to dispense with due process, to treat crimes as acts of war and to respond with our own acts of war rather than the appropriate processes of justice, we open the door wider to expansion of such policies.
I doubt that even you would approve of the natural end result of such expansion.
Hobart
Slightly edited for clarity.
The derivative imitation you provide of my own comment suggests I’[m extremely blind to my own problems and cannot] really str[ike] a chord somewhere in [my] brain [because of my blind belief in authoritarian principles]. I’m so sorry I [am unable to understand the real meaning of personal liberty, freedom and civil rights]. I mistook this site as a place for [squashing] discussion among reasonable Americans [for] emotional children [such as myself].
[Your i]mitation [of the commenter DocHollywood], by the way, is the most sincere form of flattery.
Shorter DocBollywood:
“I’m having a stroke.”
“I’m having a stroke.”
I hope not, but dealing with the like of you could certainly carry risks to one’s health.
Be careful, Doc. ;^)
Trump definitely has plans for taking the continuum to new heights. Would that people had heeded much of what you wrote years and years ago in order to avoid these even more blatant Constitutional challenges. Holding some of the speculation in this gently to the side for the moment, I find a good chunk of the following article to be supportive of my assertion above and some observations I’ve been making about recent events wrt the Muslim travel ban.
Trial Balloon for a Coup?
Now, ignoring the courts is not a new phenomenon. But the surrounding landscape, and how it is being cultivated IS.
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5#.g4x9cgbfa
https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/825968324433555456
Source for the quote within the tweet is in a following tweet in the TL.
The author of the above piece, Yonatan Zunger, links to another one offering a thoughtful response to his.
Weak and Incompetent Leaders act like Strong Leaders
https://tompepinsky.com/2017/01/30/weak-and-incompetent-leaders-act-like-strong-leaders/
Apparantly my previous post needs ‘moderation’ (more than 1 link).
In the meantime, may I ask what the name is of the official US government person that the NY Times article is quoting (and on which Greenwald’s article is subsequentlty built)?
I’ve read too many ‘baby’s taken out of incubator’ stories in my life to not get the sneaking suspicion that this whole story from the NY Times is yet another fake story and that Greenwald fell for it.
“that Greenwald fell for it”
How do you know that a person is completely full of shit?
When they write sentences like this.
The incubator thing has a familiar ring to it. Can you imagine the day where we are so cynical to the endless flow of information that when human babies are being eaten, we’ll all just yawn? I’ll blame the NYT.
I thought this would just make me mad. I mean, I hoped Greenwald would pull no punches (he didn’t), and I reckoned I’d be steamed and scowling inappropriately all morning at people just wanting a coffee.
But after seeing the picture of Nawar, I just started crying and had to take a break.
After composing myself, I showed the picture to an older co-worker. “Trump just had her killed,” I said, trying not start blubbing again.
“That’s terrible! God, he’s awful.”
I scrolled up. “This is her brother. Obama had him droned.”
“Huh.” A look of not seeing the connection crossed her face.
I’m really starting to wonder about older people. It’s like they don’t actually have principles, or want them. They’ve left us with a polluted planet and a corrupted establishment, and they scorn us for being over-emotional and idealistic, feeling something only if serves an agenda of some kind. They’re lucky we don’t turn on them, grab them by the scruff and say “look what you’ve done, you fucking maniacs!” Every time another old prune goes on the TV to pontificate about something I’m getting sorely tempted to yell “Get out of the goddamn way and allow fresh thinking!”
Yes, I sound ageist. But the evidence is in. Old people* obviously don’t know what they’re doing.
I’m not saying young people are far superior, but you guys have got to let us try to improve things. When we said vote for Jill Stein, you should have listened.
*With some exceptions.
I hear ya and feel the same. And I’m older and want to smack the crap out of old people too sometimes.
Make no mistake Maisie, I’m north of 60 and I have never been so disgusted, nauseated, fearful etc. of what we are doing. I am a tad concerned for my own emotional bearing. It is beginning to affect my health I think. What exacerbates it further are coworkers, acquaintances and such who blithely go about their routines, simply accepting whatever they hear with no critical thought or reasoning. People who ought to know better. More than a little sad and definitely pathetic.
Thanks for your honesty. Take care of yourself. New thinking is needed, and sincerity of your kind can encourage it far more than excuses can.
Umm of all the candidates Stein got the smallest percentage of 18-29 voters.
What have you done to improve things?
You insufferable jerk. If you paid the slightest attention here, and had half a brain (and weren’t an insufferable jerk) you would know that, while struggling every day to keep head above water in a society would happily let her drown, young Maisie’s life is about working to improve things.
Well, by that point it was obvious the system wasn’t listening.
Even Bernie had been defeated by the oldsters cheating, and the majority of us had just given up hope like the majority of voters generally.
If you won’t listen, life will rub your noses in your mess, as it is doing.
We’ll change things by going over you and your system if we have to.
Maisie to quote John Lennon
“You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan”
How do you want to change things?
What do you mean by “going over you and your system” ?
Tell me what you would have people do. The election has past voting for Jill Stein didn’t work, now what?
Jill Stein was never going to win the general election. Listening to you could not have made a practical difference.
Self-fulfilling prophecies speak of retarded thinking, not vibrant ingenuity.
And, anyway,after it was obvious Jill (and Bernie) were being ignored, the majority of us realized we’re going to have to work outside the system to facilitate change. And we will.
It was no more likely that Jill Stein was going to win a primary, much less a general election, than that Donald Trump would donate $1 million to CAIR.
That is called reality-based thinking.
What nonsense.
You failed to see the sense in building a cultural movement regardless of its political success.
A paradigm shift in the dialog of the culture that will someday ultimate in voting changes will go right over your head next time if you can’t see it now. Open your mind sometime, and you’ll see that you have indeed thought too rigidly for what is necessary.
“Reality-based” thinking is not groveling before precedents and ignoring cultural imperative, and refusing to take risks.
Damn, break almost over.
blockquote>You failed to see the sense in building a cultural movement regardless of its political success
That’s the complete opposite of what I think and believe. I simply know that Jill Stein was not going to be elected president of the United States in 2016, under any scenario not involving magick.
Maisie, I live, now, in a college town — actually a town dominated by a University of California campus with more than 30,000 students.
I live in a nice but modest apartment complex (no more homeowner hassle for us), where perhaps a third of the residents are undergrads or grad students. Mostly really nice kids (although few of them have learned to properly separate trash and recycling without parental assistance).
However, I can assure you, on the basis of frequent and ongoing conversations, that the vast majority of those young people are woefully ignorant of both current events and of modern history and that most of them never give a thought to any contentious issues that don’t affect them directly.
There is, of course, a well-informed, very active and vocal cohort of politically- and economically-savvy students, but they are a relatively small minority.
Most of the young people in our society, like most of the older people, are self-centered, selfish, ignorant and content in their ignorance.
The problems we face, the inequity we deal with, are not primarily generational in nature. They arise from the structure of our culture and economy and they propagate through the generations.
It is, of course, true that the more powerful, wealthy and annoying assholes among us tend to be older, but that’s mostly the case because they’ve had longer to practice and perfect greedy assholism.
A reminder: We have a saying in the movement that we don’t trust anybody over 30. ~Jack Weinberg, about 1965
Your generation could have changed things in the 60s and most of you just got absorbed into the system, quite willingly, entrenching the evils to where they are now taken entirely for granted. And you (not you personally) fucked it up for the future. But we’ll do what you couldn’t, with or without your help.
Just look at all the codgers and old bags on the TV who run things.
They’re everywhere, like wizened insects, failing to change anything.
Society needs fresh ideas, outside the box. Even stupid young people come up with something new once in a while, unlike stuck-in-a-rut elders.
Yeah nothing got changed in the 60’s, other than the voting rights act, Civil Rights Act, Medicare,Medicaid, Peace Corps,Jobs Corps, EARTH DAY established putting environmentalism at the forefront of concerns,schools got desegregated, the EPA created, Head Start, Open Housing Act outlawing discrimination in the sale or rental of most privately-owned homes and apartments, the Higher Education Act creating the first federally funded college scholarships, the internet,…. the list is long.
But this list is more entertaining to watch…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYhhNemRQpc
YOU DIDN’T CHALLENGE AND DEFEAT CORPORATISM, MILITARISM, IMPERIALISM AND OLIGARCHICAL RULE WHICH HAVE CORRUPTED THE STATUS QUO INTO ITS CURRENT UNTENABLE AND WORLD-DESTRUCTIVE CONDITION LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE.
Don’t presume to lecture me on what happened. I’ve studied it myself, and I see clearly, for example, that leaders like MLK Jr. have been subsumed by the establishment for divisive bullshit instead of being remembered as an anti-inequality and antiwar firebrand). It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and it let evil win in far-reaching ways from we may never recover.
You let the side down, ultimately, and don’t expect to be praised for that.
Thank you.
“Sound ageist” – “Get out of the way and allow fresh thinking.” My generation (boomer), now aged, hurled the same invective at our parents generation who we blamed for making our world the failure that it was [re: Times They Are A-Changin’ – Dylan] . At that time, we were fighting a war (Vietnam) that sent others our own age off to die for the lies of a failed system. In the end, when the dust had settled, nothing had changed, since “the System” is still solidly intact. The conditions that created the Vietnam war were created by the same political “system” that created Iraq, that created Al Qaeda, that created ISIS, that is intent on reviving a Cold War, etc. Whether Democrat or Republican the outcome is always the same. Wealthy plutocratic oligarchs continue to fight for “American Interests” which is nothing more than a euphemism for their own greedy desires based on continued exploitation. As long as that “system” survives intact, at some point future generations will condemn your generation with words taken from your own mouth. This is not a generational problem (youth vs. age) if it was, the youth would have voted for Jill Stein en mass in overwhelming numbers. You need to reanalyze. The problem is not age it’s class. If you haven’t yet read Howard Zinn’s: A People’s History of the United States, I highly recommend it.
I’m aware it’s about class, but thanks for the response.
I’m just peeved that people will see the need for people of color, and women generally, needing better representation in numbers, but not the fresh and idealist views of youth – the intensity of which is needed to uplift the culture.
We know we’re being dismissed, so we often just try to have fun in a dying world.
But we know what you’ve (not you personally – many people here are cool regardless of age)failed to do, and some of us are pissed about it lately.
It may be just like the 60s, only this time someone’s got to see the paradigm shift through. The system is too corrupt now, the stakes too high.
the media reaction in the middle east is worse than the west.
the gulf media, usually gulf news describes it as terrorist or iran backed rebels killed.
irrespective of them bring children, women and men of any age. they are terrorist and there is no remorse over their brutal murder
You know Greenwald et al. have totally jumped the shark when they propose their supposedly superior moral values demand they defend a man like Anwar Al-Awlaki.
You try to malign Glenn, but we can see through your plot. Glenn clearly stands by due process and the rule of law. Which I assume you do not.
Either the ends justify the means or the means justify the ends. You chose the first while Grenn choses the later.
