Drones are inhumane, Al Qaeda's # 2 Brother says

Sort of ironic, eh?

The Link

 

I wonder what that family thought of the malicious killing of thousands of Americans on 9/11. Not just sort of ironic, this would make an Alanis Morissette song.

 

This criticism is coming from a group of guys who decapitate people and videotape it.

What's inhumane about using drones to kill these guys? Is that they can't fight back? I'd rather get killed instantly by a bomb or missile from a drone than be kidnapped, tortured, and decapitated.

 

Drone strikes are badass, but I admit I'm concerned about that genie getting out of the bottle.

 

Mr. Deez,

Prior to 1950, there really was no terrorism, no anti-American or anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East, unless you want to go back to the Crusades.

It wasnt until the US and British became intimately involved in nation building and regime control in the Middle East in the latter half of the 20th century that hatred toward the West appeared....

Ive talked about this ad nausea for a long time, but it still doesnt get through it seems.

Are the terrorists still bad guys, yeah sure they are, but we have a huge role in their creation. For us to stick our heads in the sand and act like we are attacked for no good reason like we have been minding our own business for the last 50 years is laughable.

But too many people on Hornfans want to continue to act like weve done nothing wrong. They hate us for just breathing or just because are Americans. Our policies have a huge role in this, but we just wont admit to it.

 

What's laughable is when an educated person thinks that a suicide bomber has a policy dispute.

 

In reply to:

---

---

 

A drone strike is on my most effective weapons in Call of Duty. I am glad they are following my lead and using it to take out the 'evildoers' now.

 

Obviously our armed opponents in the Middle East don't have aircraft carriers, Navy Seals, drones, and other instruments of the world's best militaries. As an academic who studied the topic explained, they have to use "asymetric force." When America confronted the world's greatest military power to secure our freedom, we pretty much marched into battle and fought toe to toe in the traditional military fashion. But guerrilla style warfare of Francis Marion and others was instrumental in turning the tide.

All this to say that when confronting people who hate you, you don't get to choose the rules and they couldn't care less how nice, brave and honorable you think they are.

 

Fair point, Crockett, but I don't really see how it fits in this discussion regarding drones.

 

The good news is, Shiner, that our opponents don't get to make the rules either.

 

“Now what happens?" asked the man in black.
"We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone."
"You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?”
¯ William Goldman, The Princess Bride

 

Dheiman,

you dont get it, or you refuse to. It doesntmatter how cowardly 911 was, it was justifiable in the minds of those who perpetrated it, based on our governments policies of meddling in their affairs. You either understand this or you dont. Again, you can put your head in the sand or you can sober up and realize that the US has in fact brought this on itself. To ignore this and act like we havent is to continue the madness and lack of understanding of the situation, which will continue to proliferate it to the end of time.

 

"Wouldn’t you characterize those actions as terrorism?"

Sure, if piracy/impressment counts as terrorism.

And if you're saying the reason we treated the Middle East so poorly in the 20th century is because they treated us like barbarians for the prior 4 centuries, then I'd disagree. The mandate system of post-WWI is what really pissed them off, and we did nothing to stem the tide of it because Britain was our biggest ally.

 

Wewoka -- you have to admit the Arab slave trading, like American and Eurpean enslavement and slave trading, was rooted in greed, not hatred. Certainly it's likely the fiends tried to put a religious face on it, like the american/european slavers and their "Sons of Ham" justifications that somehow twistedg a tale of Noah into bestowing legitimacy on one of history's great evils.

 

Wewokahorn,

Without having looked into those claims, in 1780 the Western world, including Spain, was engaged in ripping innocent Africans from their homes and shipping them across the ocean to the Americas, the Spanish Inquisition was over, but cant be ignored, and I am sure a whole host of other atrocities can be dregged up that were committed by "Christians" against whoever they felt deserved it.

Can you give some examples of Arab or Muslim wrath against the US after 1780?

Across the world there have been atrocities committed throughout history, but in modern times, the Arab World couldnt have given two shits about the United States until we began meddling in their affairs, and our government officials have gone to great lengths to lie to the American people that they hate us for our freedoms.

You can make as many excuses as you want, but unless you understand the reasons, you cannot fix the problem, and right now we as a nation are screwing ourselves because of our hard headed policies.

 

2003TexasGrad,

As you know, I'm a Ron Paul guy overall because his domestic agenda is so much better than anyone else's. (In fact, he's the only politician today whose domestic agenda isn't financially insane.)

However, my biggest problem with him (and you) on the foreign policy front is that you all are full of criticisms and Monday-morning quarterbacking of US foreign policy, but I see very little in terms of answers.

Basically, the answer is "stop meddling" (whatever that means - you guys never define it), and everything will be OK. I see no contingency plans at all. If someone asks where we're supposed to get oil, what we're supposed to do if a truly bad guy needs to be dealt with, or what we should have done in previous historic situations, you all just ignore the question. Basically, the presumption is that the United States is the sole source of evil in the world, and all other considerations and possibilities are not even worthy of discussion.

 

Well Mr. Deez, I do not agree with your assessment. Ron Paul has given answers which I agree with.

At some point you have to be a monday morning quarterback, evaluate what went wrong, and then correct it, not cover it up and keep doing it. Fix it.

