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ISIS, Obama, And Why Everbody Loves The Drone War
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man blog,
Everybody Loves the Drone War … Including Al Qaeda
President Obama has long ago decided it is best to make war in video-game fashion (from high up, and preferably using remote-controlled devices), and it seems this is meeting with the public’s approval – some 65% of Americans are A-OK with the “drone war” according to surveys.
Admittedly, replies to such polls depend very much on how the questions are framed. Our guess would be that these questions contain no hints about the vast uncertainties involved and the many civilians killed in the process. Presumably not too many people know that in some of the targeted countries, entire communities are living in fear these days. Many people have lost relatives, who have become “regrettable collateral damage”.
Predator drone
(Image via wn.com, author unknown)
In the US some of the most interesting news sources these days appear to be comedy shows. British import John Oliver has decided to take a look at the drone war issue in his show, and it is quite an informative overview. The drone program is not only shrouded in secrecy, it seems obvious that the government itself very often doesn’t really know whom it is killing by remote control.
No doubt many ‘militants’ are terminated (which could be anyone in the Hindukush running around with a gun, which in that region means practically every male inhabitant), but when 13-year old children tell you that they “prefer a gray sky to a blue one because then there are no drones overhead” one thing is perfectly clear: future blow-back is created in great abundance.
By now pretty much everybody in the Pashtun-inhabited areas of Pakistan and in the Sunni-dominated parts of Yemen probably hates the US with a passion. In fact, it is well known that Al Quaeda recruitment in Yemen has been greatly helped by the drone war. For every militant killed, a bunch of new ones shows up to join the “war against the infidels”.
The entire process of killing people in secret without even a hint of due process is highly dubious, to say the least – even if armed fundamentalist radicals are the main target. Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown professor and former Pentagon official under President Obama, explained the US policy on drone strikes during a congressional hearing last year as follows:
“Right now we have the executive branch making a claim that it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, for secret reasons based on secret evidence, in a secret process undertaken by unidentified officials. That frightens me.”
Here is the video of John Oliver discussing the topic on his show:
ISIS Unfazed by Air Strikes
Surprise, surprise. As Mish reports, ISIS seems pretty much unfazed by air airstrikes and continues its campaign against Kurds living between the northern boundary of its “caliphate” and Turkey.
Let’s see – when the president first ordered “limited airstrikes for humanitarian reasons”, it was all over the news how “reluctant” he was. By now these limited humanitarian interventions have become a “war that could last years”. Mark our words, ground troops are on the menu next. As we have pointed out several times in the past, it seems highly unlikely that ISIS will be defeated by air strikes alone. If that were possible, Assad would have done it already.
Anyway, we’re not even sure that this is really the goal. Ultimately, the entire situation in the Middle East may simply be the desired outcome of a “divide et impera” strategy. This to say, permanent chaos may in fact be what was intended from the outset, and these occasional interventions merely have the aim of not letting any single faction become too powerful.
We are just idly speculating of course and cannot prove anything of the sort, but on the other hand, we can also not imagine that the people behind the constant meddling in the region were/are not aware of the likely results. After all, it’s not like it never happened before. Similarly, the inevitable blow-back from the drone wars may well be fully expected and be part of the calculus. The US government is even inventing non-existent terror groups it can attack (no-one in Syria has ever heard of a group by the name of “Khorasan”, which almost certainly is an US invention. But they will attack us any second now!)
After all, “war is the health of the State” as Randolph Bourne remarked, and constantly creating new enemies certainly has the side effect of keeping the State in fine fettle.
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Just record it.
I see a new HBO series. "The Game of Drones"
Terrorists...
These days, calling a television show "Terrorists" would be roughly the same as Seinfeld, because everyone is a terrorist.
As people do not hold governments to the same standards of ethics as we do the individual. It was only a matter of time before they decalare any and all government behavour legal. Absolute power and all that.
Or corporations.
As people do not hold governments to the same standards of ethics as we do the individual. It was only a matter of time before they decalare any and all government behavour legal. Absolute power and all that.
...Or corporations.
