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Who's Being Targeted for Assassination by Drone?
Spiegel reports this week that drug dealers and low-level Taliban members were targeted for death by drone:
NATO didn’t just target the Taliban leadership, but also eliminated mid- and lower-level members of the group on a large scale. Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents.
***
The operations were based on the lists maintained by the CIA and NATO — Obama’s lists. The White House dubbed the strategy “escalate and exit.” McChrystal’s successor, General David Petraeus, documented the strategy in “Field Manual 3-24″ on fighting insurgencies, which remains a standard work today. Petraeus outlined three stages in fighting guerilla organizations like the Taliban. The first was a cleansing phase …. Behind closed doors, Petraeus and his staff explained exactly what was meant by “cleansing.” German politicians recall something that Michael T. Flynn, the head of ISAF intelligence in Afghanistan, once said during a briefing: “The only good Talib is a dead Talib.” Under Petraeus, a merciless campaign began to hunt down the so-called shadow governors and local supporters aligned with the Islamists.
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According to the NSA document, in October 2008 the NATO defense ministers made the momentous decision that drug networks would now be “legitimate targets” for ISAF troops. “Narcotics traffickers were added to the Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) list for the first time,” the report reads. In the opinion of American commanders like Bantz John Craddock, there was no need to prove that drug money was being funneled to the Taliban to declare farmers, couriers and dealers as legitimate targets of NATO strikes. In early 2009, Craddock, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe at the time, issued an order to expand the targeted killings of Taliban officials to drug producers.
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The documents, [attorney Jennifer Gibson] notes, also show that the “war on terror” was virtually conflated with the “war on drugs.”
We’ve previously noted that even the architect of America’s drone assassination program says it’s gone too far … creating terrorists rather than eliminating them. And that drone attacks are a war crime (more here and here). And that there is widespread murder of innocent civilians as “collateral damage”. For example, American University Professor Jeff Bachman reports:
Strikes focused on the Kill List “killed on average 28 other people before they actually succeeded in killing their target.”
Indeed, even the process for deciding who to put on the “kill list” is flawed. People are often targeted by the metadata on their phones, a process which a former top NSA official called the drone assassination program “undisciplined slaughter.” And people are targeted for insanely loose reasons. As the New York Times reported in 2012:
Mr. Obama had approved not only “personality” strikes aimed at named, high-value terrorists, but “signature” strikes that targeted training camps and suspicious compounds in areas controlled by militants.
But some State Department officials have complained to the White House that the criteria used by the C.I.A. for identifying a terrorist “signature” were too lax. The joke was that when the C.I.A. sees “three guys doing jumping jacks,” the agency thinks it is a terrorist training camp, said one senior official. Men loading a truck with fertilizer could be bombmakers — but they might also be farmers, skeptics argued.
And then there are “double taps” … where the family members, friends or neighbors who try to rescue someone hit by a drone missile are themselves targeted for assassination. The bigger picture is that anti-terror laws are being used for all sorts of purposes besides stopping terrorists:
- Mass surveillance is being used to prosecute drugs and other petty crimes
- Military tactics have been deployed against drug dealers and other petty criminals
- Everything outside of the status quo is now considered terrorism
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I heard a rumor that the attack drone program is going to be expanded to also target socialist islamic-cult sympathizing propagandists masquerading as an American founder. I hope so. The attack drone program is one of the very few worthwhile programs the USA govt operates.
Links to prog websites and the UN condemning US human rights violations as war crimes. Really, the UN!!! Oh, the horror! Any of you jammy boys want to square this with freeing into the wild Gitmo honor rollers at a slow but steady trickle?
Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms.
So, Zero Hedge is a channel for active measures? Old dog, old tricks.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
http://www.iwp.edu/docLib/20140714_SovietInfluenceActivities.pdf
Who's being targeted? Good question.
Because you saw atrocities in 'Nam or wherever, government drones are okay and anyone on ZH saying otherwise is a Commie. That makes a lot of sense. So, does combat make you stupid or what?
Nah, saw atrocities in the nam in a movie, but have friends who saw anti-AQ in Iraq locals still breathing and hanging from the ceiling by their ball sack and slashed and bleeding in a torture house with body parts strewn about a concrete floor with a drain to channel the blood away. FUCK YOU FUGGIN USEFUL JAMMIE BOY IDIOT. You probably think it torture to splash water in the face of someone who wants to free you from the burden of holding up your empty head. Does too much prog propaganda and hangin' at ZH make you stupid or make you stupid?