Ron Paul has made it clear he wants to bring home the troops. He has quoted CIA and military intelligence reports that back up his position. He wants to end all foreign aid, because, as we have seen, that foreign aid usually ends up being used for bad things.

I agree. We have to first stop giving money to all of these countries, especially in the Middle East. No one can blame the US for supporting dictators and puppets when we dont give them any money!

Bring the troops home. We will save money and reduce our military presence (completely) in those countries where people have an axe to grind. They can no longer hold it against us that we are occupying them.

By proxy, when we are no longer occupying countries and no longer giving any money to them, nobody is going to be able to justify having a problem with us. When we absolve ourselves from "meddling" with the internal affairs of those countries (and believe me, the people in those countries are more aware of it than the football/basketball/baseball/hockey/gold/soccer/college sports/nascar watching American public is) then Al Qaeda and other groups will not be able to recruit against us because they will have no ammunition to use against us.

When we say that we will engage in importing goods from these countries and trading goods with them, then there is a real financial gain for the people, and not for the dictator that we are supporting.

We want oil? We drill for it here in the US. We want better technology, we diversify and develop alternative forms of energy. We went to the moon 50 years ago and cant seen to be able to do it now even though our technical knowledge far exceeds what we knew then.

We have become lazy and fat and are being passed up around the world. We are not being smart. We are relying on having the world by having them by the balls because of their dependence on the dollar, which is ever weakening, and by our superior military, but that will come to an end at some point.

We can defend ourselves here without "isolating" ourselves. We still have spy satelites and treaties and we can continue to train and make sure we have the strongest military in the world, just not sitting in bases in 150 different countries.

Those are some answers. You may not like them, but they will work. If the price of oil goes up, I am willing to accept that if it means that the world hates us less.

 

Weko....

Youre reaching. I have not changed the time frame unless you want to be a little girl: "oh oh oh, you said CRUSADES, so now youre back tracking!!!"



In modern times, there has been no anti-American sentiment in the Middle East prior to 1950. If you want to go back to 1780, clap clap clap, America had slavery at that time and women couldnt vote etc etc etc.... but that doesnt change the fact that until the United States inserted itself into the politics of Middle Eastern nations, they did not hate us, and certainly in 1780 you didnt have Mullahs spewing anti-American hatred.... so yeah, youre desperately trying to create a history of anti-Americanism where there just isnt any.

Israel is more than capable of defending themselves if they are attacked. They have as advanced or more advanced weaponry than we do. And that has nothing to do with them resenting the US. They truly do not need our help.

You can keep picking at semantics all you want, but the United States government is directly responsible for the ire that we face from the Middle East, and until we collectively take our heads out of the sand, its gonna continue unless we change our policies. Its really that simple.

If you look at my other most recent post, I give as clear an explanation as to why we should absolve ourselves from Middle Eastern politics outside of simply allowing fair trade between our countries. We can choose to not trade with a country if that country is ruled by a dictator that we do not agree with but when we are the ones whove given billions to that dictator for decades, we dont look very good in the eyes of those people, but just pretend thats not the case and continue living in the matrix.

 

In reply to:

---

---

 

Evaluating, correcting and then fixing the problem cant be all you do? Im confused.... What else would you do after fixing the problem?

----------------------

If Germany or South Korea or Japan want our bases there, then they can pay for them with their own taxpayers money. If we are providing them a service, they are more than welcome to pay for it. That brings up a question that I have. Do these nations that "want" our bases on their soil pay us to be there? hmmmmm.

If another nation truly wants us there and is willing pay for most if not all of our expenses for operating those bases, then I am open to a discussion of that. However, on principle I would still say no, we dont need our troops occupying another country, even in a limited capacity. Those soldiers can be here on American soil, contributing to the American economy and can be training and protecting our own soil.

It isnt the job of the US to protect 130 other nations, and right now, with the debt we have, we cant continue doing it. Bring on QE3, QE4, QE5..... just dont let the inflation hit you in the rear.

-----------------------

I am not condoning the murder of innocent people, but every action has a reaction, and Al Qaeda and other militant groups are certainly reacting to decades of US policy. Is it justified? I wouldnt use that term because I dont agree with violence against civilians who are largely ignorant or stupid, but I would say that supporting the Shah and Saddam and Mubarak, and King Hussein and the House of Saud for decades certainly has caused a severe amount of irritation over the years that has caused things such as, I dont know, 911? We dont even need to bring up US support of Israel. Our support of Arab thugs is enough. But most Americans choose to keep their head entrenched in sand singing lalalalalalalalalala.

------------------------

I have no problem with importing oil or any other good as long as it is freely traded between countries. One of the major problems we had with Iran, and one of the main reasons we went in and took over their country in 1953 was because they wanted to nationalize their oil, and the British were not happy about that. Import away. Just dont take over other countries in the process.

------------------------

How much more am I willing to pay for oil? I want to pay a fair market price, whatever that is. But I am not OK with having cheap oil on the blood of innocent people half way around the world. Id rather pay more if there is fair trade between countries.

As it is, oil companies control the supply that comes into this country so it doesnt really matter. The oil companies want their profits, and they will do whatever they need to to ensure they get them. They can withhold oil importation no matter what is going on around the world.