This is a perfect combination of comments exemplifying the problem of "TPTB". The same people are in charge of both the governments and the multinationals. Power has been concentrated behind the scenes by nameless faceless power-hungry psychopaths. We are in the 1984 fascist model. This is why there is no longer a "legal" solution to the problem. Statutes are written by the people that would face a curtailment of their activities by any just law. Why is small business dying? Because laws are written to favor large business. It's really that simple. Why is the individual and his liberty now a footnote in history? Because laws are now written to favor government, the larger the better. Large anonymous and unaccountable organizations are those favored and granted power in our society. Individuals for the most part don't realize what we've lost. The "solution" will only come when these large organizations fail, as they inevitably will. But of course, because they have eliminated any smaller alternatives to themselves, when they fail, we all lose. Either tyranny or chaos. They have left us with no other options. Personally, I prefer chaos, but the strong majority prefers tyranny. I believe it has always been so. It is only when the tyrants are forced to reveal their true nature, when they are no longer capable of hiding the brutality they must eventually wield to maintain "control", that the majority realizes the problem. By that point, it's too late. Again, nothing new under the sun. We've seen this too many times before. Pass the popcorn, and watch the show. Like any soap opera, only the timeline changes; the ending is always the same.
previoulsy on AMC the walking drones....
because everyone is a terrorist
Only those that dissagree with the Gov are terrorists; theose that dissent.
because everyone is a terrorist
Only those that dissagree with the Gov are terrorists; theose that dissent.
Total Situational Awareness. We see all.....we hear all.....we know all.....we JUDGE all......we PUNISH all.
I AM THE LAW !!!!!
"Right now we have the executive branch making a claim that it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, for secret reasons based on secret evidence, in a secret process undertaken by unidentified officials. That frightens me."
In a hierarchical system Father knows best.
<Now shut the fuck up and get back to work peon.>
just the government claiming it has a "right" to do anything sounds a little backwards to me.
Like the death of the fourth amendment, the minute the technology grew up was the minute the Constitution fell down
Give that dumb ****** another Peace Prize!!!!
"Give that dumb ****** another Peace Prize!!!!"
Give that dumb fucker another Peace Prize!!!!
(I felt it necessary to fix that, I hate to see an accurate description censored.)
Translation Error
African
RE: "Give that dumb ****** another Peace Prize!!!!"
I hate counting stars.Tks.
Why don't we completely screw the middle east. Let's weaponize the Liar in Chief and launch him directly where his favorite terrorists are mobilizing. That way we can cut out all the small stuff and just destroy the region.
The drone killing pilots are all on record so in all due time in the future, a people's court will be able to hang those killers.
"I was just following orders."
"The killing was legal."
"I thought it was an X-Box game."
The USA is a genocidal empire, from the very begining and likely to the end. Drone pilots are among the lesser pantheon of war criminals. Their PTSD and ruined country will probably be punishment enough.
Played with precision by XBox champions
First you must prove criminal intent. As most people have no understanding of lawful authority (I can't imagine why./sarc) the little guys pushing the "enter" button have no concept of rights. On the other hand, the ones who created the brutal and profitable system know exactly what they are doing. Those are the ones who are the criminals. They are accountable and do not have limited liability. They have full liability for their murderous acts.
Ignorance of Universal Justice is no excuse.
First the Taliban, Then ISIS, then the teaparty....TOTAL CONTROL!
Sorry wrong. Teaparty is at its heart a libertartian cause. The ultimate element in your series should be "progressive liberal". Their type of governance always leads to swastikas.
Doesnt "tea party" translate into "i am trying to think independently, but my main solution really invovles more of the same system of government, so we will be here again in another century"?
I thought he was taking the perspective of TBTP propaganda machine.
US has become a terroist country.
In reading the news online, I have never found more intelligent commenters as I have on zerohedge. I have learned so much about economics from you all, really. On the subject of Islam and the war on terror, however, most of you have no idea what you're talking about, including Tyler Durden. Watch this video, and everything happening in the Islamic world will start to make a whole lot more sense: Islam: What the West Needs to Know. It's on YouTube. Sorry, the link function isn't working on my phone. :-P
In reading the news online, I have never found more intelligent commenters as I have on zerohedge. I have learned so much about economics from you all, really. On the subject of Islam and the war on terror, however, most of you have no idea what you're talking about, including Tyler Durden. Watch this video, and everything happening in the Islamic world will start to make a whole lot more sense: Islam: What the West Needs to Know. It's on YouTube. Sorry, the link function isn't working on my phone. :-P
According to George Carlin:
"This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free... So they killed a lot of white English people, in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out of the rest of the red Indian people, so they move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people."