Once you have an open-ended program in place, the nature of the military or any other govt. function is to grow to increase numbers because that is the metric of 'success'.
Another byproduct of the bureaucratic mindset is mission-creep, where programs are expanded beyond their original tasking to include corollary areas which will increase numbers further equating more success.
Collateral damage is merely an unfortunate necessity to produce the work product and can sometimes, without proper accounting, be used to create more total 'work volume'.
Video-game Death. Welcome to the future.
Exactly, completely sterlize murder and you can get anyone to do it. What are images on a screen to a kid that has been slaughtering them on his Playstation for the last 10 years. Shit, they barely need training. And they love it!!!
Exactly how frustrating would it be to have things flying around so high and quiet you can't detect them and know that you could get blown up at any moment? How frustrating would it be to have your family blown up? What would you think about the US?
We all know these wars are BS. The US is ran by some of the most disgusting, vile creatures ever known to mankind.
What is there is this world that has not been explained before? If we are surprised it is only because we have not read.
Man is inherently evil and without free will. His turnings are but preplanned choreography of God.
In this life the best that we can attain is a modicum of the justice that is God. We have strayed far from that so we should not be surprised that it feels very alien.
You seem to have tunnel vision. "God is justice". That is your opinion, woefully inadequate but OK. What about mercy, love, gratitude, humility. You wanna get right with God, first cease being self absorbed.
When I was a kid in my early teens, I remember having strange, terrifying, recurring dreams of playing outside in the fields that surrounded our rural home and finding myself being followed by a strange levitating missile shaped object. No matter how fast I ran, or where I tried to hide, the missile would find me, hovering, watching, pointing itself directly at me with a red light flashing on its nose cone and a beeping sound emanating from it's insides. Somehow I knew if I did the wrong thing, or even thought the wrong thought, the missile would explode, killing me instantly. That dream scared the shit out of me. I've never told anyone about it until now.
If you were born in the 50's, it was "Hot Nuke Syndrome". We all had it from seeing the fear everywhere. If you are younger, then I guess this will be your version of the Cold War.
forget drones if we could only buy this exercise equipment for every fucking .gov pol::
"On Thursday, Senator Reid received treatment at University Medical Center in Las Vegas for injuries sustained in an accident he suffered while exercising at home in Henderson.
“A piece of equipment Senator Reid was using to exercise broke, causing him to fall and break a number of ribs and bones in his face."
I call bullshit. Perhaps Dirty Harry needed some persuasion in order to make the "Right" policy decision or some such thing. Getting your face bashed in and some broken ribs aint half as bad as being thrown off a roof or getting suicided by nailgun.
we droned some goyim 'terrorists'
Can I volunteer to be assasinated by a drone? That would seem like a mercy rather than have to listen to one more sound bite about the 'Chief Fudge Packers' hawaii vacay...
I roared with laughter on that one. Coffee every where...
Just when you thought things could not get any moar farked up than they are comes this toy to play with.:
http://graphics.wsj.com/penalty-calculator/?utm_content=buffercbf81&utm_...
SUCKERS!!!!!
Last night I dreamed that the CIA targeted my neighbors dog with a drone. I shit you not! Can't remember why they did it. Just poor little mut got blown to bits. I think I will have lay off the drink for a while.
There's no place like home!
There's no place like home!
There's no place like home!
TOTO! TOTO! Toto!Well, at least what has been known to some, for the past 13 years running, is now getting some 'full-spectrum' attention. That being a simple definition of terms ('Terrorist'), and add just the right measure of propaganda-induced crowd madness, to turn pretty much anyone who poses a threat in any appreciable capacity to the system, a viable and deserving 'target'. An event from 2009 always provides a nice refresher on the topic:
http://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul-bob-barr-chu...
'Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents.'
BS... CIA just hates competition...
One man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter...
not you unfortunately
Innocents and barbarians alike fall prey to the Raptor, but its primary target, the one we should all rush to defend, is the assumption of human rights. Rights western man wrested from his kings over the past millenium. This reversal has been so swift, supported by a "rugged individualist" propaganda machine - another form of technological slavery - that most folks aren't even aware of this momentous change. Unless we move soon to assert our rights, they will disappear and life will indeed become "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Once again, Droning does NOT create terrorists! It kills them! ISIL grew when we did not drone them, into a very formidable force. Now we drone them and they are being beaten back into Syria. Anyone that claims we are creating terrorists by droning them, does NOT know Islam and the concept of Jihad. You do like to quote yourself GW. Ten (10) links to your blog.