Glenn doesn’t know a damn thing about due process or the rule of law, especially when he willfully ignores the fact, FACT we are at war with Al Qaeda and due process rights have never in American nor human history applied to enemy combatants in a declared armed conflict. This lying by omission habit of his has turned me into probably a permanent critic of him and his supporters especially as his warped views and vitriolic approach have done more to damage liberal defense of civil and human rights than any right wing conservative you could name, living or dead.
I have never once declared the ends justify the means nor have I once stated constitutional principle doesn’t matter. I have very serious disagreements with Glenn because he is not on the side with the facts and what is worse whatever his weird prejudice is against liberals like me he is doing more to serve anti-liberal politics than he is in defending liberal values. He is a narcissist and a sociopath which is probably why he admires Trump so much.
He doesnt know a damn thing about the rule of law? How about your Nazi n chief refusing to obey judicial orders that put a stay on his EO regarding immigrants, thus bypassing the courts and disregarding the rule of law? “I have received reports from attorneys in CA that agents are continuing to deny or delay entry to America to visa holders and others,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) tweeted shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday. “This violates the federal court orders and it is imperative [Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly] ensures all staff are notified and comply with the law.”
VIOLATES A FEDERAL COURT ORDER. what do you call it when the president thinks an EO is above being subject to judicial review?? A coup?
“Disobeying a court order “is a big deal for any government official — federal, state, local, executive, legislative, whatever,” said Abner Greene, a law professor at Fordham University. “Obedience to specific court orders is what keeps us from being a banana republic or fascist dictatorship. That’s a really big deal.”
You lost the argument right off the bat when you assumed I am in any way supportive of Trump. I voted proudly for President Obama and I would do it again in an instant if given the chance. What I find ironic is for a Greenwald fan to hurl this accusation since Glenn provides so much defense for Trump in his columns, frequently echoing similar arguments from conservative Republicans, things like “But Obama did X and X was bad, so the precedent is set”. When Glenn argues explicitly in favor of the warped situational ethics of conservatives, he no longer deserves to call himself a liberal.
That’s exactly how we get a man like Trump, when liberals start to eat their own over obsession with purity of principle over relatively marginal disagreements instead of fighting the opposition who represent a much more immense threat to our values than anything Obama or Clinton stood for. It only took a few thousand Jill Stein nut jobs to turn over the presidency to Cheeto Jesus and a few thousand Nader goofballs to give the presidency to George W. Bush.
Nonsense. Glenn asking us to look at the bigger picture when evaluating Trump policy in the middle east and his atrocities, and thus putting things in a context, is not him just repeating Republican talking points. That is him viewing this with a critical eyes refusing to give a pass to Obama for something he condemning that fascist Trump for. That is the difference between you and him: you just hurl insults without providing any kind of an analysis. Is it any wonder I mistook you for a Trump supporter.
The refugee crisis exist becasue of Obama and Clinton, make no mistake about it. Pointing that out and putting it in context doesnt make one a nai supporter, but being in denial over it and saying it ain’t no big deal makes you part of the problem. Donald Trump did not just spring out of a vacuum, he is the product of 4 + decades of abuses by the government and there is only so much people can take before the system just explodes and exploding it is doing. Dont blame the loss of this election of the likes of Glenn or critics of Democrats, the loss is purely only the DNC, Wasserman-Schultz and HRC herself. She was THE WRONG CANDIDATE TO RUN. I dont care if she was the best, most amazing woman, politician or humanitarian in the world, if she wasnt gonna be electable, she shouldnt have run and then cost us the election. Maybe the DNC shouldnt have cheated Sanders out of the nomination and maybe they should not have pushed for a candidate who has been nothing but a liability. THEY cost us the election and 4 years, possibly 8. of this fascist demagogue and despot. Dont you dare blame Glenn and all those who warned us for this.
1. Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer who was hired — after bid war over him — by a premier law firm. He voluntarily left that extraordinarily lucrative position to start his own firm where he defended the constitutional rights of rancid people whose rights were being violated.
2. The ACLU engaged his services as a contracted lawyer for several years.
3. You are full of shit.
Any constitutional lawyer who aids and abets treason against the United States no longer deserves the title. He is primarily, first and foremost, about the elevation of one Glenn Greenwald as a saintly infallible creature and all other priorities are secondary, including patriotism to the nation. I can see why he gave up his legal credentials. He could never abide by the stringent ethics rules imposed on lawyers due to his propensity to lie to millions of people.
Let me get this straight. Are you accusing Glenn Greenwald of treason? On what basis?
At this point I think this one is a troll and not an actual Democrat. Altho, some of the Dem hacks on Twitter (e.g., Amdand Marcotte) are equally freakish and inane.
” He could never abide by the stringent ethics rules imposed on lawyers due to his propensity to lie to millions of people”
Hobert you poor ignorant soul. Greenwald was a member of the criminal defense bar. as such, he was not only not obligated not to lie, but was expected to lie in service of his clientele.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution:
Where did Congress declare war against Al Qaeda?
As I said, this is the kind of ignorance Greenwald promotes to support his warped anti-American agenda. Yes, we have declared war against Al Qaeda, and yes, an AUMF is a declaration of war.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/html/PLAW-107publ40.htm
It quite purposefully is not a declaration of war. Even a moron like Alberto Gonzalez realized this, and explained that a declaration of war has a specific legal meaning — and implications — that was not thought prudent to undertake. (Nevermind that the Constitution does not allow for something half-and half.)
“Where did Congress declare war against Al Qaeda?”
where?
within the Capitol Building
: East Capitol St NE & First St SE, Washington, DC 20004
Joint Resolution
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those
responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United
States. <>
Whereas, on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were
committed against the United States and its citizens; and
Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the
United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect
United States citizens both at home and abroad; and
Whereas, in light of the threat to the national security and foreign
policy of the United States posed by these grave acts of violence;
and
Whereas, such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat
to the national security and foreign policy of the United States;
and
Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take
action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against
the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, <>
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the “Authorization for Use of
Military Force”.
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) <> In General.–That the President is
authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those
nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized,
committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11,
2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any
future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such
nations, organizations or persons.
(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements.–
(1) Specific statutory authorization.–Consistent with
section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress
declares that this section is intended to constitute specific
statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of
the War Powers Resolution.
[[Page 115 STAT. 225]]
(2) Applicability of other requirements.–Nothing in this
resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers
Resolution.
Approved September 18, 2001.
So let me get this straight. Your position is that an 8 year old girl along with 6 other children are all “enemy combatants” along with everyone inside a medical facility. Got it.
He decries the killing of innocent people including children and you think that’s OK, but HE is the sociopath? Check.
Glenn does have the facts on his side when it comes to Due Process rights of Americans who are labelled as enemy combatants. For a greater discussion of this, I would direct you to the holding of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.
Can you BELIEVE that???
Greenwald and all these other whacko civil liberties advocates probably even think that Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Timothy McVeigh should have been charged and prosecuted before being sentenced to death.
Just to be clear, the civil liberties of TERRORISTS at war with the United States
Civil liberties has very little to do with war powers. When the Confederates were shelling Ft. Sumter, we didn’t say “Stop, you need to get a warrant before you respond.” The only difference we have here is the terrorists don’t abide by the laws of war since they don’t wear uniforms. That, however, does not make them civilians nor does it entitle them to some sort of civil liberties protection when they are engaged in war against the nation.
Once again, the point you and Glenn are missing is we have declared war on Al Qaeda, and NOBODY’S citizenship constitutes a defense of waging war against the United States.
No. “We” surrendered to those “Confederates.” And “we” could have prevented the shelling to begin with if “we” hadn’t stupidly insisted on moving a force of less than 100 to an island fortress in the middle of Charleston Harbor — a provocative action that anyone with a lick of sense would have expected to result in. . . exactly what happened.
Maybe you need a new talking point.
Now I’ve seen it all, a liberal defending the Confederacy’s treason against the United States
Good Lord, you suggested the government of the United States should surrender to armed insurgents. What in the hell is wrong with you?
You detestable dumbfuck. The detachment at Sumter did surrender, in about a day and a half. There was no choice: they were outnumbered, outgunned, and short of supplies. That they were there at all was not only needlessly provocative (totally typical behavior for our government and its forces), it was also breathtakingly stupid. Reminding you of the facts of history is not the same as “defending” anyone or any entity.
Also, of course, the Confederacy was a secessionist movement, not an insurgency. Whether it was treasonous or not is a matter for debate, I suppose, but no Confederate was ever tried for the crime, so you’re just tossing the word about, as is all too common.
Words have meanings. Try to pay attention to them and to use the meanings that are commonly agreed upon.
Speaking of which, I’m not a liberal. I’m a libertarian socialist.
Again with the name-calling. No wonder y’all are the minority. You can’t even speak like a mature responsible adult.
I’ll consider a response merited when you can learn to talk like a man and not a five year old.
Our moral values, actually demand that we defend our moral values–an that includes not assassinating other human beings on what they think or say, absent judicial process.
But your type of pants pissing cowardice and absence of moral values leads to collateral damage/blowback on a horrific scale, abandonment of the concept of the rule of law, and leads to precisely the sorts of grievances that cause people to run airliners into skyscrapers.
But you’re too dumb and morally bankrupt to understand that causal nexus. And so you will continue to waste 100s of billions of US taxpayers dollars year in and year out fighting a boogieman of your own creation and paranoia until it financially bankrupts this nation, as well as morally bankrupts it. And then all the sharks you created all over the world will go into a frenzy of feeding on our carcass. Bravo. Great plan. Really jumping the shark with that sort of short term know-nothing strategy.
This is exactly the kind of ignorance I’ve come to expect from Glenn’s readers since none of them seem to understand we have declared war on Al Qaeda. There is no judicial process for enemy combatants. We didn’t require President Lincoln file a warrant when federal troops were engaging the enemy on the battlefield of Gettysburg, nor was there some “this is the battlefield” draft defining the war zone. What defines a war zone is where the enemy is active. This stuff about civil liberties is nonsense. That is a civilian protection, and no Al Qaeda militant is a civilian under the laws of war.
Really, ignorance? Okay go ahead and link the declaration of war against Al Qaeda.
And then explain, with links, how under international law or any treaty America can make legally and internationally recognized “war” against a non-state entity?
And then when your done linking your “non-declaration of war”, presumably the AUMF, you go ahead and try and thread the needle of how if the US is lawfully engaged in war against a non-state entity, and that the US is simultaneously observing international law (or “laws of war” as you referred to them) with regard to those activities and participants, including the Geneva Conventions, with regard to its conduct and treatment of those so called “enemy combatants” (and those outside that status).
And then I’ll demonstrate that the US has violated far too many of its obligations with regard to same, assuming you can actually make that argument with a straight face after I pull your pants down in front of everyone here.
And save your simpleton’s non-analogy to the Civil War. I’m a lawyer and know more about the Civil war and the legal issues surrounding it than you ever will.