So I'd update the statement to "we were always a terrorist country".
By that definition, every country in existence for more than Xyrs is a terrorist country.
That's how it was done, you didn't like your rulers so you killed them and took over. Your neighbor had something you wanted so you killed him and took it.
It's a relatively recent idea that countries don't go to war to conquer territory.
US is not a country. It is a created Corporation residing at its headquarters in the City State of the District of Columbia. The United States of America is a confederation of independent Nations identified by physical boundaries. The People of these independent Nations agreed to act together under limited circumstances to form a representative government with a Constitution reserving the rights of the people and their successors in perpetuity. The people of the original and the current Nation States have a contract which all government office holders do swear to uphold and defend the people's Constitution. Office holders only have specified limited authority to act in a governmental capacity.
There is no longer a Congress or Executive of the United States of America. There is only a corporation of the United States Inc. which does what ever the hell it wants without regard to the people's Constitution ( or if you will, contract). Your "Representatives" in government are only doing what is best for the heartless corporation to succeed and grow. The major evil root of this is the 14th amendment of our Constitution which was created for nefarious purposes. The US Corporation has by deceit, fraudulent contracts, mind control, disinformation and threat of force assumed everyone has agreed to be governed by the 14th Amendment. That Amendment created "Subjects" to the civil corporate law which is void of any rightful lawful delegated authority except in commercial activity under Admiralty Law.
I rest my case with the One Supreme Court which is The People, without the corporate State.
O/T rumor has it that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan died yesterday (Sunday)
The lone U.S. Ebola patient is in critical condition, the Dallas hospital that has been treating him reported Saturday.
Not yet.
... word on the kibbutz is Thomas Duncan died yesterday (Sunday)... so far it's not being reported anywhere else but Israel...
Upside: The evil shut bird continues to suffer
Downside: it costs a crap ton to continue trying to save the sub-worthless bag of protoplasm
O/T. Fox news Philly reported that there is a suspected Ebola patient at Bay Health Hospital right here in Dover Delaware. Patient is a child and from W Africa.
There will be a point in time that the fuckers use these things on us and we will regret our complacency and letting .gov get away with this.
...and it'll be the nonconformists on ZH that are high on the target list.
Fedcoat-approved Murder-via-drone will engender blowback. Yes, the usual ragheads will be trying to strike infidel targets in the US, but as soon as freedom-lovers start dying, we'll figure how the drones acquire their targets. If it's signal from a cell phone, some of those phones are going in end up in .gov facilities and vehicles.
so true
that's what empires do
...too late.
At least for me.
That point in time occured back in the 90s, solidified in 2003.
After all, “war is the health of the State”
War is what America does best:
That is, Syria has become at least the 14th country in the Islamic world that U.S. forces have invaded or occupied or bombed, and in which American soldiers have killed or been killed. And that’s just since 1980.
Let’s tick them off: Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria. Whew.
With our 14th front barely opened, the Pentagon foresees a campaign likely to last for years. Yet even at this early date, this much already seems clear: Even if we win, we lose. Defeating the Islamic State would only commit the United States more deeply to a decades-old enterprise that has proved costly and counterproductive.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-if-we-defeat-the-islamic-sta...
George Carlin on America's wars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzrQSba-1k4
Costly? More like profitable. Counterproductive? That depends what you think the goal is. (Hint: it is not victory)
In June of 1787, James Madison addressed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on the dangers of a permanent army.
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” he argued.
“The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home"
Gee, wonder where he got those conspiracy theories?
Why can't we fight Caucasians anymore?
Well that beats John Stewart's Obama Ball licking... well done moving on Mr. Oliver
You called it..!!! John Stewart sucks more Obama cock than Reggie.
My respect for John Oliver is growing fast...
The Time Person of the Year this year should be the boogie man.
K.C. and The Sunshine Band approve that Time Person of the Year vote......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKoZMke594A
Another Nobel prize, no doubt.
Uh,
Right now we have the executive branch making a claim that it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, for secret reasons based on secret evidence, in a secret process undertaken by unidentified officials. That frightens me.