@xavi1951:
Unfortunately, you seem to have some of your propaganda stated incorrectly.
I guess I'll have to re-read some articles about how the U.S. drone strikes keep increasing. Let me check:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/23/more-than-2400-dead-as-o...
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/03/world/la-fg-cia-drones-20100603
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/under-obama-an-...
Oh.
Well, the zog commanders all know that EVERY NATION in the 'middle east' (except the State of Isreal) is, naturally, 'the enemy'; right, xavi? The acronym 'ISIL' didn't fly (since people figured out where LEVANT actually IS; encompassing, um, ISREAL)... and 'ISIS' doesn't work any more either (Isreali State Intelligence Service). Taleban, or Taliban, or Al-Nusra, or Al Qaida, or I.S.? Just call it what it is, you God-damned cheerleader for death and destruction... The Military Industrial Complex (a subsidiary of ZOG, Inc., brought to you by your local Central banker).
So to summarize, waterboarding KSM = bad, completely worthy of the Chairwoman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee's righteous indignation and public self flagellation, apparently for her own incompetence in not knowing, even after being briefed on it.
However, droning entire families off the face of the planet (including women & children & passersby) = a-deer-the-headlights-gaze, totally unworthy of comment.
I suppose next she'll say something as equally stupifying as no one needs an AK47 to hunt that deer ;-)
Hmmm . . . I wonder if they just reprint old WW2 Waffen SS materials and use that for their field manuals today ?
If Goebbels had a surviving daughter, she would look like DiFi ;-)
The White House dubbed the strategy “escalate and exit.”
My household renamed the strategy "Shit and run."
Happy New Year!
I thought you were gonna say 'Pump And Dump'. It IS a financial blog, after all.
Yeah, but 'pump and dump' had already been used on the Hustler blog...
-- >sent from iPhone 7 while driving over the speed limit on North Interstate 5< -- Ha ha ha, missed me!
GW, Happy New Year and Thanks for all you do.
I will try to give you some hell this year.
All this only benefits Israel. The Hebes are cackling in their beards.
mazel tov
Better sleep with one eye open......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMUcBrmkL0
But, but, I thought "9/11 changed everything...".
Summary judgement is a joy for our federal judges. http://uscourtsgov.info/summaryjudgementcorruption.htm Summary judgement and a sentence to death is a joy for our President. Trials might result in acquittals, or the guilty escaping retribution.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is just an archaic delusion as it appears not in our Constitution, nor our statuary law. http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Law508/InnocentGuilty.htm Thank our God or the gods that Obama uses summary judgement with a death sentence to protect us. Co-lateral killings are just an unimportant side effect of his successful summary executions. If Obama is the accuser and judge, who can doubt?
Summary judgment is only for civil cases. In criminal court, it is plea deals and guilty/nolo contendre pleas that would take the place of summary judgment, and that analogy is like fitting a round peg in a square hole.
Reaper is correct, judges routinely issue "instructions" to juries that, having found A to be true, you must decide that B is the only possible conclusion.
My personal favorite along this line of "jurisprudence" (because of its simplicity) is, the ex-con (no relation...lol...just a hypothetical) is charged by the state with possession of a firearm.
It doesn't matter that he used that firearm to prevent harm to himself or loved ones or strangers or that it is his inalienable right to have that firearm now that he has "paid his debt to society" (I'm a strict Constitutionalist)...its only that its against "the law" for him to possess it until he crosses some more hurdles...so that is the charge and the judge instructs the jury to focus only on that.
So A is true, so B must be the correct answer.
Now I'm sure if the ex-con had happened upon the judge being sodomized & mugged by a gang of half wits and saw the judges wife being raped behind the dumpster surrounded by his now dead children, no charges would have ever been filed about "firearm possesson" or murder/manslaughter, so none of this "law talk" really matters.
But because the ex-con lives in a low rent place of his own circumstances and of a matter of course of this existence he is constantly harrassed and finally broken into and defends himself and his wife with that same gun, suddenly it does.
A does not equal B in law or what is called justice.
"I consider Trial by Jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." -- U.S. President Thomas Jefferson
"If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant’s natural God-given unalienable or Constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law."