You are a lawyer yet you’ve never heard of the term laws of war. OK.
And Al-Qaeda has declared war on the United States, therefore New York is a valid war zone. Too bad for the enemy combatants jumping to their deaths from a burning skyscraper, but hey, isn’t all this stuff about civil liberties just nonsense anyway?
It’s not specifically Awalaki (the person) he defending. It’s Due Process he’s defending.
People (even heinous criminals like Charles Manson) have the right to refute a government claim.
Would you support yourself being subject to this sort of justice? Do you think it’s acceptable for someone to merely point the finger, cry “Witch” and have you burned at the stake without hearing your side of the story? Really?
Right, the due process rights of enemy combatants at war with the United States, rights which have never ever existed under the laws of war.
Charles Manson committed civil crimes. He wasn’t a militant at war with the country nor had we declared any formal armed conflict with him. We have with Al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki was irrefutably a high level militant with Al Qaeda. What he is suggesting is like saying Confederates who fired on Ft. Sumter should have been served a warrant and given a trial instead of engaging them in combat. It is insane and it severely harms the cause of civil liberties and protection of human rights when so-called liberals like him make Al-Awlaki into some sort of valiant hero on behalf of his principles.
You read too much propaganda.
Obviously. I should read more of TEH TRUTH(tm) from Glenn Greenwald.
Gawd enough with your silly non-analogy to the US Civil War, it’s just proving you’re a know-nothing idiot.
The Confederate States declared themselves to have seceded from the rest of the United States, declaring themselves a unique nation, and then actively made war as a new self-purported nation state against its fellow citizens i.e. committed Treason under the Constitution. Put another way, and as held by the Supreme Court, it was an “insurrection” which meant the US could fight it under the international laws of war without having to recognize the de jure existence of the Confederate government.
No recognized country in the world at that time recognized the Confederacy as a nation-state. But France and UK granted Confederate states “belligerent status”.
And because it was an intra-national instance of citizens of one state engaging in insurrection and making war upon the remainder of the nation state, it is absolutely nothing like what America is doing with regard to Al Qaeda which is a non-state entity, transnational, and more akin to an international criminal gang.
And you would know that if you weren’t a historically and legally illiterate moron.
And then you could bone up on the legal implications of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and actually understand what they mean, and then you could actually delve into the trickier implications of “neutrality” as it implicates the laws of armed conflict and/or Geneva Conventions and the various nations where the US is operating against Al Qaeda affiliates or offshoots.
But America has been so bad, by design, at observing all those international norms and rules, that it has unnecessarily created so many black holes in the LOAC that US officials from Rumsfeld to Yoo to Obama someday should be worried that they all may be brought up on war crimes charges posthumously if America ever falls from its present economic and military perch where no one has the might, muscle or will to hold them accountable for all of the violations they’ve committed in their little “war on terror”.
I’m wasting my time even discussing this with a know-nothing like you so I’ll stop and go do something productive.
I’d respond seriously if you hadn’t already conceded the argument through your capricious and repetitive use of ad hominem as ‘support’ for your commentary.
There’s a difference between ad hominem arguments and simple insults.
You may have been (deservedly) insulted, but your arguments have been refuted on their (lack of ) merits.
“There’s a difference between ad hominem arguments and simple insults.”
LOL Man I’d love for you to explain the difference before a professor of argumentation
LOL Man I’d love for you to be less of a know-nothing and understand there is no such thing as a “professor of argumentation”. There are either communications/rhetoric professors who sometimes teach “logic” in their classes, but more commonly and appropriately a “professor of philosophy” who teach Aristotelian syllogistic logic and modern symbolic logic which are “formal logic”. And the latter understands the difference quite well between the ad hominem fallacy and a simple insult.
See here’s an example of “simple insult”: Hobart is a fucking simplistic moron who doesn’t have even a basic grasp of US history or international law, much less which academic discipline is most commonly associated with “teaching argumentation”. And that’s because Hobart is a fucking simplistic moron, which of course is not a fallacy just repetitive.
Fuck off you idiot and let the grown ups who actually know something about the world continue discussing it without your sophomoric disruptive know-nothing comments.
Thanks in advance.
At the risk of being accused of “defending the Confederacy,” I feel obliged to point out that this is, as is usual, the victors’ version of the story. Victors, as we know write the histories that survive and are later treated as received truth.
The Confederate version would be that the Union troops constituted a foreign force in Confederate territory and that they had, prior to the shelling, tolerated that force from late December until early April, despite offering, and then demanding, the peaceful surrender of “their” fortress. The latter part of that version, at least, is true as a matter of undisputed fact.
Just FYI, I think it was a mistake to resist secession. The Union should have let the South go and worked in other ways to undermine the Peculiar Institution and secure freedom for the slaves.
OK. Back to the present.
Doug,
Fair enough. But the victors also wrote the history post-Nazism and the Nuremberg trials. That doesn’t make the consensus, legally or historically, any different just because some defeated Confederates or Nazis want to argue it differently.
And it probably goes without saying that the defeated Confederates and Nazis saw lots of things different than the consensus reality facing them–that’s why they were Confederates and Nazis (zealots) and convinced themselves to take highly immoral and illegal actions.
But reality has a way of crushing those delusions.
I’m not sure I can agree that slavery could remain on the continent in any form. That so many of its vestiges persisted for so long after its formal abolition, only really gives proof to my argument everyone hates, that every able bodied man or woman “leader” that willingly led, engaged or financed the treason of the Civil War (from politicians, to landowners down including everybody above the rank of captain or its equivalent) should have had all of their property stripped from them, and I’d also argue against my view of the death penalty, that they all should have been shot.
Making war on your fellow citizens should be an all or nothing proposition. Win or death. But I don’t want to live next to, be a fellow citizen with or forgive someone who made war against me to defend their right to own other human beings as slaves. Fuck them. They are precisely why the US is still so monstrously fucked up. Not that there weren’t a lot of fucked up people in “the North” who didn’t join the Confederacy, and who perpertuate(d) many of the injustices and vestiges of slavery, but they didn’t choose to actively make war against those who fought for its abolition.
But I am in agreement this nation should peacefully split up now that slavery is gone.
Trollie trollie trollie troll….Blah blah blah blah.
Drones might hit the wrong target, the target may misidentified, or shrapnel and other effects of a bombing may mistakenly harm non-targets. The only way to make sure that little girl is dead is to send in a trigger man to shoot her through the neck. Some things still have be done the old-fashioned way.
How have the policymakers not forfeited their own claim to life by such murderous conduct and policies?
“Nazis were executed for precisely what Washington is doing today.”
– Paul Craig Roberts
Exactly. I have been saying for a while now that people were indicted and convicted at Nuremberg for doing exactly what Republicans and the Democrats who give them cover by looking the other way or not fighting, did in Nazi Germany. They are all accomplices to crimes of the highest order.
It’s puzzling to read comments by those who 1) do not question the legitimacy of the government and 2) suggest that the state deserves loyalty and that the state is sovereign and who accept on face value the absurd claim that 3) the US government is fighting terrorism .
How did they find this website?
On the Google News feed, not a bad thing, really. Maybe they will start to question….
Because loyalty to that State pays off so handsomely!
/sarc
If you like to understand the rise of Trump with numbers, I would like to recommend this paper from 2013 by Angus Deaton et al
http://m.pnas.org/content/112/49/15078/F2.expansion.html
Three main reasons of death in the 45-60 yrs old white non-hispanic US population
1. ‘Poisoning’ (drugs)
2. Suicide
3. ‘Liver disease’ (alcohol)
More numbers:
If the white mortality rate for ages 45?54 had held at their 1998 value (just after NAFTA was implemented, and of just before many American soldiers were send for a crusade to Muslim countries) 96,000 deaths would have been avoided from 1999-2013.
The US is also the only Western country where the average life span for the middle aged (non hispanic) white population has decreased since the early 1990s.
In addition, declines in self-reported health and mental health, increased reports of pain, and greater difficulties with daily living show increasing distress among the US white population in midlife after the late 1990s.
Hillary called these people ‘deplorables’. But according to me, these people are in despair. Hence, Trump (and I am sure many would have voted Sanders if the DNC had not rigged the primaries).
If you’re not really into numbers, then there is also this essay where the author explains that HRC’s deplorables are actually ‘the unnecessariat’
https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/
I don’t know what to think about the reporting of the intercept on Trump. The message is clear, but hysterical. A bit more pianissimo would be nice, and similarly effective.
Give American fellow citizens aka the deplorables a chance to live. By ending these horrible and money devouring wars in the Middle East
This is horrific, that the US daily commits such vile and despicable acts of suffering, death, and destruction, and for what?
I am beginning to think that the Western world is not a member of the human race.
Can those without a heart be human?
And these acts are done to ‘keep us safe’. The irony would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic…
WA AG just announced a federal class-action lawsuit naming Trump and several top members.
They are to be charged with violating the constitution.
we’ll see who lasts longer, these atrocities or the pride of the people who inadvertently allow them
Heartbreaking. Devastating. Bewildering. Progressive. Like cancer.
There is good reason to doubt altogether the official press release stating an Al Qaeda threat.
I read Scott Shane’s excellent book, The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki, and it is a very strange feeling, indeed, to read the chapter on the drone strike that Mr al-Awlaki and feel a mixture of horror and disgust.
His father; their grandfather, must be out of his mind.
strike that “killed” Mr al-Awlaki.
Thank you for the important article, Glenn Greenwald.
The book is “Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone.”
Strategic viewpoint well put.
I find it ironic that ‘mock pundit’ Stephen Colbet was more critical of liberals than actual Stephen Colbert.
“some are the decades-old by-product of a mindset and system of war and executive powers that all need uprooting.”
Bush kept it down to a “dull roar,” Obama was “good” and smooth at more killings. Trump will be clumsy and as with immigration may get the dialogue going, good. Yes we need a Seal Team 6 and some raids are justified and some people deserve death; however a “star chamber” kill list is way beyond the pale of our Constitution and even the rules of warfare.
President Trump. “Check you fire, check you fire double (Double Entendre). You cannot have justice and secrecy, we the people need not know operational secrets but We must be told who and why someone was killed/executed with our tax dollars and what is the costs in innocent “collateral” lose of life.
killing Anwar al-Awlaki was, on the whole, rather a good thing.
he certainly had it coming and he personally endorsed the idea that it is permissible at any time to kill any American citizen.
Mr Greenwald made an ass of himself by claiming that Mr Obama was guilty of murder for having the creep Awlaki put down.
Had it coming? That’s just about the level of reasoning that Democrats use to blame Russia for Hillary losing Wisconsin…
Even if we accept the death of the father, how does it justify the killing of the son and daughter?
Awlaki was an officer of AQ who participated in a terrorist attack against American civilians, as testified to in open court by the perpetrator of the attack, during a time when the Congress has declared hostilities against AQ and authorized the use of military force against members of the organization, and a piece of shirt to boot.
there is ample reason to say that he had it coming, Majumdar.