Frightens? It terrifies me. The fact that none - and I mean none- of our so called brave men in uniform have stepped in to stop this (which would be a perfectly legal and honorable execution of their Oaths) is absolutely staggering. Abso-fucking-lutely staggering.
"Hello, Chief Joints. Who wants to lick my Dick first?"
"Me!"
"No, Me!"
"No ME, Sir!"
"OK, OK, the Marines go First."
When you aware of the rules, you can become a more effective player. The Fedcoats are playing El Deguello.
Drones are easy to shoot down. The Pakastanis, Yemenis air farce could shoot them down but don't because their working with the u.s
They are as much if not more responsible due to it being their citizens blown to Kingdom come, especially the Pakastanis as they have a reasonable air force.
We don't know how many drones have flown over the Islamic nations or Israel. Very few have been shot down. A hezbollah drone flew over Israel for over an hour, taking and transmitting photographs, before being shot down. Evidently, it isn't as easy as you seem to think it is.
Look at it another way: It would be necessary to have fighter aircraft in the air constantly in search of these comparatively tiny objects. At the cost of tens of thousands of dollars per sortie, it would bankrupt the budget of most countries to keep up the level of vigilance needed. Only the USA, which prints its own money, and Israel which has unlimited drawing privileges against the US Treasury, could afford this.
Drones are for Cowards.
Im in favor of hiring blackwater to kick their ass
It is OUTRAGEOUS that the govt can kill just anyone, as this sensationalist article proposes. The govt, and any individual, should be able to kill only the following ON SIGHT:
1. illegal invaders, especially from south of the rio grande
2. socialist parasites, especially entitlement program tit suckers & earnings redistribution thieves
3. any islamic cult worshiper anywhere, part of the "clean up earth" campaign
Hey get out of here, you are going to miss the tea party!!!
Happy to disappoint you, vestigal mind, but I am not a member of or supporter of any religious organizations.
By 'earnings re-distribution thieves' I hope you're referring to Wall St.
There are no entitlement programs that confiscate earnings and redistribute to any corporations, the only entitlement programs (eg obamacare, medicaid, food stamps, disability, etc) buy the votes of proletariat socialist parasite failures, thieves & living garbage - sounds like you are one of them ?
Ted Turner, Tyson, Hormel, all thank you for your continued support of their magic, non-confiscated from the rest of us, earnings.
Corporate welfare and mandates, dwarfs other spending.
US.gov pensions dwarf SS.
But we only want the old and poor cut, the rulers and their legions get to keep all theirs.
This is why we will never be "fixed."
Probably also why we are going to pay like no other citizens of any other warmongering country have ever had to pay.
If I were to suddenly wake up one morning as president of the US, I would initiate drone strikes against a select group of US citizens: anyone who actually believes these surreptitious drone strikes are in any way legal or moral. (A certain Hawaiian-born politician would be the first target, and I don't mean Abercrombie.) Then I would go on national TV and announce that I'd done a horribly immoral thing, and issue an executive order banning all such acts in the future, call for a Constitutional amendment banning such presidential abuses of power - among other things - in the future, and then I'd announce I was resigning (having arranged for the VP to pardon me.) Well, maybe not the last part, but then I doubt I'll ever wake up as president. The best I can hope for, I fear, is waking up from the ongoing nightmare we're currently experiencing.
only a matter of time before we have legions of terminators to handle the ground game
^^^^^^^^
from what i remember, it didn't work out too well for the humans in the end
The drone story
Conducting “remote-controlled” wars
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/09/the-drone-story.html
When drones become cheap to produce, everybody will be able to launch them over LA or NYC. It won't take many of them to instill great fear.
Wish Cody Wilson would invent a print-at-home drone killer.
Oliver is about due for a heart attack.
Or nail gun accident.
Or viral infection.
Or at the very least an audit.
Or deportation.
Or car accident.
NSA guys, help me out here. Get creative.
Hmm, do ya think I could rent a drone from Hertz or National Drone Rental?
My mother-in-law has been a real pain lately ...
"ISIS seems pretty much unfazed by air airstrikes"
This presupposes ISIS was actually the target.