"That juror must vote Not Guilty regardless of the pressures or abuses that may be heaped on him by any or all members of the jury with whom he may in good conscience disagree. He is voting on the justice of the law according to his own conscience and convictions and not someone else’s. The law itself is on trial quite as much as the case which is to be decided." -- U.S. Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, 1941-1946
Judges and the government dislike the principles of Justice Harlan and President Jefferson. Judges intimidate juries to believe that juries cannot decide the Constitutionality of the law and/or the justice of the law.
Why ought the people on a jury give up their right to determine the law, its justice and the facts to power usurping judges?
I.e. of a judge making a summary dismissal of a defense:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/harvey-family-marijuana-court_n...
Judges routinely by summary order forbid defenses that the law is invalid, because it conflicts with the constitution or conscience, or God or what have you. Judges routinely instruct juries that only judges can decide the law in cases. Why is it up to judge to decide the fact whether a law is valid?
We have freedom of the press, because the jury hearing the case against Peter Zenger for libel ignored the judge's direction (summary decision) and decided the law and the fact. http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/legal-history-era...
Then, as now, judges seek to prevent defenses damaging to the government/judges's power.
Whaking anothr 28 extra head choppers before scoring on the targeted on is fine with me.
I'm with Augustus on this, most of those "innocents" who were killed were those giving material aid and support to the enemy. They laid down with dogs and got fleas/droned.
Other were innocent, but collateral damage and friendly fire deaths are the norm for any wars (especially insurgent wars where the enemy hides in the civilian population).
If the Afghans don't want war then they should have not let the taliban infect their country.
effendi, perhaps you should hike the afgan mountains and take out those who "let" the taliban in..you know those infants and young women, the 6 yo kids and such the old and infirm who had the ability to take up arms and well now that we think of it no they had no ability to stop armed killers - but we should kill the innocent anyway, right??
I fought a war long ago for the banksters (as I now know thank you S Butler USMC)..not easy to see the results of our bombs and artillery, for god's sake, go smell it - bury whats left of them - hold the mothers and children crying for loved ones- for every fuck who controls from afar weapons of drones and to those pilots who dropped bombs - get on the ground and see your fucking work.
I too once thought there was a noble cause for country. Now I see I fought a war for money. But then again I had no choice. I was drafted.
"I fought a war long ago for the banksters (as I now know thank you S Butler USMC)"
Amen, Bro!!!
"I fought a war long ago for the banksters"
‘The Invisible Government of the USA’.
Just as Otto von Bismark was finally able to unite the Germans again, the German Empire and also the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, suddenly became the thorn in the eye of the British world powers. Britain feared Germany’s growing prosperity. The economic competitor was then cleared away by fomenting the First World War. The imposed Dictates of Versailles sought to eliminate the German competition forever. Germany’s territory and gold were stolen. Because of the alleged war guilt, crippling debts were imposed on the empire. Germany had to borrow money at outrageous interest rates from the private World Bank just to exist.
Over the next 20 years, through inflation, our Fatherland was plunged into the darkest period of our modern history. Winston Churchill in 1933 stated:
“If Germany does not return to the gold standard there will be another war in five years, regardless of who fires the first shot”.
Because of Churchill’s evil plot against Europe, Germany lost the Second World War and Great Britain had lost her Empire. Germany was reduced to rubble, more German territory was stolen and then our remaining land was divided in East and West. All German technology and patents were stolen. Thanks only to the Bolshevik threat, Germany was tolerated as an American satellite. The German spirit of self-sacrifice was then bound by the chains of materialism and multiculturalism.
Through the intrigues of Franklin D Roosevelt, America became the New World Power. Who really rules the American people and its government became clear before World War I. In order to alleviate the downward economic cycle and financial difficulties, the private world banks, through their gold and cash reserves, convinced the government of President Wilson to establish the Federal Reserve Board. In return, the Federal Reserve was initially only involved as a consultant in the financial and economic matters of the government.
Thus, the door was opened, and over time, through their political whores, and both real and created economic crises, wars, etc, the Federal Reserve became the “Invisible Government” of the United States. The interests of the people were replaced by the greed of the World Bank and of their various corporate bodies. America has sold his soul to the devil, and thus, lost any right to call itself a ‘democracy’
In closing, I leave you with a very fitting quote from Major General J.F. Charles Fuller:
“It was not the political goals of Hitler that brought us to war. It was his success in building a new financial system. The roots of this war lie in greed, jealousy and fear.”
Same as it ever was the war on drugs war on islam war on (pick a topic) all bankster wars and follow the money call it what it is world jewery wars.