I said nothing about the death of his son or the reports of his daughter’s possible death…..and they are not at all germane to my saying that their father fully deserved being blown up
how the hell would you know whether he “had it coming”, and what the hell justifies assassinating him, much less his kids?
You can read his speeches and watch his videos online for yourself. The intelligence services of the United States and the United Kingdom certainly did. They also revealed communications between Al-Awlaki and several known terrorist assailants, including notably Nidal Hassan, the Ft. Hood shooter. It is without question he actively solicited and incited attacks, not merely through his free speech but through his private communications with terrorist actors encouraging them to slaughter American citizens. He was an Al Qaeda militant and thus under the laws of war as well as the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Terrorists he can and should be targeted as an enemy combatant. No American citizen has a right to wage war against his own country and the right to civilian due process does not extend to active enemy combatants. If you don’t believe me, ask President Lincoln about it. He presided over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens, on American soil, in an undeclared war, without warrant, arrest or trial.
Greenwald and his readers are making a severe mistake if their values demand they stand in defense of wartime enemies of the United States.
the intelligence services that lied us into the iraq war. those intelligence services. without question. and the fraudulent aumf that congress passed to its eternal shame.
Just to be clear, because intelligence was manipulated by a stove-piping Bush Administration once that means all intelligence is forever discredited.
Also to clarify another thing: you believe we should NOT have declared war against Al Qaeda as a response to the largest foreign terrorist attack in U.S. history. What you propose as an alternative means of confronting terrorism from abroad, I have no idea, but I highly doubt it will be a more effective means of common defense since that doesn’t even seem to cross your mind once.
This intellectual cul de sac supposed uber liberals like Greenwald have driven themselves into does incredible damage to the legitimate promotion of important moral and constitutional principles like protection of civil and human rights when they choose open, conscious defense of terrorism against the United States as the hill they wish to die on. Y’all need to come to grips with these serious criticisms of what you are standing for or the American people will ignore you.
just to be clear, we should not have declared war against an amorphous group of people in several nations who may have been loosely affiliated with each other. just to clear the cia has been reliably providing crap intelligence for decades, overthrowing governments that were no threat to the us, coming up with plots to kill castro via exploding cigar, running out of control since they were created out of the remains of the oss. just to be clear, the cia helped create the blowback that resulted in 911, and helped finance some of the people behind it.
just to be clear, murdering an 8 year old girl for the crime of being somewhere around “computer materials” has fuck all to do with defending america.
hope that’s clear.
“just to be clear, we should not have declared war against an amorphous group of people in several nations who may have been loosely affiliated with each other.”
This is precisely the error in judgment every last one of Glenn’s readers make. We have declared war on Al Qaeda which is, in fact, an amorphous group of people operational in a number of countries.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/html/PLAW-107publ40.htm
Bear in mind, the intelligence activities you oppose were facets of Executive policy and not some sort of inherent policy of our intelligence agencies independently. I also oppose the utilization of intelligence to overthrow legitimate foreign governments who have not attacked us but it is radically different to say you don’t even trust them to conduct legitimate intelligence in defense of our nation. That’s just rampant baseless paranoia and it runs counter to the notion of liberals forming their views based on facts and evidence.
When y’all start acting like Al Qaeda is comprised of a bunch of innocents and the people willfully in their proximity are saintly creatures, you are rapidly losing the argument and damaging support for your own principles. There is no way in hell a majority of Americans at any time are going to get behind the notion of allowing terrorists to operate with impunity.
i dont trust them on assassinating fidel with exploding cigars (somebody watched too many cartoons) or identify their own agents who’ve turned and lived way beyond their means, or not overreach their boundaries which is why the church committee slapped them back down. i don’t trust them not to arrange an “october surprise” to keep the hostages in iran till reagan was inaugurated and the balloons were flying. i don’t trust them not to lie about russian dossiers. i don’t trust their competence and i don’t trust their integrity. and they’ve earned every bit of that.
Al-Awlaki’s speeches, online posts and private communications are irrelevant until they are presented as evidence in court! Due process extends to all USA citizens. You keep asserting that Al-Awlaki is guilty of criminal activity:
” It is without question he actively solicited and incited attacks”
If the government had evidence of this, the very first thing they needed to do was to present it to a grand jury. Under The U.S. Constitution we determine FACTS about criminal activity in a court of law before proceeding to sentencing.
Nobody is arguing that criminals cannot be punished. We’re arguing that a U.S. citizen cannot be killed based on an accusation. It doesn’t matter if it’s intelligence services, The President of the USA or the Queen of England making that accusation.
Let’s say government accuses you of terrorism. You’d say: “Of course I’m not a terrorist!”. You’d probably demand to see their evidence. You might even want legal counsel and a trial before the government proceeds to execute you.
Absolutely incorrect. If they are in service to an enemy at war with the United States, then he is an enemy combatant and not entitled to civil liberties protections for his activities. We have, in fact, declared war on Al Qaeda and I doubt any majority of Americans could get behind the notion we shouldn’t be after 9/11.
One last time, he isn’t being accused of criminality. He was waging war against the nation, and that does not in any way require a grand jury. Did we go to the grand jury to fight the Nazis? How is it possible for so many liberals to ignore this? If you are waging war, you are not entitled to civil due process in any way unless captured. If you are waging war, you can and will be targeted for elimination by the opposing party to the conflict.
Milton you are entirely incorrect and quite confused
no court appearance necessary, as the slimy Awlaki was an officer of al Qaeda and the Congress of the US declared hostilities against them and authorized the use of military force against AQ and their allies.
he wasn’t executed as a criminal. he was killed as an enemy of the US in the course of war.
The way the story goes is that he didn’t have private communications with most of his followers, but answered more generally (enough to be interpreted personally, though) on his blog. Nidal Hassan, for one, falls under that category.
Why don’t you cite the legal justification for assassinating Americans?
I’d enjoy that pretzeled logic.
his status as an official of AQ completely justifies using military force to blow him up
You’re obviously a creep. I would say you have it coming. Maybe innocent members of your family too. See how that sounds? Idiot
you’re obviously writing in a state of emotional excitement and offering nothing indicative of even an average grasp of reasoning or even average intelligence,
that you would equate Anwar al-Awlaki with innocent persons is ridiculous.
if in future you address me please try to bring some calm, and a bit of of intelligence with you, even if you have to borrow.
That’s one opinion.
You mean like how American officials and a significant number of citizens can justify killing whomever it/they want as “collateral damage” so long as it makes them feel safe, and without legal due process?
So long as you apply that standard to your family members and friends, and don’t complain about it afterword when someone comes to kill you and yours for saying unpleasant things, or strips you of your Constitutional rights, them I’m fine with you holding that opinion even though I disagree with it morally and legally.
Depends on how you define murder and ass. Most reasonable people define it to include extra-judicial killings target assassinations of other human beings, particularly citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki, who was never charged, tried or convicted of any crime against the United States, much less stripped of his rights as a citizen under the US Constitution.
But hey when you believe you’re in a war against a noun, a noun that is less likely to kill you than a lightning strike, I guess you’ll believe anything because you’re by nature a moronic ass and a morally bankrupt dipshit. Unlike Glenn Greenwald.
See isn’t having opinions fun? But you having an opinion I find morally repellent doesn’t mean I want my government, the US government, to assassinate you because of it in the absence of being tried, charged and convicted of a crime that lawfully permits you to be put to death by the state (not that I believe in the death penalty).
‘” Depends on how you define murder and ass. Most reasonable people define it to include extra-judicial killings…”
most people haven’t been trained in the law as has Greenwald, and most people don’t tout themselves as experts in US Constitutional law as Greenwald has done…… so most people can be excused for the mistake.
Those you call terrorists use the same logic. What does that make you and the US government that aids and abets immense suffering, death, and destruction across the Middle East and North Africa.
Great Response AriusArmenian and rrheard. The US is not different from the terrorists they kill
no, AA, terrorists DO NOT use the same logic. at all.
terrorists deliberately seek to murder non-combatants at often at random.
your comment is defective.
Wrong. This sets a bad precedent. When the President believes he can execute US citizens without due process, you have tyranny in the extreme. This is a process that supersedes our judicial process and wholly unconstitutional.
People have a right to fight government claims. Even murderers have a right to refute the government’s claim. With the assassination (kill list), there is no right to refute the government’s assertions.
If this is the standard of law we should uphold, then it vigilante justice should be the law of the land and leave it to anyone to execute their own justice. Is that what you believe?
“Wrong.”
Whatever you say, Mr. Trump.
” This sets a bad precedent. When the President believes he can execute US citizens without due process”
you’re quite wrong. this sets no precedent. ask Stonewall Jackson about that.
you’re also wrong about Awlaki not being duly processed. he was.
the Congress of the United States authorized the use of lethal force for any officer of al Qaeda and the slimeball was one of them.
that constitutes due process
The USA has ZERO business being involved anywhere in the ME.
Close all overseas bases, bring all the troops home, and defend America.
Those of us who have lived and worked in Yemen cannot understand the senseless war crimes being visited on a peaceful country that has never posed a threat. It’s just so unjust and horrifying. Really there are no words to describe this.
“The incoming administration is the true face of the capitalist oligarchy. Trump is not an aberration in an otherwise peaceful and democratic society, but the outcome of decades of social counter-revolution, growing inequality and unending war, under both Democrats and Republicans.” — view of the Socialist Equality Party and International Youth and Students for Social Equality.
“Killing” yes, factually, it’s a killing. But murder, it is, most probably, legally, under Yemeni law. And likely a war crime. So each person in the decision chain is a murder either a principal or accomplice.
The intelligence agencies are keenly aware of what kind of bait Trump can’t resist. He will continue to snap at the bait.
These covert wars must be reined in by Congress. Go Tulsi!
“computer materials”. what? is this like finding a couple of cans of drano under a sink in iraq and using it to justify invading? “weapons of mass destruction related program activities.”
Yes, if Obama were still in office, the presence Drano would have resulted in an intelligence report warning of chemical weapons manufacturing because that was Obama’s line in the sand.
I hope you’re right about Gabbard though I won’t hold my breath. However, you are just wrong if you assume that this strike can be laid solely at Trump’s feet,
The intelligence agencies are keenly aware of what kind of bait Trump can’t resist. He will continue to snap at the bait.
Trump didn’t have to do anything at all. In fact, it most likely would have happened irrespective of him.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/23/politics/drone-strikes-president-trump/index.html
You are absolutely correct to note though that this bait will continue to elicit similar responses. And more women and children will die. That’s how the US rolls these days, no matter who the CiC is. :-s
I have some hope for Gabbard despite her highly problematic stance on LGBT rights initially.
She’s a bit of a wild card, but we’ll see what she does going forward.
The reverse barometer that is the MSM is off the charts for Tulsi being a true patriot and hero. She shows how pitifully few of ‘our’ politicians (Bernie would be another) actually think logically and truly care about reducing the horror of war. So many cowards, with so many braying MSM fools parroting the militarist line. Thank god for Glenn!