John Oliver's magnificent presentation has to end on a funny note. He is -after all- a comedian. The reaction here is focused on our "government", which is firmly under the control of self-aggrandized "Ubermenschen" who presume that the preservation and enhancement of their privileges and preferences are more important to the future of mankind than any other factor.
Of course we can blame "our government". But who are these people who control it? If we know who "they" are, why do we let them go on with this?
One reason is that "65%" of Americans support the calloused killing of drone warfare. "They" are "us". It is testament to how immoral, how evil we have become that it is okay to wage wars of conquest, retribution, and humiliation against Islam in far away countries, because -we are gullible to believe- they are both capable and intent on "attacking" us in our homes in our own country. It is a testament to how immoral and evil we have become that a majority of us have supported murder, rendition, incarceration, torture, and indefinite detention, all in secret. I could go on...but the point is made.
There is one country in this world and one people in this world that cannot be criticized. Any person who does so, will suffer immediate and adverse consequences to his career and social standing. 90% of our Congressmen and Senators cannot bring themselves to criticize the actions of this country, much less vote against its wishes. They never question the great numbers of controlling positions within our Treasury, Federal Reserve, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the NSA that are held by these people.
According to regular polling of "Americans', about 85% of "us" support the country I am referring to, even in the face of stark images of the physical destruction and human suffering it perpetrates upon an isolated indigenous people. And despite polling which indicates that 3/4 of us believe that our country is going in the wrong direction, about the same percentage of us express "favorable feelings" about the people, who have so much cotrol over our economy, our courts and their interpretation of our Constitution, our academic and government institutions, and our media.
A-h-h!! The media!! The money!! "I care not who makes the laws in this country. He, who has the gold, rules." Because the Ubermenschen control our money, our minds, our morals, and our material well-being, nearly everyone is beholden to them and dependent upon them in some way. And that is why John Oliver -and almost everybody else- cannot bring us to focus on the ethnicity and the ideology which connects so many of those who manage things for "our" benefit.
Stop with the Irish-bashing already.
LOL
Himpton Doctrine
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=22023
No doubt the people living under the drone of drones are literally being terrorized; therefore, those controlling said drones are terrorists.
There'll be killing in the end. If only ZH was international...
What would that change?
ZH is international. Many people reading it here in Germany, and I have even been asked if I could translate short versions daily, too bad I can't afford that.
The beheading videos make Obama look weak, the public mad, and hurt his poll numbers. The air war against ISIS is pure theater to make it look like Obama is "doing something". Expect it to fizzle out to nothing after the November election.
The beheading videos aren't even real and have served their purpose flawlessly: to get the US and other western nation's populace behind more attacks in the ME to destabilize the region. Then Israel and oil companies step in and take over new lands with puppet govt's.
One can spell "drone" like so, M U R D E R, but then I spell it like so, T R E A S O N.
An American, not US subject.
Evil POTUS POS
I loled at all the automatons I knew that voted for Obomber when he launched drone strikes in Pakistan on his first day in office. Then I remembered that he wasn't actually voted into office, but placed there like every other puppet POTUS, and I loled some more.
It's getting really old now though, so no more lols.
I'm confused. Which ISIS is the Empire trying to bomb?
Do they bomb over there so we don't look here?
Why aren't the drones bombing at Kobani?
http://rt.com/news/193528-isis-flag-raised-kobani/
When the $hit hits the fan and the $us. collapes Americans and their Minions will become open season. The purge will make the world a better place. Presently even Isis is the effect of the Present Oligarchy and American Politics. It is in your best interest to stop murdering the innocent for profits and control. War crimes including Currency Wars help .....so few.
"... the executive branch making a claim that it has the right to kill anyone, anywhere on Earth, at any time, for secret reasons based on secret evidence, in a secret process undertaken by unidentified officials."
That is the logical result of the best organized gangs of criminals capturing control over the government at an exponentially accelerating rate, as has been happening in America for more than a Century.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." The macabre sense of humour that surrounds situations where the application of the methods of organized crime to the political processes has resulted in governments becoming the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, is perhaps the only residually sane way to cope with facing the facts regarding that. Study of that historical pattern results in predicting that we are headed towards PEAK INSANITIES, as the overall criminal insanities exemplified by the way that the US government is using drones continues to double, at an exponential rate, for the foreseeable future!