Reined in by Congress? LOL, LOL, LOL.
THANK YOU GLENN!
I have been a longtime fan of the AMAZING journalism that you and Jeremy Scahill have been at the forefront of over the many years. Especially with regard to the horrific US Drone program.
Thank you for not forgetting the helpless innocent civilians that live with these atrocious attacks as a constant threat to them living peaceful lives.
It seems toothless but if you could tweet or share in some way the petition I started several years ago regarding the program, I would really appreciate it.
You are great human beings with amazing resilience, courage and hearts.
Thank you on behalf of those that cannot…
B.M
https://www.change.org/p/no-more-drone-strikes
Deaths by firearms in the US in 2015:
All shootings: Some 13,286 people were killed in the US by firearms in 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and 26,819 people were injured [those figures exclude suicide]. Those figures are likely to rise by several hundred, once incidents in the final week of the year are counted.
Source: Gun Violence Archive
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34996604
Deaths by terrorists from the listed countries in the US in 2016:
0
Meh. The gun violence numbers are also trivial. There are nearly 325 million people in the US.
Here’s one for you: More than 250,000 people die annually in the US from preventable medical errors. That means that those errors are the third leading cause of death in the country.
But let’s ban those Muslims (and the guns, of course)!
Fair point. But 13,000+ preventable deaths isn’t trivial either…
Yeah, actually, it’s statistically trivial — way less than one percent of total deaths.
The number of Yemeni civilians killed by drones are even less significant. That doesn’t make the issue unimportant, or make those lives trivial.
When the armed agents of the state overwhelmingly support the unstable authoritarian in the White House, it’s not the best time for left-of-center folk to be concerned about gun control. Arming to the teeth might even be advised.
Oh, I’m in total agreement. I assume you meant to direct that to Gert.
That mirrors the gun lobby too much for my liking: ‘we need guns against the tyrrany!’
A “left-of-center folk” militia against the US army, ESAF and Navy would be like Hamas against the IDF.
“USAF”
True, of course, but not on point. In America, the right-wing nutcases who shoot up black churches and mosques, and who are now emerging from their dark corners in roaring triumph, are already well-armed. Think about it.
Glenn’s neurotic, special needs friend who as a matter of habit compulsively spills onto at least 10% of The Intercept’s comments threads, calls the organized, efficient, expert hiring and delegating, real estate empire building, NYC Building Dept. finessing POTUS “unstable.”
They won’t ban the guns. But people who note, correctly, the volume of avoidable medical errors that happen and the direness of their consequences should be aware that that discussion is being used to promote the implementation of biometric identifiers in our health care system.
http://www.rightpatient.com/
What’s humorous – in the blackest sense imaginable – about that particular website is their upfront claim that,
while detailing absolutely nothing about how they propose to keep those unchangeable, absolute identifiers safe from theft or government access in their little proprietary cloud.
Yeah, this madness comes across my screen regularly (Medscape alerts I get because I did EHR work for a while).
“Chip ’em, Nurse Danno.”
Don’t get me started. I honestly suspect that EHRs, overall, are dangerous.
Not trivial at all. You are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns in the US than in other developed countries and 25 times more likely than in other “high income nations” .
It doesn’t much matter if you’re more likely to be killed by a gun here than there if you are so unlikely to be killed by a gun, here, that accidental poisoning by household products is a greater danger.
Statistically trivial. See above.
GiiG, it is trivial. That this is a country that endorses the natural law right to effective self defense is in large measure why the Overton window hasn’t been moved even further left into serf territory for those Commonwealth of Nations countries.
Nonsense, it’s trivial to you because you have different fish to fry. It certainly isn’t trivial to the victims of gun violence and their families.
“The gun violence numbers are also trivial.”
This again? Let’s see, the number of African-Americans lynched during the period of 1876-1960 was surely small compared to the total number of African-Americans who lived during that period. Was it thus a “trivial” number? Were the endeavors of African-Americans and sympathetic whites to put a stop to such killings an irrational waste of time?
Straw men, terrible logic, sloppy thinking. Boring.
We should cut Gator90 a bit of slack, he’s been drinking a little too much of the Lawyers, Guns and Money Blog kool aid lately.
We’ll get him back into the fold of thinking more clearly as soon as he weans himself off most of the nonsense being peddled over there.
The lack of clear thinking is self-evident over there, just look at any comments thread where everyone there likes to blame Jill Stein voters and anybody and anything other than Donald Trump voters, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic party for her loss. It’s like a pathetic centrist ritual with those clowns even though it has no basis in math, morality or logic.
They are particularly fond of blaming Glenn Greenwald personally, and I notice that Gator90 rarely if ever pushes back on that idea, so you can take from that what you want.
He means “trivial” in the statistical sense, not moral sense. He’s not arguing because X is statistically rare compared to Y, we shouldn’t worry about preventable gun deaths OR medical deaths.
He is making the argument that if you want to actually make people safer as a non-trivial statistical matter it is more effective to focus, and it effects more people to focus preventative resources, (not to the exclusion of other causes), proportionate with where they can be most effective and save the most lives. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to stop other sources of preventable death.
Same basic argument against fighting the phony “war on terror” to the tune of 100s of billions of dollars a year and all the lost lives in “collateral damage” and “blowback” given the statistical likelihood of anyone actually being killed in a terrorist attack. That is not to say it is wrong to try and stop terrorist attacks, only that you make more people, safer, by not spending 100s of billions a dollars a year fighting something that kills less people than lightning strikes, bee stings or slips in the bathtub, and instead spend it on something you know can make a difference–like preventable medical errors, or guns, or auto accidents, or cancer cures.
I assume this is not an argument you are confronting for the first time in life–morally, politically or statistically–is it?
Thank you. Some days, I wish I had your patience.
Fortunately, we have you. ;^)
I don’t know about patience. And Gator90 knows I’ve lost mine with him specifically at times. But it doesn’t do any good to give up on people, or stop believing that you can change people’s minds if you stay at it long enough, and/or learn to communicate with others more effectively.
Now some are too far gone to allocate any mental resources to even trying, but I don’t think Gator90 falls into that category.
Agreed. I’m just feeling particularly grumpy and annoyed (even for me) at the moment.
Also, I have to say that, critical as this issue is, shameful and nauseating as this latest US atrocity assuredly is, I think the constitutional crisis developing around the Muslim ban is more pressing at the moment, and I hate to see it fade into the background of the discussion here.
“the constitutional crisis developing around the Muslim ban is more pressing at the moment, and I hate to see it fade into the background of the discussion here”
On that sir, we agree. I had thought your non-response to me was just you being a dick for it’s own sake, but upon further reflection you had a good reason for not going off on that tangent right now.
Hi RR. Since Doug prefers to rely on content-free insults in lieu of discussion and you have volunteered to speak substantively on his behalf, does Doug think attempting to reduce popular access to guns (or to certain types of guns) is a worthwhile pursuit — the statistical “triviality” of gun deaths notwithstanding — or does he not? Given his sarcastic reference to banning guns, I assume not, but perhaps you as his spokesman can clarify.
Well Gator, Doug was taking the emotion-free path that is best described by Pareto.
Operations Research is another method for efficient use of resource.
I agree with his statement (yes, Doug, mark your calendar, take yourself out to a nice dinner tonight, then lie down on a rug in front of the fire, and rock your world).
That said, guns make killing easier than picking up a stick or knife, that is true.
Humans are basically altruistic until food, territory, and/or breeding rights, are threatened. The best solution is to remove the fundamental cause of violence; resource competition. In other words there is no real solution.
So, maybe because there is no viable solution, your solution is not unsupportable.
I think I just talked my self out of Doug’s date night.
“He means “trivial” in the statistical sense, not moral sense.”
Not at all trivial in the statistical sense. Quite the opposite really. If gun deaths are more likely in countries where guns are more available and the countries are similar it can mean there is a direct correlation which from a statistical point of view is highly significant.
These deaths are trivial to some people for whom death is only important if one can make hay for political reasons. Trivial isn’t actually a term used in statistics.
Great article. Another crappy day in America.
How enraging that the only apparent hope – for reasonable and principled Americans – is that the current president’s moronic and ill-conceived policies will backfire to such a disastrous effect, that a true a civic revision of these institutional crimes will be possible. The Obama Administration committed international crime with the same blatant disregard that the Bush Administration did. Only with a better smile and smoother optics.
When one adds the negligence, hubris and stupidity of the Clinton Administration’s economic policy, then it’s easy to see why Donald Trump, Stephen Bannon, and Steven Miller feel they have to reach back to Reagan to find a template for a successful U.S. presidency. This is only emboldening them. They can write new rules because the last quarter century has been a total failure in their regard.
Let’s hope they continue to overreach, and step on a limb too thin to hold them. Then Mr. Greenwald’s assessment can begin in earnest.
“ill-conceived policies will backfire to such a disastrous effect, that a true a civic revision of these institutional crimes will be possible.”
Its one plan. Trump may even feel the heat enough to fix somethings.
So where was all this thoughtful analysis and outrage for the past eight years? Why wasn’t this pointed out during the election that Clinton’s hands were bloody?
excellent article. the more things change…
Glad to finally read something written with a sense of historical reference, especially recent history. Obama was authorizing these policies while receiving the nobel peace prize and giving his war is peace speech and the vast majority of liberals congratulated themselves on how progressive the US has become by electing an African American to POTUS. If Hillary would have won then liberals would again ignore such atrocities all the while patting themselves on the back for their superior levels of tolerance and equality. The hypocrisy is gut wrenching. Now that there is a POTUS that they all agree to hate then they all stand in crowds melting at every decision made, demanding change, and crying that this is unacceptable. (this election cycle anyway).
If Trump does nothing else at least he gets folks to pay attention and hopefully get engaged in the process.
[was computer materials inside the house that could contain clues about future terrorist plots.]
Why isn’t this questioned more? It makes very little sense to argue that destroying a computer will destroy digital data that is an (almost) infinitely copyable form of information.
This sort of plot device barely passes muster for the Star War’s universe and the Death Star plans.
YES. Yes, this. All of my liberal friends are suddenly outraged by Trump’s travel ban as the biggest human rights violation known to history when they didn’t say peep about the drone murder of children under Obama. I’m really glad to see activism taking off under Trump. I wish it left me feeling less cynical at the same time.
I have been ‘talking to the hand’ for the last eight years.Now, I find myself beached on the shore as the tide sweeps in. Meanwhile, my liberal friends have cheerily climbed aboard the SS ‘Righteous Indignation’.
Agree with this completely. My greatest source of hope with the Trump presidency is the greater vigilance people, especially on the left, are exhibiting against governmental abuse of power. My greatest fear is that those same people will dismiss Trumps’s abuses as something unique or specific to him and no valuable lessons will be learned.
Glenn Greenwald- Thank you. Again.
Have a nice retirement with YOUR children Obama. Enjoy the Bahamas, Key West. Or wherever you’ve dragged your sorry ass to.
And so you blame the American troops and president and not the operatives that used these civilians and children as human shields. What an idiot.
Back during the Vietnam War, the U.S. warmongers figured they had ‘drain the water’ to kill the fish – the Vietcong. They blamed the Vietcong for being ‘among the people’ and so exterminated everyone. After all, weren’t the Cong using people as ‘human shields?”
Actually no. They actually had a base in the population. These were their mothers and brothers and sisters and children. Now Al Quada is not anywhere progressive or ‘nationalist’ or revolutionary like the Viet Cong, but they do have a base in some communities. So killing everyone around them is, what, the same tactic as Vietnam, except in a limited way.
Dammit! I wanted to drop a bomb on person A, but person B got in the way!
Actually, it’s Israel that uses Arabs as human shields (over 1200 times according to its own Supreme Court), not other Arabs.
Indeed. It’s stupefying to think that some folks can’t even wrap their heads around the fact that the whole “human shields” thing doesn’t mesh well with their other belief, to wit, that “those people” would put suicide belts on a fetus if they thought it could get close enough to a Christian for them to detonate it.
It’s not easy to draw the equivalent between human shields and exploding clothing, but they’ll do their damndest with it anyway. :-s
But where does that belief come from, Pedinska?
/endofrhetoricalquestion
Somewhat OT, but this is critically-important material and it’s useless to post it under Mackey’s recycled tweets.
Trump has actually put Bannon on the National Security Council, and sidelined that chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And in other news that will be found not far from the linked story, details about Bannon’s central role in the constitutional crisis unfolding around the Muslim ban continues to emerge.
More on Bannon from Ben Norton:
http://www.alternet.org/comments/news-amp-politics/steve-bannon-christian-holy-war-islam-donald-trump-capitalism-secularism-atheism#disqus_thread
Great find. ^
Once again, the more a president openly embraces what his predecessor(s) still officially considered an embarrassment, the more he’s shifting the lines of the odious, leaving in the dark even more unethical intents, and society is slowly but surely shifting with him. Trump may be but the ugly face of a system, the logical conclusion of a downward spiral of unconstitutional savagery, he is nonetheless dangerously accelerating the master plan. That is why – pardon the offense – being adversarial on CNN while going with the flow on Fox News (Wasn’t that Hannity interview of Trump just brilliant ?) might turn you into a useful idiot : when you equate Trump with Obama, you not only aim to reveal the big picture, you also tend to normalize the contemptible.
https://www.mexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/Theatre-Masks-Comedy-Tragedy-1200×797.jpg
Yes. Exactly.
Who is in charge of the master plan; it is apparently not US voters?
Six dead, eight wounded at mosque in Quebec City.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-mosque-shooting-idUSKBN15E04S
This is what irrational anti-Muslim hysteria leads to. Murderous fucking cowards shooting people while they are praying.
Bet dollars to donuts it’s the Canadian equivalent of another right wing zealot like Dylan Roof.
Lee Fang neglected to mention that then Senator Barack Obama is also listed on the link he gave as one of the yes votes for the border wall https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00262
Great Point!
I don’t follow. Is this intended to be a criticism of Obama? For what it’s worth, few have ever opposed a secure border. The opposition to Trump’s (and his supporters’) obsession — in 2016 — with the wall is that it’s a solution in search of a problem. It ignores facts such as (i) there IS a physical barrier at the locations where it matters; (ii) much of the rest of 1,954-mile border is covered by a “virtual” barrier (sensors) and aerial patrols; (iii) the Border Patrol’s budget has increased dramatically in the past decade, during which the US spent $132 billion on enforcement; and (iv) the number of successful illegal entries went from 1.7 million in 2005 to 170,000 in 2015. By all means, build away to your heart’s content. But at least acknowledge that, whatever additional gobs of taxpayer money you’re agreeing to spend — on a barrier that, for long stretches, will be literally in the middle of nowhere – they’re purely in genuflection to the baying mob. It’s a vanity project, nothing more.
Once again you hit the nail right on the head Glenn. Thank you for continuing to be one of the few great journalists out there.
Well done. But this is very sad start to drain swamps; very sad story too.
How does the US stop the continuity; election cycles seem not to work… it’s never voting in change
Bernie is the only solution!
The dude doesn’t even comb his hair. He’s not even trying to please his wife. The donors can all take a hike. Everybody should just get behind whatever he does.
and the enraging thing is that I think he very easily could be President right now, leading to at least a START to a transformation of our politics. Sure, the establishment would be screaming and throwing poop with even greater enthusiasm as they are at Trump (often justified), but most of the little people (90% of the country) would be fighting alongside him. Bernie is transparently honest and good-hearted- I think a huge chunk of the American people would have happily given him a chance to change things, and literally had his back. Instead, due to the worst of party politics and the dominance of feckless, completely self-absorbed elites, we have Trump, and growing Repub domination. We could have started a sea change, instead we get sewer backup…
I agree with this statement above. I don’t believe this ban is any solution to any problem, or perceived problem. It’s foolhardy at best.
However, the MSM seems to have played Rip VanWinkle for the last 16 years and have now awaken from their slumber. Where were they while Obama bombed Libya over Congress’s vote to not bomb that country? Where was the MSM when Obama wanted to move indefinite detention to the US? Thankfully, this was something Congress would not allow.
Were was the MSM as kill lists of Americans were being generated such as the list Awlaki was on?
Where did this new sense of civic duty come from within the MSM? Do they really care about these issues they are now reporting on? They haven’t in the past, yet, here they are reporting on them every hour, on the hour. This looks more like round 2 of the Deep State vs Trump to me.
I think it’s safe to say the MSM will continue to hyper-report on Trump. I hope they do and keep doing so, when and if, Democrats get back into positions of power. But whatever their motives are, I’m glad to see people protesting such bad decisions.
Where were we when our indignation was reserved for things that happen with the us, while we ignored the mayhem brought down on foreigners in our name? It sounds like the bombing of Libya would have been ok if the american congress approved, indefinite detention is ok for the rest of the world but not for the us, and kill lists of americans are not ok but kill lists for foreigners are. Maybe we should start there.
That’s exactly my point. People are outraged now because the MSM is blasting this night and day for 7 days now and were basically silent during Obama and Bush administration(s).
That’s why I call them Rip VanWinkle.
jeremy scahill is a tool with zero credibility. including him in this article brings down the credibility of the entire enterprise and the intercept as a whole. follow the chomsky maxim of making your own bed before you go making other people’s. guy is a –complete– joke and ben norton, too, regurgitating the same facts and stories in a circle can only go on for so long. they are well on their way to reducing the whole paper to a farce, imho. good luck with these liberal wanna-be politicians, slash talking heads, masquerading as journalists. hope it’s not contagious.
don’t lose the common touch, paisano. xoxo.
That is wrong. Jeremy Scahill is a superb journalist and human being. And Ben Norton is also very fine. That Glenn is my favorite of the three doesn’t change that.
If they are fine in their own right, why not have their own news outfit? There are others out there that could use some talent. No- I think they need to cling to Glenn for some reason or another. I don’t even care why, I just see that there is a reason, and the fact of the matter is, it dilutes his power and effect over the paper, and turns it into a mush. Scahill is nothing special as a journalist and as a human being, from what I have seen, he is honestly awful. I like what you are doing here and with g-g but have you ever heard the phrase “never get high on your own supply”, m? That. Just because people kiss your ass or gg’s, doesn’t mean you are superhuman. You aren’t scahill certainly isn’t. norton the same. turn it down, for real.
I’ve typed responses to this stupidity so many times that, in this case, I think I’ll just let you read from Jeremy’s Wikipedia entry:
The citations, of course, are provided in the entry. Practice your research skills: see if you can find the entry all by yourself.
“awards are like hemroids- every asshole gets one”.
I’m sure dick cheney has a few more awards than jeremy, but somehow I don’t think you are impressed by that. Wake up dude, jeremy is a poseur talking head liberal who says one thing and goes and cashes his check and gets his facial massages creames and laughs all the way to the bank. He doesn’t give a shit about you or the issues. If I am wrong, let him read the comments and speak for himself. Somehow I don’t see it. What can he say? I’m an embedded assmuncher? He is an embedded ass muncher and kisser, so you don’t have to look up the citation. Muncher means kisser means he is subservient to those he hangs around. Citation not needed.
Tell me, how many times have you put yourself in grave danger to report on the atrocities being committed by, among others, the US and its allies? Never? Thought so. You have zero credibility.
Actually more than never. I don’t see that scayfuck is in grave danger, either. He is whitewashing a ton of stuff you moron. A ton. You think they just bring him along to doxx them? He is a f*ucking tool, to the bone, as far as I can see.
Which is, obviously, not very far. Your ignorance shines through.
Has it occurred to you that behind closed doors he may have different political views and feelings about things than what he says on TV? Is it ignorant to ask questions like this? Sorry, next time I’ll say HEIL JEREMY! and get in line, like you. Would this please you? Are you just a troll, a blind follower of scahill incorporated, or can you make a response with some humanity and emotion telling me why I am wrong about this hack? How do you know he doesn’t know more than he is saying? What convinces you of his honesty in his reporting? Do tell. Do tell.
Below, Deadheded asked if the photo above, and on the TI top page, is of the results of the referenced strike.
No. It appears to be an AP shot from 2012:
A Yemeni man walks past cars destroyed during fighting with al Qaeda militants in the city of Zinjibar, Yemen, June 14, 2012.
AP
I wonder if Greenwald finds that interesting, or even knows about it. Probably not.
why does it matter? maybe a bit sloppy, but do you doubt the raid took place?
Huh?
Indeed, the sociopathic loonies are in charge of this country, and it sure as hell didn’t start with Trump. He’s the culmination of all these destructive, devastating policies/instincts. I’m afraid that very few of us will survive this ordeal, and perhaps we don’t deserve to survive. But we’ll be taking the innocents down with us.
Yep. I knew it with Obama’s ‘we have to look forward and not back’ statement enabled by a feckless Congress that war crimes are acceptable to these sociopaths.
Mr. Greenwald continues to distort the truth by ignoring some crucial facts about Al-Awlaki. The United States is at war with Al Qaeda and Al-Awlaki was undeniably involved both in recruiting for the terrorist organization and directly linked to terrorist attacks both here at home and the UK. If the senior Al-Awlaki isn’t an enemy combatant in Greenwald’s eyes, I don’t know who is.
Abdulrahman was killed in a strike while he was searching for his terrorist father. Don’t you find it at all relevant he was engaged in this search by openly associating with Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen? If his father was some sort of innocent just because he is an American, why did his search lead him to AQ militants?
The moral of the story is being an American does not entitle one to wage war against your own country. The Al-Awlaki family would be safe and sound if they weren’t so intent on getting in close proximity to enemies of the United States in an open war zone. Sadly, these pesky facts get ignored by Greenwald in all of his Obama Derangement Syndrome. I find it pretty telling he cannot possibly utter a word of criticism against anything Trump does without running down a Democratic president for the sin of insufficient liberalism.
Shorter: My war criminal was a good war criminal.
Targeting and killing enemy combatants is under no circumstances a war crime.
Murdering non-combatants is, bootlicker. You are defending a murderer. That puts you in the same camp as anyone who cheered Hitler. You, like anyone who conveniently ignored Obama’s crimes against humanity, have zero credibility and are a worthless hypocrite.
“Murdering non-combatants is”
Not necessarily. It depends on if the principles of proportion, distinction and military necessity are abided by. I have yet to see any evidence those principles were violated by the Obama Administration in the targeted killings of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a known terrorist nobody could possibly have a justification in defending, and the inadvertent killing of Abdulrahman who was, again, in close proximity to enemy combatants in what is and was obviously an open war zone.
Hot tip for people who don’t want to be droned: don’t go to open war zones and don’t associate with militants at war with the United States. You will be killed and you will not be mourned by anyone with a sensible notion of national defense. Greenwald lost me as a supporter (probably forever) when he decided his allegedly superior liberal values means he sides with terrorists at war with the United States. He has basically resigned himself to be an enemy of our country, which by extension makes him an enemy of both you and I. Shame on him.
‘don’t go to open war zones’- damn those Yemeni’s, they should have used their copious economic resources to get the hell out of our way, right? Sure we would take them all as refugees… oh, wait. You remind me of the scene from Full Metal Jacket (or even better, from Hasford’s ‘The Short Timers’), with the door gunner blasting away at civilians over a free fire zone. “How do you kill women and children?” “Easy, you just don’t lead ’em so much!”
And hot tip for Yanks who don’t want to die in terrorist attacks. Stop killing people by the boatload, decade after decade after decade.
People with Hobs distorted beliefs and support for endless war endanger the West just as much as any “enemy of the day”
Only a sociopathic idiot could make that statement. It depends, just to mention one thing, on how you do it and who else you kill. How could it be otherwise? Even you might hesitate at nuking Yemen to kill couple of terrorists, but I have my doubts.
Yes, obvious to all except for the morally disabled. It also depends on how “enemy combatant” is defined and determined.
Your unfortunate tendency to engage in puerile insults does not in any way strengthen your argument or make you appear more human when you can’t even act as a mature adult.
Yes, it is dependent on abiding by the principles of distinction, proportionality and military necessity. Let’s go through those point by point in both Anwar and Abdulrahman’s cases.
Distinction: Anwar was undoubtedly an Al Qaeda militant, the people Abdulrahman was with were also Al Qaeda militants. I realize a lot of Intercept readers probably think Abdulrahman was deliberately targeted but there is no evidence of any kind to support this baseless allegation.
Proportionality: the damage done in the strikes compared to the threat and/or complicity of the loss of innocent life posed by the targets makes them justified. Indeed, the senior Al-Awlaki already participated in planning attacks causing loss of life.
Military necessity: I think it goes without saying eliminating Al Qaeda terrorists is a matter of necessity for our common defense. Or are you suggesting we should allow them to plan and conduct attacks with impunity? Is that what your values demand? Because that is simply insane. We already tried confronting this particular threat exclusively with a reactive law enforcement approach but that fails when the militants are operating in a foreign country where the FBI has no jurisdiction much less any ability to apprehend the suspects.
They can plan all they want. It’s when they attempt to implement that plan on America soil (or its embassies etc.) that you have a legal and moral right to stop them? Do you understand why that is, that you don’t get to assassinate people based on “plans” until they’ve taken enough steps and demonstrated a willingness to execute the “plan”? Or do you need me to explain it to you in crayon with stick figures and little thought balloons with small words inside?
Actually it is your “values” that are insane i.e. killing human beings who are “planning” things, and all the collateral damage that is born by those around them who weren’t “planning” anything much less doing anything that is a risk of harm to anyone anywhere in the world.
No we really didn’t. But even where we did, as in the USS Cole bombing, legal settlements were achieved for the victims. And in the case of Yemen, specifically, and given that there was evidence of the then Yemeni government complicity in the crimes, it would have been legitimate to ask the American people, and their elected representatives in Congress, to declare war against Yemen if the perpetrators weren’t found and handed over.
Just as it should have been legitimate to ask the American people and their elected representatives if they wanted to make war on Saudi Arabia and Egypt as it was their citizens and those governments failures (together with our own) that led to 9-11. It was not legitimate to destroy all of Afghanistan and most certainly none of Iraq based on the “threat of terrorism” “or lies about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction”.
Moreover, you don’t just get to have secret wars all over the globe against a scary “noun” that is less likely to harm you than lightning strikes and bee stings.
You do the painstaking work of setting up extradition treaties, and building international institutions and cooperatively work with law enforcement in those countries to disrupt and apprehend individuals who are actually committing crimes. You don’t just vaporize them extra-judicially so you can feel safer in an unpredictable world. There is nothing more morally bankrupt than that idea.
It’s either real declarations of war on nations, or law enforcement, subject to domestic and international rules of law–or nothing. Anything in between is a lie and likely against both domestic and international law no matter how much of a pants pissing coward and safety fetishist you happen to be.
We are not under an existential threat from “terrorism” no matter how you define that word. And there is no logical or moral reason to act as if we are. It only morally and financially bankrupts this nation.
Well said, sir.
When did 8 year old girls become enemy combatants?
We know when teenage boys were so designated. Greenwald wrote about that too (emphasis mine):
https://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
“unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent”
It’s going to be lovely when Trump’s CBP and local LE start using that Obama administration line to justify what they do in our communities. They’re already asking US citizens returning from abroad for their social media handles, a plan proposed last June for foreigners coming to the US.
When all of these policies come back home, when they are implemented here in the US, the schadenfreude will be bitter indeed because so many of the people who will then turn their bile justifiably on Trump will still wear blinders about how all these policies got their start and who implemented them in the first place.
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/29/trumps-muslim-ban-triggers-chaos-heartbreak-and-resistance/?comments=1#comment-346998
Gert, can you believe the nerve of those damn Yemenis? Hard to blame the Saudis for tossing their hands in the air, yelling, “Allahu akbar, there goes the neighborhood!” and bombing the shit out of them using our planes, ammunition and guidance. [/s]
People never learn to read the fine print, which inevitably contains, somewhere, words to the effect of “coming soon to a neighborhood near you!“
^^^
I have to question why you find that policy so abhorrent. Are you saying when a militant target has been identified out in the open and there are several unidentified males in close proximity to him, even if armed, they should be considered innocent? Based on what? I don’t consider the open association with known terrorist militants to be an act of innocence at all.
RE: social media handles, you do realize much if not most of the terrorist activity in recruitment and planning has evolved to spreading propaganda online through social media. Why you think we should be totally blind to an area of identified threat I will never understand. If you want to defend an ISIS recruiter’s right to spread his incitement with impunity, knock yourself out, but it plays right into every single worst conservative stereotype about human rights supporters, that they are all terrorist defenders or namby pamby hippies who don’t understand the world.
You know how people like Trump win? When people like yourself choose to attack your own over disagreements about policy as opposed to the much broader disagreements you have with your opponents. All it took was a few thousand votes for Jill Stein and Trump wins. It is appalling and deeply disconcerting to see you would rather attack someone like me or Obama who you probably agree with a lot more than not rather than the odious oppressive things Trump stands for.
Unsurprisingly, you are wrong. There are, indeed, “circumstances” that make such actions war crimes.
Please go away and read, e.g., Articles 51 and 57 of the Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
I believe I already addressed those principles explicitly. So long as those principles are abided by, the targeting of the combatant is itself justified as all nations are entitled to common defense under the laws of war. What bothers me is the implication that we can NEVER target enemy combatants under any circumstances, which is what leads human rights obsessives to all of a sudden mount noisy public defenses of known terrorist actors like Anwar Al-Awlaki.
Zionists: “The parents of the killed Palestinian children are so irresponsible for living in Gaza.”
Prove Abdulrahman was openly associating with Al Qaeda terrorists.
We’ll wait. Oh yeah, and while your at it define “associating” and please identify by name which “Al Qaeda terrorists” he was “associating with”.
Really, when did the United States declare war on the country of Yemen, such that it could be a “war zone”?
Again, I’ll wait for your proof.
There is no evidence that Abdulrahman was the target of the strike that killed him. The target was reportedly AQAP’s Ibrahim al-Banna.
And he was a United States citizen. If all you allege is true, the evidence must be very compelling and he could have been successfully prosecuted for treason, among other things. Assassinating a citizen is not something a “liberal Western democracy” is supposed to do.
How do you feel about Trump having the precedent to assassinate citizens without a scintilla of due process?
And oh, 16- and especially 8-year-old kids are unlikely to be “enemy combatants.”
Being a United States citizen does not entitle anyone, not you, not me, not even Jesus Christ himself to wage war against the nation. We killed hundreds of thousands of American citizens on American soil without warrant, arrest, trial or conviction during the American Civil War, an undeclared war, by the way. Why? Because they were at war with the United States. What you are suggesting is when the Confederates started shelling Ft. Sumter, the United States military should have stood down and permitted the shelling pending a warrant from some federal official. I’ll tell you what the warrant is: the men who took up arms and started firing. That makes you an enemy combatant cut and dried.
To the example of Al-Awlaki specifically, he was without question engaged both in recruitment and planning for a terrorist organization officially declared an enemy combatant of the United States. The AUMF of 2001 justifies military action against this organization. When you say try him for treason, first of all trial in absentia is unconstitutional. Secondly, even if we did try and convict him of treason, that doesn’t put an end to the terrorist threat nor does that at all guarantee his apprehension. In the meantime, he would be permitted to continue his terrorist activities with impunity under your principle and We the People are supposed to just suck it up any time one of his militant subordinates kills, say, over a dozen people at Ft. Hood. You have to be out of your mind if you think that is something most Americans can get behind.
There is no such precedent to assassinate American citizens established by President Obama and it is truly shameful for y’all to propose there is as some sort of tacit defense of Trump. What is absolutely insane is to hear y’all propose using Obama as a justification for Trump as if Trump nor you have any moral agency of your own whatsoever. What Trump chooses to do will be HIS choice and his responsibility. You sound like a wild-eyed conservative when you suggest “But a Democrat did X!” constitutes some legitimate moral justification. If this is how you choose to approach people like me until we acquiesce to your irrationality, then we might as well give up on 2020 since it is clear you are willing to throw your vote away based on the 20% disagreement you have with me as opposed to the 90% disagreement you have with conservatives.
Wrong. Under The Constitution of the United States, we ascertain “facts”(pesky or otherwise) in a court of law. A person accused of a crime is presumed innocent, has the Right to a trial, an attorney, and the Right to confront the witnesses against them.
If Al-Awlaki was “undeniably” involved in some sort of criminal activity, the very first step should have been to present this “undeniable” evidence to a grand jury and seek a criminal indictment. This was not done. I therefore find your accusations completely and totally irrelevant. If the government can’t even demonstrate probable cause, how can they justify execution?
The moral of the story being that we established The Constitution and the legal protections therein precisely so that people could not be detained, punished or killed under the arbitrary authority of an executive or based on mere accusations.
The problem, of course, is that the US is officially treating its conflict with al-Qaeda as a war. It might be a war that is different in character, but it is still officially a war. This is, of course, the same way al-Qaeda views it. Congress also drafted a joint resolution to that effect after 9/11.
Since the US views it as a war, the argument goes, wartime rule of engagement apply; thus enemy combatants can be attacked at will, and the US is under no obligation to give combatants an opportunity to surrender.
Nobody is arguing that Awlaki was a good guy, but US citizenship does not legally protect you if you conspire to harm the nation during wartime; the only real protection you get is your right to surrender. Many American citizens ended up fighting for the SS during WWII, and were killed in combat, legally. You could also look at the Mildred Gillars case.
This is the whole point of the “kill list.” In a conventional war,determining who combatants are is easy. In our conflict with al-Qaeda, this is not so easy; the list is simply a collection of designated combatants. The people who draw up the list are not deciding who “deserves to die:; they are simply trying to determine if Abu X or Mohammed Y is a terrorist or not. Thus, the list is actually supposed to aid in distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants.
There is a difference between peacetime law enforcement and wartime action. Due process and justice are crucial—but only in criminal cases, where the assailant isn’t engaged in a shooting war with American military personnel and, unlike the US, DELIBERATELY targets civilians.
How does that matter? There are international agreements that the US is a part of, so called international law. Certain provisions come into play if a country declares a war on another country. But the US has not declared war on Yemen, and it will not because it could only be judged a a war of aggression why others, not of defense. So the idea is to take advantage of provisions that would apply to a defensive war without there being one declared. This is a disastrous foreign policy and can only lead to more of the same.
The fighting has grown from essentially nothing as SA and the US have ramped it up. And shouting “9/11″ does not make it OK.
I’m not saying it’s OK. I’m just trying to make sense of THEIR justifications.
Congress can draft all the “resolutions” it likes, a “view” things anyway it likes, but if Congress doesn’t formally make a declaration of war, then it isn’t a “war” under the US Constitution or under international law. It is something else, and it is likely illegal and most certainly immoral. Precisely the problem with the Vietnam war being called a “police action”.
All people aren’t stupid, like you appear to be, who willing accept whatever the euphemism of the day is for America’s multi-decades long war-making on other sovereign nations.
Ever notice that America has never won any of its ugly little wars since WWII? No matter how much we bomb the ever living shit out of poor folks in their own lands for the euphemism of “protecting our way of life”, we aren’t really protecting shit except our own attempt at political, economic and military hegemony. And that’s why we are despised in much of the world. But people like you apparently can never grasp that simple truth.
And who gives a flying fuck what Al Qaeda thinks? You apparently?
Calm down, dude. I’m not “accepting” it.
I’m simply explaining the US rationale for decisions like the Awlaki strike. The US did pretty much declare war on al-Qaeda, although, of course, the idea that war can be declared on a non-state actor has yet to be resolved. The authority the US uses is the AUMF, which basically IS a declaration of war.
Also, the wars we have fought after WWII are often very different, and have a lot to do with a warfare that the US has never really been prepared to wage effectively—and, of course, the enemy gets a vote, too.
Was Nawar Al-Awlaki a US citizen?
In Nawar’s photo with the bow on her head she looks a little bit like JonBenet Ramsey, I wonder if Nawar’s murder will get equal media attention :-/
Thank you Glenn.
“It’s not just Trump but this mentality and framework that needs vehement opposition”
If we stop waging perpetual war it will adversely affect corporate profits.
Any bets what we will do?
There’s something almost eugenic about this family annihiliation-he should have “had a more responsible father.”-approach. Where will this lead to in the future? “Sippenhaft” (kinship liability), as practiced from 1933-1945 ?
Just for the record: Please don’t waste my time with The Odiousness of Godwin’s Law. That’s just a distraction from contemporary cruelty, and from the fact, that 1940 certainly doesn’t mirror 2017, but that certain parallels to 1932/1933 are terrifying.
Mr Greenwald – Please note your link to “a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman” results in “Page Not Found”. I tried stripping URL
(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Abdulrahman-Anwar-Al-Awlaki-locked-in-our-hearts/278913108798118?sk=wall)
down to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Abdulrahman-Anwar-Al-Awlaki-locked-in-our-hearts/.
But that didn’t work either. Regards.
The magnificent, indisputable, universal justification of everything evil and everything good.
IF …
… THEN …
… SO
“If” is entirely and absolutely an imaginary condition.
E.g., “If” Billy wants to kill his teacher …
“THEN” reiterates the non-existent condition of “if” and reifies it. “Then” could be anything, absolutely anything, that drives our desires or our fears and which attaches to something real or realistic-ish.
E.g., “Then” … all schools will become another Columbine or Sandy Hook where our precious children are at the mercy of deranged madmen. ,,,
“SO” finishes the proposition with an actuality. An actuality — the “so” — is an act designed in response to the original if/then fantasy. It is used to justify, motivate, obfuscate and rationalize.
E.g., … “so” we shot Billy as he rode his bicycle to school.
Notice “so” can be literally anything at all. More guns in schools, fewer guns in schools, homeschooling, handcuffed children, remote teaching, shooting Billy … literally anything the imagining grifter/statesman/salesperon wants to justify or obtain.
How to stop this spiral of insanity?
Avoid the word “if.” Refuse to accept the imaginary condition. Instead be accurate. Be truthful about what actually is. Refuse to wander in mazes of “ifs” and “maybes”. Don’t be fooled by “thens” — linked imaginary conditions — following the “if” that plays upon natural fears and desires,
Of course this is impossible for people who imagine. This is what all humans do. It is a measure of intelligence.
It is not impossible for people to demand accuracy, facts, and integrity and to understand the process of persuasion through rhetorical constructions such as “if … then … so.”
I hope this helps.
[I apologize for the rude use of emphasis. I don’t know how else to distinguish three crucial concepts.]
What IF the US/West just radically changed its FP vis-a-vis the ME?
How about that?
Stop funding/supporting a small country called Israel, that constantly does everything it can to offend the US, for example?
And so it begins: Glenn’s contention that Trump and Obama are basically one and the same.
LOL, way to cover all your bases, Glenn.
which would you prefer he defended in this particular context?
Well, Nate could defend that Obomba is soooo much coller, cerebral and sophisticated, whereas the Orange One is really a billionaire buffoon! ;^(
So important, that distinction…
“cooler”
Ah, yes, the other part of the post-truth era, ridiculing people who tell the truth for telling the truth.
“This is why it is crucial that – as urgent and valid protests erupt against Trump’s abuses – we not permit recent history to be whitewashed, or long-standing U.S. savagery to be deceitfully depicted as new Trumpian aberrations, or the War on Terror framework engendering these new assaults to be forgotten. Some current abuses are unique to Trump, but – as I detailed on Saturday – some are the decades-old by-product of a mindset and system of war and executive powers that all need uprooting. Obscuring these facts, or allowing those responsible to posture as opponents of all this, is not just misleading but counter-productive: much of this resides on an odious continuum and did not just appear out of nowhere.”
All true.
Mona,
It is hopeless. I am ready to crawl under a rock and die.
There are indeed differences, as I pointed out in a comment below. However, it is the system itself, not the person pulling the levers that is the root problem.
In the present system, no one is looking at the strategic questions such as why the US is supporting the war in Yemen and what goals it is trying to achieve. Instead, the Commander-in-Chief has been reduced to Assassin-in-Chief, in charge of making tactical targeting decisions better left to the armed forces. With nobody at the wheel, the US is drifting off-course.
C’mon Nate. It’s the system. Not individuals. He(Glenn) stated that clearly in the article.
All going according to plan:
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/18/the-stark-contrast-between-the-gops-self-criticism-in-2012-and-the-democrats-blame-everyone-else-posture-now/?comments=1#comment-311220
The two months of waiting to feed his starving predetermined narrative must have been especially tough for Glenn.
so you’re really defending drone attacks and an assassination program undertaken by a Democrat *because* he’s a Democrat?
seems like the prudent thing to do in that case would be to wait a little while before opening your mouth on the subject. right now, the numbers aren’t really working in your favor.
One doesn’t have to force anything, unfortunately, to note that a war in Yemen begun under Obama has now continued under Trump.
Would that something, anything, about that narrative HAD been starved. If so, then maybe a lot of women and children, including the innocent 8yo who died in this last attack over the contents of a computer, might still be alive.
There’s something terribly wrong with you, Nate, that all you can find to defend here is Obama’s fucking policies of destruction.
When Obama kills Yemeni children, it’s totally different than when Trump kills Yemeni children.
Obama does it with his progressive love in his heart. In contrast, Trump is a mean man!
A perfect encapsulation of the simplicity that drives your worldview and journalism.
Nate translated: “I loves me neoliberals like Obama and will carry on like an angry 6-year-old when Glenn points out that they helped prepare the way and slaughtered kids like Trump just did, in the very same family.”
Actually its a perfect encapsulation of your stunted moral worldview that you think there is a difference between Obama carrying out an immoral policy, and Donald Trump carrying out precisely the same immoral policy.
“A perfect encapsulation of the simplicity that drives your worldview and journalism.”
no it isn’t …
I wonder whether he is really so simple minded or he just relies on a simple minded audience willing to accept whatever contorted arguments he presents.
Let me try to be as distorted as he is:
Since the US is bombing Muslim nations, that means Americans hate Muslims. So, it is a good thing we do not allow them here because life would be hell for them in the US where Americans hate them.
Oh c’mon: surely that makes a difference to the relatives?!?!
Nasser al-Awlaki probably agrees with Nate: Glenn failed to note that the guy who sent the bomb to blow up his grandson is a polished constitutional scholar, while the guy who blew up his granddaughter is a vulgar reality TV star.
It’s disheartening to know the world is full of Nates and Trumpkins.
Just now watching some Trump rubes being hopeful about these jobs! (On RT)
Sure! I bet Obama felt kinda bad for a minute, if he noticed (doubt it), where evil Trump danced around and screamed ‘more blood, more blood!’. Makes a HUGE difference to the parent holding their mangled, lifeless child…
Wow, Glenn, after all this time, Nate has finally gotten you to understand.
???
Wait, what? You’re being facetious here, I hope? Pretty simplistic, Glenn.
He’s being sarcastic. He just needs a little more tutoring from Benito to reach the point where 25% of readers don’t get it.
savagem sounds pretty forceful in her denunciation of Glenn’s simplicity …
Much more than rhetoric can be hidden in that word, “children.”
Instead of comparing Obama with Trump, the latter of whom has only been in office a week, let’s compare killed children (since that is the category you chose), between Obama and Bush.
Both served eight years.
How many children were killed “by” Bush in eight years compared with the number of those killed “by” Obama? Or, to put it differently, is one hundred exactly the same as one hundred thousand? [These numbers are not meant to be accu